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“Naomi!”
She rushed forward and then stopped, looking completely lost. It wasn’t just the fact that I was injured or that we both knew how I’d been found without any underwear and dried blood covering most of my skin. Slash marks covered my stomach, breasts, and arms. They didn’t cut my face, but I could feel my swollen and busted lip, bruised right cheek, and the bump on my forehead. One of my eyes had to be nearly black. It was swollen and the vision was a little blurry. My head ached.
I was a mess.
And I knew my own choices had led me here. I didn’t deny that I was partially to blame.
Closing my eyes, I had to look away. Moving slightly on the bed, I winced as my bottom shifted. I was sore down below, both my ass and my vagina. It was nothing new. Alexi often left me bleeding and in pain. I knew how to disassociate myself from that. I’d become good at dismissing the horrors of my life. It was like watching a movie of someone else, turning my back on the suffering and anguish and projecting it elsewhere, like at my sweet sister who didn’t deserve my anger but often received it anyway.
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“What are you doing here?” I asked, nearly startled with how calm I sounded.
“Where else would I be?” she asked gently, sitting in the chair next to bed. Nylah didn’t reach for my hand, but I could tell she was tempted as she folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t want to argue with you, Mimi.” She used my old nickname from childhood, and I was pissed when I felt a stirring of emotion rise to the surface. “Don’t close yourself off to me again. I’m here. Please,” she pleaded, and I turned toward the window, ignoring the tears that shimmered in her eyes.
I couldn’t do this. Not now. There was too much to overcome. Too many hurts to deal with all at once. My mind rebelled and I frantically gulped in air as if my lungs were about to collapse.
“Leave.”
“Please don’t make me,” she whispered as I heard a sob leave her chest.
Fuck.
“I don’t need you.” The words were cold and cruel. They were a deliberate lie.
“You do,” she argued. “You always have. You’re my sister. I won’t give up on you.”
I didn’t want her to give up. Deep down, I wanted her to stay and fight, but I knew that I wouldn’t give in. I was in too deep. I’d been dragged down into the pit of Hell and she wasn’t going to join me. Nylah didn’t deserve that same, haunted, tragic road that only led to despair.
I nearly snorted aloud with how ridiculous this whole situation had become. She was the last person I could help but the only one that truly mattered. My parents had cut all ties, but Nylah never stopped loving me, even in all my brokenness. She’d never know just how much that meant. How it gave me the strength to keep going no matter how many times I wished it all to end.
“Go.”
She stood up, not bothering to wipe away the tears that streamed down her face. “I’ll come back to check on you tomorrow.”
She could try, but I wouldn’t be here.
“Okay.” I only agreed because I knew I’d sneak out sometime in the night when there weren’t many people around.
“I love you, Mimi. Always.”
She left the room before I could answer, and I knew it was because she couldn’t stand it if I didn’t say it in return. The door closed behind her, my heart aching as I said the words aloud, far too late for it to matter.
“I love you too.”
Laying back against the pillows, it took several minutes for my breathing to return to normal. I pretended to sleep when the doctor and nurses did their rounds. There was no way I was talking to anyone, least of all the social workers or police. I wasn’t stupid. Alexi would finish the job and truly kill me next time if I said a word.
That Russian piece of shit was dangerous.
Alexi Voltoy was the nephew of Vladimir Solonik. One of the most powerful men in the country. I’d heard something about a Black Market Railroad and how they had men all over the U.S. picking up girls and trafficking them into Canada. Hundreds of women stolen from their lives and sold as sex slaves all over the world. Russia was only a springboard. They had business in every single country.
No one could stop Solonik. He was too powerful.
I’d met him only once, but it was enough to convince me that I never wanted to see him again. The man was tall and muscular, but it wasn’t the build or height that made his presence intimidating. It was the fact that he walked through the rooms and brought all of the girls out, assessing them one by one. He chose several and had them strip, falling on their hands and knees as he instructed his men to come in and fuck them. Girls were freaking out. Some of them fought.
He never killed any of his “precious product.” No, he simply yanked any girl who protested to the center of the room, ordered them to spread their legs wide, and he raped every single one, nearly choking them into unconsciousness. The room soon silenced. The only sounds were the grunts of the men and the slapping of flesh against flesh. Nearly every girl in the room was used. I didn’t escape the same fate. Alexi hauled me into his room, and I was handcuffed to his bed, forced to endure every depravity he could think up for hours without ceasing.
That was the same night I tried to kill myself with a butter knife he left on a nearby table. Glancing down at my wrists, I stared at the jagged scars. No emotion surfaced other than resolve. I would never be used like that again.
