Nine brothers. One stool. Five books.

There is a room in the Salazar house with a gold lion on the door, and a stool in the middle of it.

A woman is brought in. She is made to stand on that stool while thirty men decide what she is worth. She answers their questions. She undresses if she’s told to. And at the end of it, one of nine brothers either marries her or sells her.

The brothers call it a selection. Their mother calls it tradition. The women it happens to call it the worst night of their lives — and then they have to live the rest of them.

This series is told by the women.

Not by the men who take them. By the wives — the ones who lie awake mapping exits, who learn Spanish so they can understand what’s being said over their heads, who smuggle tequila into the garden because a bad night is more survivable drunk. They are outnumbered, watched, and married to men who kill people for a living.

They are not helpless, and they are not alone.

Set in Houston, among a family whose loyalty is a threat rather than a comfort. Expect forced marriages, men who are honest about exactly what they are, and women who stay sharp.

Content warning: graphic violence, torture, on-page murder, drug and human trafficking, and explicit sexual content. 18+ only.