Chapter 1: Naked Lockout
The first thing Jenny Hawthorne noticed was the cold. A deep, marble-bite chill that seeped up from the floor and into her bare skin. She was lying on it, her cheek pressed against the polished stone. That was wrong. Her bed was a cloud of Egyptian cotton and memory foam, not this unyielding slab.
She opened her eyes.
Sunlight, sharp and unfiltered, stabbed into her retinas. She squinted, her brain fuzzy from the two prescription sleep aids that usually guaranteed a blissful eight-hour blackout. Why was it so bright? Where were the layers of cashmere-blackout curtains?
She pushed herself up onto her elbows, a wave of dizziness washing over her. Her head throbbed. She blinked, trying to make the world resolve into something familiar.
It didn’t.
Her sprawling penthouse loft, usually a curated masterpiece of minimalist decor and warm, textured fabrics, was… gone. Not messy. Not ransacked. Empty. Stark. The vast, open-plan space was a hollowed-out shell. The sprawling sectional sofa, the silk rug she’d had flown in from Morocco, the abstract paintings that cost more than a sports car—all of it had vanished.
Her gaze swept the room, a slow, disbelieving pan. The built-in shelves were bare. The coffee table was gone. A single, lonely dust bunny rolled like a tumbleweed across the endless expanse of floor.
“What the actual…” Her voice was a dry croak.
She scrambled to her feet, the movement too quick. The room tilted. She wrapped her arms around herself, a reflexive gesture of modesty, and that’s when the second, more profound wave of horror hit.
She was naked.
Completely, utterly naked. The whisper-thin silk camisole and matching panties she’d gone to sleep in were gone. The feeling of the cool, still air on every inch of her skin was alien and terrifying. She spun around, as if she might find her clothes casually discarded somewhere. There was nothing. Just the endless, echoing space and the mocking sun.
Her heart began to hammer against her ribs, a frantic, bird-like flutter. She ran—a clumsy, stumbling sprint on cold feet—toward her walk-in closet. It was more of a room, a sanctuary. Her sanctuary.
The light switch clicked uselessly. No power? She stood in the doorway, her hand flying to her mouth.
The closet was a carcass. Empty hangers dangled from the rods like skeletal remains. Racks that had held hundreds of pieces—vintage Chanel, razor-sharp Alexander McQueen suits, diaphanous Valentino gowns, a rainbow of Hermès scarves—were bare. The shelves for her handbags were empty cavities. No Birkin, no Kelly, no limited-edition Dior book totes. The custom-built glass cases for her shoes were vacant. It was all gone. Every thread.
A sound escaped her, a half-gasp, half-sob. She backed away, her mind racing, tripping over itself. She needed to call someone. Her agent. The police. Her… anyone.
She rushed to her bedside table. Or where her bedside table should have been. The floor was bare. No phone. No charger. No lamp.
The bed.
She looked at the space where her bed had been. They’d taken the bed. The carved oak headboard, the mattress, the box spring. They’d taken the sheets. The duvet. The pillows.
Her eyes darted wildly around the cavernous loft. The curtains were gone from the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, explaining the brutal morning light. She ran to the bathroom, her bare feet slapping against the cold marble.
The bathroom was a white-tiled void. The plush towels were gone. The bathrobes—both the terrycloth and the silk—were gone. The shower curtain was gone, revealing the stark, empty basin of the shower. They’d even taken the little rug she stood on to dry her feet.
She was trapped in a million-dollar, sky-high prison with not a single thing to cover herself. Naked. Alone.
A memory, hazy and dreamlike, surfaced through the sleep-aid fog. A pressure on the bed. The scent of stale cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. A low, murmured voice. “Easy… just lift her.”
A rough hand sliding the spaghetti strap of her camisole down her shoulder. The gentle, almost clinical tug as her panties were peeled down her legs. She’d murmured in her sleep, turning her head, lost in a chemical slumber. It hadn’t been a dream. It had been a violation. They’d undressed her. They’d taken the clothes off her sleeping body.
A hot flush of humiliation burned through the cold fear. They’d seen her. Touched her. While she was helpless.
She stumbled back into the main living area, her breath coming in short, sharp pants. Panic was a live wire in her chest. She had to get out. She had to get help.
