"Polina." His voice is soft, almost gentle, and that frightens me more than anything. Because he is not a gentle man. Ever.
He closes his hand around my arm, just above the elbow. The same place. Always the same place. His fingers press into the bruise already there. When he feels me flinch, his fingers dig in tighter.
"Come with me," he says.
He doesn't take me through the ballroom. He walks me along the edge of it, past the tall drapes, past a waiter balancing a tray of fancy canapés, through a door, and into a service corridor. His hand never leaves my arm.
"Papa—"
"Quiet."
The corridor bends. A door waits at the end with a red exit sign glowing above it. The air smells different—cooler, dirtier, threaded through with the scent of exhaust.
My rattled mind tries to make sense of this. He’s dragging me where no one from the party will see or hear us.
Surely he won’t punish me here, will he?
He pushes the door open as I mentally brace for more blows to my already aching body.
Two men wait in the alley, their faces slightly shadowed.
They’re not wearing tuxedos and cufflinks like the men inside. One of them is smoking. The ember of his cigarette flares as he takes a pull from it. The other is thicker through the shoulders, and the way he eyes me makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
Behind them, a black cargo van idles with the back doors wide open.
I don't understand what’s happening, but I know it’s not good. Not for me.
Then my father hands me off.
Literally.
He lifts the arm he’s been painfully squeezing and physically passes it into the hand of the smoker, who catches me by the wrist.
My skin crawls. I want to scream, to twist loose, to run—but there’s no way I’d out-maneuver three men, not even if I weren’t injured.
Papa looks down at his phone, taps the screen a few times, studies it for a moment, then nods. “Nice doing business with you, gentlemen.”
Business?
It’s then that the real fear hits—a terror more chilling than I have ever known— because I now understand what’s happening
The number on that screen is my price. My father has sold me.
"Papa." The plea emerges as a hoarse whisper. "Please?—"
He looks at me. And for half a heartbeat, something shifts behind his eyes, and I am so starved—so pathetically, bottomlessly starved—that a small, stupid ember of hope lights in me.
Papa’s mouth barely moves. "You're worth more to me this way."
A hand clamps down over my mouth, clammy and stinking of smoke.
Papa is already turning back toward the door, straightening his cuffs.
Transaction complete.
Dante
Present day
