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I can be that for her—or I can stay away from her.
Those two options are all there is.
11
SASHA
Once we’re back in New York, things feel heavier than they have in a long time. It’s been days since the party, and I still haven’t messaged Nick back, or any of the other men who, of course, responded to the match on Tinder. All I can think about is the late-night conversation with Max, how embarrassed I am, and how much I wish I could take it back. Especially after he tried so hard to avoid answering my question—which is in and of itself an answer.
I haven’t seen him in the few days since we came back, which also feels like an answer—as if he’s avoiding me. It hurts to think I might have damaged our friendship with some late-night drunk texts, and I hope more than anything that isn’t the case, that he’s just giving me some space—as much as I don’t really want that, either.
Caterina urged me on the flight home to think about actually talking to one or more of the men I’d matched with on the dating app, despite it starting off as a game. But every time I think about it, I don’t think I can. It makes me feel restless and anxious, and my nightmares have come back in full force—with a fresh new twist.
Now, when I dream about the rough hands pushing me over the crate, the tearing of my clothes as the man who’d taken my virginity had ripped them out of the way, the scratch of rope against my wrists as Alexei had hauled me into the bedroom to be beaten, or the cold of the Russian safe-house bedroom, there are other men in the dreams, too. I dream about going out on a date with the men from the dating app, sitting across from them in a restaurant booth or next to them at a movie theater, only for them to morph into the nameless man who’d stolen my innocence at the warehouse, or Alexei, and for the torment to start all over again.
How can I go out on a date with someone I’ve already been having nightmares about, and it’s not even their fault?
I’d asked my therapist about it this morning during our session, and she’d said it wasn’t important for them to know, that whatcouldbe important was for me to actually go on the date or dates, so I could see that these men aren’t the ones who hurt me before. That not every unknown man out there is a monster.
There are good men out there, Sasha. You just have to give them a chance, scary as it may be.
Everyone wants me to try. To give it a chance. And so, as I leave my appointment, I find myself heading down to the docks, where I haven’t been since Viktor and Mikhail took me away from the scene of my rapist’s execution.
I’d avoided this place on purpose, not wanting to remember. I’ve been told it doesn’t look the same, the warehouse and surrounding area changed to accommodateactualshipments and cargo rather than humans, but I don’t think that would matter much. I remember what happened here as clearly as if it were yesterday, and as soon as I come within range of the briny, fishy smell, it all comes rushing back.
I stop in place, feeling dizzy and as if I want to run.I can’t do this,I think to myself—but if I can’t even go back to aplace, how am I ever going to move on at all? I force myself forward, one foot in front of the other, until I’m facing the warehouse, walking towards the door.
I can’t go in, but I don’t need to. I remember it all very clearly, even standing here outside the warehouse, the memories rushing back in a painful flood. I’d thought I was going to be the one punished for being “spoiled,” as the guard accused me of seducing him for my freedom, when it hadn’t been that way at all. He’d told me if I’d be quiet and let him do what he wanted, he’d find a way to get me out. I hadn’t really believed him, but I’d had a tiny shred of hope—and what did it matter, anyway? He was going to take what he wanted regardless. I hadn’t expected to be believed when I’d said it wasn’t my fault. That the man, whose name I still to this day don’t know, had forced me.
I’d expected a man like Viktor to blame me. But he hadn’t. He’d taken my word as proof when I’d described the black mole on the man’s balls, something I’d been eye level with just before he’d forced his cock into my mouth. I hadn’t been sure if that would be enough, certain that the man’s story thatI’dseducedhimwould be the one believed—but that hadn’t been the case at all.
I’d been shocked to hear Viktor say I’d been worth millions—and equally shocked to hear that the sentence of death he’d passed down wasn’t only for the loss of those millions, but also for the crime for violatingme. Viktor’s code in those days might not have passed everyone’s muster, but to me, accustomed to men with no code at all, it had been unexpected.
Even more unexpected had been the fact that he’d let me watch.
I should have been horrified by it, I know. I should have been sickened by the smell of piss and blood and the sight of a man going from alive and screaming to nothing at all in the space of a second, the time it takes for a bullet to pass through a skull.
But all I’d felt was a sense of justice. Ofgladnessthat he was dead and I was alive and that before he’d died, he’d felt the same horrifying fear I had. That he’d known what it was like to be forced to strip and have his body handled against his will, to know that something terrible was coming and he was powerless to stop it.
That he’d known the horror of his fate being entirely in someone else’s hands.
I’d been viciously, viscerallyglad.
I wonder, sometimes, what Max would think if he knew. If he saw that underneath the sweet, happy exterior that I try to show to everyone around me that once upon a time, I’d watched blood soak the wood by my feet, and I’d beenglad.
It’s over,I tell myself, looking at the warehouse door. That man’s body is long gone, moldering under the ground. He’s been forgotten by everyone other than me, and he doesn’t deserve to be remembered at all. He doesn’t deserve to still be affecting my life in such a way that it’s practically suspended, in a stasis of fear and uncertainty.
Of course, it wasn’t only him who hurt me. It was Alexei, too, more fear and trauma and abuse on top of what I was already healing from. But Alexei is also dead. The men who hurt me are gone, killed by Viktor and Max and Levin and Niall and Liam—the men who rallied to protect the other women they cared about and me. Proof that the evil can be outnumbered by the good.
I shouldn’t have to be afraid anymore.
“Sasha?”
The voice behind me is Max’s. I know it without turning around, and I realize with a start that I’m standing stiffly in the middle of the dock, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. I turn around to see him standing there with his own hands in his pockets, looking at me with a concerned expression on his face. “Sasha, are you okay?”
I nod, feeling a lump rise in my throat. “I—” I clear it, licking my lips nervously as I face him. “Yeah, I’m fine. I had an appointment in the city this morning, and I just—I came down here to think.”
Max nods as if he understands, his eyes flicking to the warehouse door, as if he knows what I’m remembering from inside—and maybe he does. He knows what happened, even if he doesn’t know every gory detail. “I had a meeting with Viktor,” he says, clearing his own throat, shifting awkwardly as if he needs me to know he had other reasons for being down here, that he’s not following me. “And then I thought I saw you, and I wanted—I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
