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19
CATERINA
The party, both is and isn’t what I had expected.
I feel numb with grief as Alexei’s men bring us downstairs, into another part of the house that seems made for big gatherings. It’s well lit, huge wrought-iron chandeliers with Edison bulbs hanging from the ceilings, and a roaring fire built in a stone fireplace at one end of the room. Several feet in front of the fireplace, there’s a series of round stages, and it’s there that Alexei’s men lead us, pushing us forward so that we don’t hesitate or try to run.
To my horror, on the center one, I catch a glimpse of Ana.
The last few hours have felt like a fever dream. Alexei had “clothing” brought to us and told us to make sure we all bathed until we were spotlessly clean. The minute we were all scrubbed and “dressed,” the guard marched us downstairs into a room where a tall, elegantly pretty blonde woman that none of us had ever seen before was waiting, her face blank as she led each one of us in turn to a chair and started to make us up and do our hair—including Anika and Yelena.
That made me shudder with anger, seeing her making up the girls like they were in some Southern beauty pageant. For Yelena, at least, it was a distraction that left her giggling and happy for the first time in days, touching her face curiously as the woman expertly and quickly curled her long, silky blonde hair. Anika viewed it with the same suspicious irritation that she viewed most things, but she sat very still, intuiting that this wasn’t the time to cry or fight back.
If only I’d figured that out, too.
Sasha and Ana have barely spoken to me since the episode with Alexei. I apologized to both of them, and both of them had said, of course, that it wasn’t my fault. That anyone would have lost control, hearing Alexei talk about and seeing him trying to touch Anika like that. That we’re all pushed to our breaking point.He’s the sadist,Sasha had said quietly.He found your weak point and exploited it, but that’s not your fault. It could have been any one of us.
It’s not your fault,Ana had echoed, just as she had to me in the past. But somehow, this time, it held less weight.
The fact remained that ithadn’tbeen any one of us. It had been me, and the guilt feels as suffocating as Alexei forcing himself into my mouth. Every time I see Sasha or Ana limping or unable to sleep comfortably as they heal from the lashing he gave them, I feel a fresh wave of cold, sickening responsibility that weighs me down until I feel as if I could crumble under it.
I don’t know what happens tonight. I don’t know if deals are brokered, our prospective new buyers come for us later, or if we’re handed over when the festivities end. I don’t know how much time there is between now and the moment when I’m separated from my friends, my stepdaughters, and the possibility of ever being saved by my husband forever. But I can feel it coming, rushing towards us with a sickening speed, and I’m helpless to stop it.
I’m helpless to doanythingnow except be silent and keep Alexei from using me as an excuse to hurt anyone further.
Ana wasn’t with us when we took turns showering and scrubbing ourselves clean or when we were hustled downstairs to be primped and curled and made up. I didn’t know where she was taken, and the ever-present pit of anxiety in my stomach yawned wide and all-encompassing, making it impossible for me to think about anything else.
Alexei had clearly chosen what we were each wearing. Sofia, Sasha, and I had each been given a short silk slip dress with nothing underneath that barely grazed below the tops of our thighs, with a draped neckline that swooped down to a few inches below our breasts. Mine was a deep cranberry color that set off my deep olive skin and dark hair and eyes beautifully, Sofia’s a jewel blue that accentuated the paleness that she’d inherited from her Russian mother and the dark hair she’d gotten from her Italian father, and Sasha’s a deep emerald green that made her strawberry blonde hair look redder than ever and set off her sea-colored eyes, drawing the green out more than the blue. The woman who put on the finishing touches left our hair loose in heavy, cascading curls and applied makeup with a light touch, adding false eyelashes and expert contour and eye makeup to make each of us look more like a runway model than everyday women.
Which was the point, of course. We were meant to look as if we were worth an astronomical amount of money. And since Sofia and I both had irreparable flaws—my scars and her pregnancy—looking extraordinarily beautiful was even more important.
All of us jumped when the door opened, and Alexei strode in, stopping in the middle of the room and ordering us to turn around so that he could see the woman’s handiwork. He looked pleased enough when he saw Sofia, Sasha, and myself, but the minute that his eyes landed on Anika and Yelena, his expression turned dark and irritable.
“Why the fuck are they wearing so much makeup?” he’d demanded, glaring at the woman. “My buyers want them to look likechildren, not like miniature whores. Get that shit off of their faces.”
Something dark and terrible had surged up in me at the wordbuyers, fueled by the sudden, terrified look that Anika shot me, understanding beginning to dawn on her too-young face. She went slightly pale, stiffening as the woman reached for her to start cleaning the makeup off of her face with shaking hands, stuttering apologies to Alexei. But she hadn’t struggled, as if she’d come to understand that he posed a danger. And I held myself back, shoving the feeling down until my throat felt tight and choked with emotion, my stomach roiling until I was certain that I was going to be sick.
Yelena had started to cry when the woman began to take her makeup off. “No!” she’d cried, stamping her foot in frustration. “Ilikeit!”
Alexei had shot me a look of warning, and I’d stepped out of my spot in line immediately, reaching for Yelena.
“Shh,” I’d told her, taking the makeup wipe out of the woman’s hands and starting to use it on Yelena’s face myself. “It’s okay. This just wasn’t the right look for you tonight, okay? When we’re home, you can play with my makeup all you want.”
“I looked like a princess,” Yelena mumbled, trying to pull away as I wiped the tears away from her eyes.
“You can be a princess again later,” I promised her, trying to keep the thread of desperation out of my voice. “Okay? You’re still dressed like one.” Alexei had had them put in frilly pink dresses that suited Yelena very well, and Anika not in the least.
“Okay,” she mumbled, wiping at her eyes. “I thought daddy was coming.”
“He is,” I whispered, hating myself for the lie. “He’s just running a little late.”
When I looked up, I saw Anika’s eyes meet mine, and I knew that she understood far more than she should.
For instance, Viktor almost certainly wasn’t coming.
It made my heart sink to my toes.
Yelena started crying again, silently, and I’d looked desperately at Alexei, wiping at her face. “I’m trying,” I’d told him, fear licking at my spine, but he’d just shrugged, coolly meeting my gaze.
