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“Nuh-uh.”
“Why would I lie about something like this?”
“Because you think it is funny to torture me? I don’t know. Where are you really?”
“Devin, I’m at Gavril’s house right now. In his guest room.”
There was another long pause, but this time, the silence was broken with a curse word.
“Fuck,” he said, drawing out the consonants, making the word last like it was an entire sentence. “What are you doing there?”
“Have you stopped to consider why you aren’t dead right now? Why Gavril’s men only beat you?”
“They told me the debt had been taken care of. I thought maybe Gavril changed his mind about me paying him back and decided that a beating would suffice.”
Devin clearly had no idea what kind of people he was dealing with. He had involved himself with the mob and thought that they would let him off the hook the way Mom had during his teenage years, the way most people had his entire life.
“Trust me, Gavril is not the kind of man who changes his mind,” I said.
“Wait. What did you do?” he asked, clearly beginning to put the pieces together. “Why are you at his house?”
“Because I’m paying off your debts, Devin.”
“How?”
Once again, a long silence stretched between us. Devin was waiting for me to confirm what he already suspected, but I refused. I couldn’t say it out loud.
“Samantha,” he finally whispered. “No. Why did you do this?”
“Because he was going to kill you,” I shouted. “Because I wanted to keep you alive.”
“Is he hurting you?”
“No.”
He groaned. “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”
My face flamed. Gavril had hurt me, but was it wrong that it still felt… good? That I liked it? I decided I definitely couldn’t tell Devin that.
“I’ll kill him,” he said. “I’ll find him, and I’ll kill him.”
“No, don’t,” I rushed to say. “Just leave it alone. I’m taking care of it. I’ll be free soon enough, and this will all be behind us. I’ll visit soon if Gavril will let me.”
“If Gavril will let you,” he said, practically growling out the words.
Just then, a man appeared in the doorway. I didn’t recognize him, but by the way he moved to the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest, eyes pinned on the blank wall in front of him, I had to assume he was my new guard.
“I have to go,” I whispered. “I’ll talk to you soon if I can.”
“Samantha don’t hang up. Tell me where Gavril lives. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come find you.”
“Take care of Mom,” I whispered.
Then, I hung up and dropped my phone back into the drawer of the nightstand.
Chapter Nine
Samantha
Over the next few weeks, Gavril’s gifts became more frequent. None of them were quite as elaborate as the diamond necklace, but they were plentiful. One day he came home with an armload of clothes in my exact size, all of them designer and beautiful. He had me try a few pieces on for him before throwing me on the hallway floor, lifting my legs above my head, and pounding into me until he collapsed.
On other days, he showed up with a laptop, a new cell phone, and a television for the guest room. Some days he simply handed me cash and told me it was for my mother. “Or whatever else you need money for.”
The gifts and money came to feel like a kind of salary. At first, it had been a reward system, something I earned every time he found me naked in his bed when he came home or when I was the one to initiate a sexual encounter. But as the days turned to weeks, he started showing up with something every day, regardless of what I did. It was more than I’d ever made in my lifetime, and it was going to help tremendously with my mother’s medical bills and medications.
I didn’t mention the gifts to Devin when he called. I knew they would only make him angry. He insisted on going on and on about getting me out of Gavril’s house and “saving” me. I asked him not to, begging him to simply let me work off his debts and move on, but Devin couldn’t let the topic go. I felt like it was similar to how Gavril couldn’t let Devin go unpunished for his thievery. Both of them had more pride than they knew what to do with. Devin didn’t care about me at all. He only cared that Gavril had me.
“You’ll get yourself killed if you try to do anything to Gavril,” I whispered one night into the phone.
After a couple of weeks, Gavril had loosened the guard watch on me, allowing me to close the door to my bedroom. It gave me a small amount of privacy, though I still had to be quiet when I spoke to Devin on the phone. There was no rule against me calling anyone, but I didn’t assume Gavril would take kindly to the fact that I was talking to my brother.