The front door. It was her only way out. But it was on the other side of this vast, exposed space. Thirty feet of open floor with no cover, and the wall of windows meant anyone in the adjacent high-rise could be having their coffee and watching a naked supermodel have a meltdown.
She assessed her options with a desperation that sharpened her mind. There was nothing. No newspaper, no discarded pizza box, not even a random sock. The burglars had been ruthlessly, impossibly thorough.
Her eyes landed on the only object left in the entire apartment. In the corner of the kitchen, screwed into the wall, was the phone. The old, beige, landline handset she’d kept as a quirky, retro decoration. She’d never once used it. She wasn’t even sure it was connected.
It was her only hope.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she plotted her path. A mad, naked dash across the living room, into the kitchen, behind the breakfast bar. It offered a sliver of cover from the windows.
She didn’t let herself think. She just ran.
The cold air whipped past her. Her skin prickled with goosebumps and sheer terror. She slid the last few feet on the smooth floor, crashing into the kitchen cabinets and scrambling into the narrow space behind the island. She was panting, her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest.
She reached up, her fingers fumbling for the cold, plastic handset. She brought it to her ear.
Silence.
No dial tone. Nothing.
Of course. The power was out. The phone line was dead.
Jenny slumped against the cold cabinet, the useless phone held in her limp hand. The reality of her situation solidified around her, heavy and inescapable. She was trapped. Naked. Robbed blind.
A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. This was absurd. This was a nightmare.
The laugh died as her eyes scanned the barren kitchen. Then they stopped. On the drawer where she kept the aluminum foil and plastic wrap.
A plan, wild and utterly ridiculous, began to form in her mind. It was undignified. It was insane. But it was all she had.
She reached for the drawer handle.
She reached for the drawer handle. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs, a desperate little drum of hope. This was it. The aluminum foil. She could fashion some kind of… toga? A loincloth? Something. Anything.
The drawer slid open with a quiet rumble. Empty.
Not a crinkle of foil, not a shred of plastic wrap. Just bare, polished wood.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she whispered to the silent, sun-blasted room. “Who steals the Saran Wrap?”
A new, colder kind of dread began to pool in her stomach. This wasn’t just a robbery. This was an eradication. She turned, her bare back sliding against the smooth cabinet front. The movement made her body sway, a full, unconscious motion that sent a jiggle through her small, firm breasts and a shift in the weight of her ass against the hard floor. She was hyper-aware of her own nakedness now, of the way the chill air touched every part of her. The neat, trimmed triangle of dark blonde hair between her legs felt exposed in a way that was utterly violating.
She pushed herself up, her legs trembling. “Okay, Jenny. Think. Don’t panic. Just… think.”
Her eyes scanned the lower cabinets. Maybe there was a trash bag? A forgotten dish towel? She yanked open the door to the cabinet where she kept her collection of vintage plates—quirky, colorful pieces from the 50s she’d sourced from flea markets in Paris. It was her one non-designer indulgence.
Gone.
Every single plate. The cabinet was a hollow, dark space. They’d even taken the felt liners.
They’d even taken the felt liners.
“Unbelievable,” Jenny muttered, slamming the cabinet door. The sound echoed in the emptiness. “Seriously, who does that? ‘Hey, Lou, grab the Chanel, the Picassos, and don’t forget the felt cabinet liners! Martha Stewart would be so proud.’” She shook her head, her long blonde hair whipping around her bare shoulders. “Assholes.”
She needed to move. Standing still made the chill worse. She padded back toward the living area, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Maybe she’d missed something. A throw pillow? A forgotten scarf? Her eyes, sharp with desperation, scanned the barren landscape of her former life.
That’s when she saw it.
In the harsh, unforgiving morning light, a patch of skin on her inner thigh looked… different. Not a bruise. Something dried and flaky. She stopped walking and bent over, peering down.
There was a patch, about the size of her palm, on the inside of each thigh. It was sticky-looking, with a faint, pearlescent sheen.
“What in the…”
A memory, thick and syrupy, oozed into her mind. A dream. A really, really good dream. The kind that made you wake up blushing. There had been hands. Strong ones. And a low, approving chuckle. The feeling of weight, of being filled, then empty, then filled again by someone else. The slick, rhythmic slide of… something. A really fantastic, muscle-melting, core-clenching something.
