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“Who are you?”
She balks, shrinking where she stands. “I’m … I’m Madison.”
“No last name?” he demands.
“Pelante,” she blurts. “But does it even matter? Nobody called me by that name. Sometimes they didn’t even bother to call me Madison either.”
My heart breaks for the girl all over again.
“Who else have you seen?” he demands. “In the brothels.”
Madison shivers with such intensity that her joints could pop from their sockets. This is more like an inquisition than a safe zone. It’s upsetting me to see him be so harsh with her. “Just men. Tattooed men. Rough men. Men that like to hurt.” She pauses a beat, her eyebrows twisting as she takes a shuddering breath. “No, there was someone else. An older woman.”
My attention peaks.
Arsen looks more irritated. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” she insists. “She came around to teach some of the girls how to dance.”
Dance.
Mamochka.
The air goes out of me. I stare openly at Madison before whipping my eyes around to look at Arsen. “Do you think that it’s her?”
His frown melts at the corners. He’s no longer angry; he’s worried. He doesn’t like how hopeful I’m getting. “There’s too little detail. Plenty of older women teach dancing, and besides, the type they’d learn at a brothel isn’t ballet.”
“But it’s possible!” I hiss, my excitement boiling over. We can do it! We can find out where she is!
“Madison!” Now it’s my turn to demand. “Where is the brothel you worked at?”
Her skin drains of all color. If I held her to the window, I’m sure I’d be able to see through her skin. “I can’t remember.”
“Did it have a name?”
“I … I don’t know. I never heard one.”
My hope is snuffed out like a candle in the wind. “Then you can’t guide us there.”
Mom … no …
Each time I get close, the taste of success is snatched away.
She exhales. “I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you. But there were guards everywhere so we couldn’t get away. I got lucky only because the ones on watch got too drunk. They were passed out, and I ran through the back door. I sprinted down so many alleys and side streets I couldn’t find my way back if I tried.”
Arsen drums his fingers on his biceps. Walking to the office window, he peers out of it. “I don’t like it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask nervously.
“This is too convenient.” He shoots daggers at Madison. “She could be a spy for Yevgeniy. Sent to get close to me.”
“That’s …” I trail off, torn between his reasoning and the gut feeling I get from Madison. She’s loitering by the couch, not sitting in it, though she should—her legs look ready to buckle. A spy? Arsen, she looks like a frightened child! The details she gave are too clear for me to think she made it all up.
“Mila believed her,” I say bluntly.
“Because Mila wants to believe her,” he replies bluntly. Folding his hands behind his back, he approaches Madison. She bends into herself the closer he gets. At this rate, she’ll vanish.
“There’s one way to know the truth.”
