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Chapter One
VERA
“It’s f-freezing,” Olena mutters through chattering teeth. I roll my eyes. She is no weakling. The two of us have lived our entire lives out on these streets. I wonder for a moment if someone has taken over my best friend’s body and replaced her with some weak bitch. Yes, that must be it. “What? You’re looking at me as if I’m crazy.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You are crazy if you think this is cold. Men’s dicks still get hard in this weather.”
She scoffs, “Maybe if they are fat and can keep warm. This wind chill is horrible. I am no fat girl, no meat to keep my insides warm.”
“This is not the cold, woman. We know what the true cold is like. Do we not?” I lightly remind her. I can remember times when our bodies were frostbitten from the weather. Those were different days, different times. Now things are different, and neither of us need to worry about such things like freezing. I have made sacrifices to ensure we both have a warm place to sleep. “Maybe you just have become accustomed to the heat, the street girl inside you is dying because of it, but you cannot let her. You must always stay strong, Olena. We never know when there might come a day where we must be the women we used to be.”
“Survivors,” she comments back, and I nod. It brings a smile to my face, knowing my friend understands our way of life.
I highly doubt that I will lose my standing here. The people love and respect me, and for those who don’t - they fear me, and that is much better.
“Vera! We have a problem.” I turn my eyes to one of my best men, Fredrig. He is the biggest man I have, one of the strongest men in the Ukraine, I think.
“Well, what sort of problem can it be if you do not tell me?” I snap at him. These men sometimes never learn.
“One of Glib’s men was just caught trying to sell to an underage girl.” Glib, my arch nemesis. A man who insists on corrupting the streets with drugs, causing only harm and misery to my people. I think not. I may not have Glib, but I have one of his men, and he will do a good job at paying for his leader’s indiscretions
“Show me,” I command him, following as he leads me to where a crowd of men and women stand, shouting and screaming. They’re angry, just as I am. I cannot blame them for this, for their anger and outrage. Drugs have destroyed our country, and it is my job to help rectify that. Over the last couple of years we have come so far, with most of the drug lords hiding in their mother’s basements. Only one man dares to cross me; Glib. I’ve accepted the fact I will have to kill him in order for him to stop, and that is something I will take both pleasure and pride in.
I make my way through the crowd, grabbing my knife from my pocket and wielding it, ready to make this man pay for what he’s tried to do, but as I make my way into the circle, I am blown away by what I see.
This is no man.
I flip my head back to Fredrig, “This is no man. This is a child!” The boy in the center of the circle can’t be older than eleven or twelve, shaking like a scared little dog. I put my knife back and stare at the poor thing, feeling the fear radiating off of him. Looking back to Fredrig, “Get these people out of here. Now!”
I sit on the street, only a couple of feet away from this child as the crowd is broken up and people go on their way. The boy’s eyes dart around like he’s looking for some sort of mistake. “Relax, I only kill boys with blonde hair,” I jokingly tell him, watching as his eyes bug out of his head. I guess I shouldn’t have made a joke such as that. “Why did Glib send you here?”
He hands me packets of pills with Glib’s logo...something that I’ve never seen from him. Pills. It seems he is changing his product line.
“I see. Did you come here of your own free will?”
He shakes his head from left to right.
“It’s okay, little one. You can talk to me.”
He bites his bottom lip. “I...didn’t have a choice, Miss. Vera. He said he would give me food if I work for him. I need food for me and my little sister...we have to eat.”
I now understand more than this child can see. “Where are your parents?” I ask him, already knowing the sad reality.
“Dead. Gone. I’m not sure. My sister is all I have left, and I must take care of her.”
“Okay,” I mutter, looking at the bag of pills. They look to be Xanax. Internally, I’m thinking of what the price would be for these. “This is what we’re going to do. I am going to give you money to take back to Glib, but you must come back with your little sister and go to the turquoise house by the city center. Do you understand me?”
He nods.
“Okay. Good. Is it just you...or is he doing this to other orphans too?”
“Others. There are many of us…”
I sigh, hating the type of heartless animal Glib is. I won’t be making an example out of this poor child, but I will be helping him however I can. “You take this money to Glib and tell him a tourist bought all of it. Get your sister and come back to what color house?” I hand him money from my pocket as I wait for his answer.
“Turquoise in the city center.” I smile at his reply.
“Yes, now if you have friends who you can trust not to go back to Glib, you tell them to meet you there. Okay?”