Her eyes widened.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Her voice was a strangled whisper. She stared at the stains. “That wasn’t a dream. That was… were there two of them?” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to grasp the hazy images. A shifting of shadows. The scent of that cheap cologne from two distinct sources. “Did I… did they… while I was asleep? And then they… on me? As a… a souvenir?”
A wave of nausea rolled through her, followed by a bizarre, hysterical laugh. “So let me get this straight. They stole my sixty-thousand-dollar handbag, my entire wardrobe, my furniture, my felt liners, and then they… what? Left a little… a little deposit? Is that the courtesy wipe? Is this their version of a mint on the pillow?”
She felt lightheaded. She was standing naked in her empty apartment, covered in the biological evidence of what she was now fairly certain was a non-consensual gangbang, with absolutely nothing to wipe it off with.
“Okay. Don’t panic. This is fine. This is a story for a therapist. Later. Right now, we need clothes. Or a curtain. Or a large napkin. Anything.”
She marched toward the utility closet, a new fire in her step. “The laundry room. There has to be a stray dryer sheet. I can make a bikini out of a dryer sheet. It’ll be itchy, but it’s a look.”
She pulled open the closet door. The washer and dryer stood there, lonely sentinels. The shelves above them were bare. No detergent, no bleach, no forgotten load of delicates.
“Of course. Who wouldn’t want my Tide Pods?” She sighed, leaning against the cold metal of the dryer. Her hip brushed against the open door.
There was a single, stiff, forgotten sock stuck to the inside of the drum.
Jenny gasped as if she’d found the Holy Grail. “Yes! A sock!” She peeled it off. It was one of her expensive, cashmere-blend socks. It was also a single, and it had a massive hole in the toe.
She held it up, examining her prize. She could maybe fit it on her head like a very sad, very holey cap. Or she could wear it on one foot, achieving the fashion statement of “one-footed homeless person.”
“Perfect,” she deadpanned. “This solves everything. I’ll just put this on and waltz right out the front door. No one will notice the naked woman with one sock.” She tossed it over her shoulder in disgust.
Her gaze fell on the balcony. The sheer, drop-to-your-death terror of it usually kept her from going out there, but the sliding glass door had a curtain. A long, heavy, blackout curtain.
Hope, stupid and relentless, bloomed in her chest again.
She ran to the door. The curtain was gone, but the metal rod was still there. And hooked over the end of the rod was the little plastic pull-tag for the curtain. It was about the size of a large postage stamp.
Jenny stared at it. She reached out and pinched the tiny, hard plastic tab between her thumb and forefinger.
She held it up.
“Great,” she said to the empty room, her voice flat. “I can cover my left nipple. It’s a start.”
It’s a start.” The absurdity of the plastic tab pinched between her fingers finally broke her. A wet, hiccupping laugh escaped her, bordering on a sob. She was losing it. She was naked, covered in dubious bodily fluids, and considering fashion accessories from a curtain rod.
Think. Think!
Her eyes darted around the sterile, empty kitchen, landing on the roll of paper towels that was always on the counter. Gone. Of course. But then—a spark. A real one. Not a sock, not a plastic tab. Toilet paper. She could unravel a roll. It would be flimsy, ridiculous, a ghost costume for a kindergartener, but she could wrap it around her chest, her hips. It was coverage. It was a chance.
Her heart jumped, a sudden, painful lurch of genuine hope. It was the first solid idea she’d had.
She didn’t run this time. She walked, a determined, naked march back to the ravaged bathroom, her focus singular. The toilet paper. She rounded the doorway, her eyes going straight to the holder mounted on the wall next to the vanity.
It was empty.
Not just empty. The spring-loaded spindle was naked, bare metal gleaming under the relentless sun. They hadn't just used the last square and left the cardboard tube. They had taken the entire roll.
Jenny stared at the vacant holder. She blinked. She stared some more. The sheer, pettiness of it was a physical blow.
“What are the odds,” she whispered, her voice dangerously quiet. “What are the astronomical, goddamn odds that they would take the damn toilet paper?”
She reached out, her hand trembling, and flicked the metal spindle. It spun with a cheap, whirring sound, a tiny, mocking cyclone in the silence. They’d taken everything. Everything. Her clothes, her art, her furniture, her dignity, and now, the fucking toilet paper.
She slid down the cold, tiled wall, the last of her fight evaporating. The marble bit into her bare skin. She drew her knees up to her chest, buried her face in them, and let the silence swallow her whole.