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“You’re wrong,” I say, as bravely as I can manage. “No one is coming for me.”
The words leave a hollow ache in my chest. But as far as I know, it’s true. I have no one left. Ana is my only real friend, and she has no idea where I am.Ana. Just the thought of her brings tears to my eyes. She’s worried sick by now, probably blaming herself for taking us to that awful club in the first place—
“Oh, I can assure you, someone is.” Mikhail checks his watch, a gleaming gold timepiece on his wrist that looks expensive. “And he should be here any—minute.”
I hear a crackling, and Mikhail lifts a finger to his ear, as if there’s someone talking to him. “Yes. I hear you.” He nods to the man on the other side of the bed. “Be ready. The others are outside. They’re coming up.”
“Who’s coming up?” I demand. “What the fuck is going on?”
Mikhail wheels around, slapping me hard across one cheek. “I think that Anton was meant to teach you better manners,” he hisses. “For a girl with such good breeding, you have a filthy mouth. I would have thought your father would have taught you better.” He smiles coldly as he rises to his feet. “Don’t fret, I’m sure the man who buys you will keep your mouth too full for it to say such things.”
He leans up then, undoing the binding that holds me to the bed, even though my wrists are still tied together with what feels like plastic, like a zip-tie. I start to struggle the moment he begins to lift me off of the bed, and he slaps me again, hard.
“I don’t want to leave marks,” Mikhail says, his voice low and threatening. “Viktor will be upset if your price is threatened. But you will be still.”
I will not.Ignoring him completely, I writhe in his grip, until he grabs me by the hair and yanks my head back, so hard that tears come to my eyes.
His gaze flits down, landing on the cross at my neck. “What’s this?” With his free hand, he touches the necklace, and I all but snarl at him, twisting despite his grip on my hair and trying desperately to bite him.
Mikhail grins. “I should take this from you, I think. Noshlyukhashould have something this pretty.”
I instantly stop struggling. I hate myself for it, because I know that’s exactly what he wants. But I can’t bear to have my mother’s necklace taken away. Not even if it means submitting to this awful man, for now.
“No, please,” I whisper, hating the whimper in my voice. “Please don’t take it.”
“If I leave it, you’ll be a good girl?” The patronizing tone is back, and Mikhail is grinning down at me. He’s playing me like a well-tuned instrument, and he knows it.
“Yes,” I whisper, tears leaking from my eyes.
“Good.” He drags me across the room then, towards the closet. “You’ll stay in here, until we’re finished. Less chance of a stray bullet catching you. Don’t move,” he warns, looking down at my stunned and frightened face. “Don’t try to escape. You’re a dead woman if you do.”
And with that, he closes the door, leaving me in the dark.
* * *
In the firstfew seconds that I spend in the closet, I consider ignoring Mikhail’s orders, and trying to escape anyway. My hands are tied, and I can hear that there are still people in the room—whether it’s Mikhail or Anton or others, I don’t know—but there’s always a possibility that I could slip past them. I’m not ready to give up yet.
But then I hear the first gunshot outside the room, and my body turns to ice.
I’d thought I was frightened before. It’s nothing compared to what I feel now. I live in New York City—I’ve definitely heard gunfire before, but never so close. Never so—personal. Whatever is happening outside this closet, it’s about me. And I don’t understand it.
Mikhail said that someone was coming for me. But I don’t know who. After my father’s funeral, I rarely saw the men in expensive suits. Every now and then, one would come to our apartment. But the visits were fewer and further between as the years passed. The last time I saw one was at the hospital, just before my mother died. I assumed it was someone taking care of the bills, but I’d been too exhausted and grief-stricken to ask questions or care.
I’ve always wondered if the money had something to do with them. It makes the most sense—but I don’t know why, after so long, they would still care. Whatever my father was involved in while he was alive, it has nothing to do with me anymore.
Except apparently, itdoes.
There’s another gunshot, and another, and the sound of yelling and cursing in Russian—and Italian. The sound of my father’s native language makes me lift my head even as I curl into a tight ball in the corner of the small closet, terrified of a stray bullet piercing the door. The shots are coming faster now, and I feel the room shake as a body hits the wall hard, and too close to my hiding place for comfort.
Whoever has come, they’re Italian. Which means they must have known my father.
I press my face against the carpet, tears of fear and confusion streaming down my face.I don’t want to die here, like this,I think desperately. I don’t want to be sold, either, into whatever human trafficking scheme that the Bratva is running. But more than anything, I just want to live. That simple fact has never struck me as clearly as it does now, breathing in the scent of hotel carpet as the sound of gunfire echoes just outside the door.
It seems to go on forever. I’ve lost all track of time when the room suddenly goes silent, and I feel my stomach knotting as I hold my breath, waiting for more shots.
But they don’t come. A second later the door to the closet opens, light flooding in.
I push myself up with my bound hands, blinking as I look up. There’s a man standing there, dark-haired instead of blond, his white shirt spattered with blood and a gun in his hand.
