At night, men knocked on my door.
By morning, I was alone again.
And that was how the years passed.
I had convinced myself that there was very little left in life that could truly scare me.
Until that night.
It was around eleven o’clock.
I was waiting for my first client when the doorbell rang.
I opened the door.
But there was no man standing there.
Instead, there was a very young girl.
I later learned she was only nineteen.
She was wearing a thin jacket, carrying a small bag, and her eyes kept darting nervously toward the staircase.
“Are you Monica?” she asked quietly.
Before I could answer, a man’s voice came from downstairs.
“Emma!”
The girl flinched so hard that her whole body seemed to freeze.
“Please,” she whispered. “Let me inside.”
I don’t know why, but I didn’t ask another question.
I pulled her inside and locked the door.
A few seconds later, heavy footsteps came up the stairs.
They stopped directly outside my apartment.
Three hard knocks.
“Open the door.”
I looked at the girl.
Her face had gone completely pale.
“Who is he?” I whispered.
She only shook her head.
The man knocked again.
“Monica, this has nothing to do with you. Send the girl out.”
That was when I truly froze.
The man outside knew my name.
“There’s no girl here,” I replied.
For several seconds, there was silence.
Then the man calmly said,
“Think carefully. You don’t need trouble either.”
His footsteps slowly disappeared down the stairs.
I closed the curtains and turned toward the girl.
“Now tell me everything.”
She said her name was Emma.
Two weeks earlier, she had found a job advertisement.
They were looking for a young woman to greet customers at a nightclub, and the money they promised was much better than anything else she could find.
At first, everything seemed normal.
Then they took copies of her documents.
Soon, they started talking about money she supposedly “owed” them and told her she couldn’t simply walk away anymore.
I felt my stomach tighten.
