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My throat closed up and I forced myself to take a sip of tea. Reid really did make the best tea. I tried to savor it, well aware that it might be the last she ever made for me.
“And it did make money.” I sobbed, pressing a hand to my throat like I could stifle the screams sitting high in my chest. “I could buy enough food for us, and Vitoria could stay in school. It didn’t give us the world or anything, but it was enough to get by.”
I paused for a moment, scrambling for air, for just a little breath.
“Mom and my sister never found out, obviously,” I continued. “And the longer I did it, the easier it got. I couldn’t exactly fuck up, though. Donnie didn’t stand for fuck ups.”
“What did Donnie do?” Reid asked, and I pressed my lips shut. “Mia, please tell me why you’re so terrified of him.”
“It wasn’t that easy in the beginning,” I explained. “Actually, it was the most difficult thing I’d ever done. There were times that I chickened out and Donnie, he wasn’t happy with me. When I upset him, he’d teach me a lesson by breaking a bone.”
“Hewhat?”
I flinched.
“Donnie abused all of us.” I shrugged, because it was the truth for us, for so many girls and women in the business. It was as common as the bias we faced. “He always made sure that he hurt us in ways that could be covered up. He thought of his clientele as ‘upper class’, men who wanted us to look a certain way. Battered and bruised didn’t fit that bill. Even so, we weren’t exactly his top priority, and there are so many girls out there who are easily tricked or blackmailed into it. We were easily replaceable. Interchangeable.”
There were places I could still feel his fists when I woke up in a cold sweat with no voice, clinging to the sheets, afraid that I’d fall off the Earth if I let go.
“I watched… so many girls get trapped by Donnie and his promises,” I whispered. “I watched as he broke each and every one of them. After about three years, I wanted out. I didn’t want to keep lying to Mom and my sister, I didn’t want to live in constant fear that I might be killed or, orworse. And I was so scared of him, Reid. I was so scared he’d find Mom and my sister, my little sister…”
I set my tea down, my hands shaking too much to hold onto it any longer. It had long gone cold anyway, and the ice in my fingers inched up into my wrists and arms.
Reid’s eyes tracked every movement, her leg bouncing almost imperceptibly as she waited for me to continue.
“But Donnie didn’t let his girls go that easily. When he found out I’d been talking to some of the other girls about leaving him… he threatened to send me back to my mother in a body bag.”
“Is that what he did to the other women who left?” Reid asked, her voice so quiet.
I shook my head. “Like I said,” I murmured. “We were easy to replace. There are thousands of women in this city who live in poverty, who have to look after their families and themselves.”
“Then what made you so different?” she asked, and I knew it wasn’t malicious, I knew that she hadn’t meant to hurt me.
But the small twinge of pain in my chest said otherwise.
“I never slept with him,” I whispered. “He believed we were his property, and he did what he wanted, including sleeping with us. But I never allowed it, and he seemed content to let it go because his clients liked me. Until he heard that I wanted to leave.”
Reid had gone eerily still.
“After that,” I continued, “he kept me under his nose, where he could keep an eye on me at all times. He restricted my access to the other women, and eventually I was too scared to go home in case he found my family. He cut me off entirely. I was completely alone, with no one but him there.”
“How did you get out?”
Reid’s words were a rasp and I wished I’d kept all of it to myself. Even if I selfishly felt the weight on my chest lightening with each word, I watched how they pressed on her rounded shoulders.
I hated myself for it.
But I knew the only reason I’d even opened my mouth in the first place was because Reid was different. Reid was someone I trusted, someone I cared for. A lot more than I thought, I realized.
“One of the other women had become a friend,” I said. “Carla. She’d seen what Donnie was doing to me and s-slipped him some sleeping pills one night when he’d stayed over in her room. I took the opportunity to run.”
My voice broke. “I never went back for her,” I choked, the guilt smothering every other emotion that raged inside me. “I don’t know what happened to her, and I’m too scared to find out. I just wanted to leave, to get free and never look back. So I did.”
I clumsily wiped at the hot tears burning my cheeks and took a steadying breath.
“That was around the time I met you,” I finished, my gut clenching. “I hoped to never face any of it again, nor did I want you to know about it.”
I looked up at Reid, her whole body rigid. I didn’t know why, maybe disgust? Betrayal? A new fear rocked through me, and my numb fingers clutched at the fabric of my pants.
