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Chapter One
Anyone examining Katya would have believed she'd been rescued from a battlefield, but she'd endured what I would consider worse. "A consequence of war," my father called it. Words that too easily excused how she’d come to live with us.
I knew the truth of what caused her plight. My brother had captured her from the neighboring territory during what was calleda special operation. While he was away for the last several weeks, my father visited her nightly.
He'd set up a room for her in our garage. Not a room designed for someone in need of a home. She wasn't human in his eyes. She was athem. Someone of lesser birth from a hostile neighboring country. He permitted me to care for her, but only as good medical practice. In truth, I’d begun to feel a kinship to her, despite her nationality. I knelt beside her and gave her water, but she jerked her head as far as the leash padlocked to her collar allowed.
She was nothing like what I’d been led to believe about her cunning people. There was a regalness and straightforward determination in her. The unwavering need to prove she was unbreakable had made the situation worse for her, though. The way she didn’t submit had me pitying her for having such a strong will.
Since her arrival a month ago, things had only gotten worse for her. My first year of nursing school taught me nothing in comparison to her injuries and bruises, and trying to figure out what illnesses ailed her. One of which turned out to be pregnancy.
She seemed resolved to her misery and didn’t want my help. But I had to provide her with some warning. "He's home."
She wiped the dark, sweat-drenched hair from her face. The summer heat was just setting in, but it was already miserable in the garage. The bob of her throat was enough for me to know she understood. My brother would be here soon, and he was worse than my father. He also never came alone.
I slid the handful of pills to her. She could take the oxycodone all at once or as needed. If I were her, I'd do the wise thing and kill myself and the unborn bastard child whose father she couldn't be certain of.
“My brother will save me.” Her only hope for salvation was most likely dead, but I wouldn't make her feel worse. From what I understood, many people from the city where she was captured had already died or fled in the month following the start of the war. Her people, like her, would be proud and fight to the death.
"I hope he does."
She huffed. "He won't be merciful to your house." It may have been a threat or a warning. Despite all I'd done to help her, she didn't think much of my kindness. It seemed as though she viewed me worse than my father most of the time, but she kept silent on the matter.
"I hope not." I would want vengeance if I were her. And I meant the words for her sake, though not for any harm to befall me or my family. No matter their actions, they were still family, and not nearly as bad as some people I knew. Some would treat her far worse than my father did, who usually only fucked her, and he would punish her when she refused to do as ordered. It was my brother’s aggression that worried me, but she represented the death of his comrades, which made him all the angrier.
At the sound of drunken laughter from the doorway, we both recoiled. I was quick to my feet as two men in all black came into the garage. My brother hadn’t come down with them yet, but they weren’t nicer men than him whether he was there or not. The first man, Anders, sneered at the sight of me. We dated briefly in high school, but he’d always been mean. He’d come with my brother to pay visits to Katya before.
He scanned my university top. Higher education had always been something he insulted, as well as ridiculing me for wanting a degree. "You come to apologize for being a dick tease?" He gripped me by my ponytail and shoved me to the wall. I’d tried to always be away from him, and I hadn’t thought he would be here.
"Mik," I sobbed my brother's name loud enough to be heard outside the garage.
“You’ll get what you deserve as well as that bitch.” Anders let me go right as my brother rushed through the door.
"Why the fuck are you in here?" Mik's glower was one I always made sure never to provoke.
I looked back to Katya as Anders grabbed her by the thick, black collar. I knew he wouldn’t listen, but still, I said, "Don't hurt her."
"Little traitor. Are you defending the enemy?" Mik snapped.
“She’s pregnant.”
My brother slapped me, sending my face sideways with searing pain throughout my cheek. "If you ever defend one of them again, you will be on a leash in Anders’ garage!"
Terrified, I rushed past a stranger, knocking a phone from his hand. Only they were capable of recording an assault to watch later, or possibly stream live for their friends to see.
Once in my room, I looked at the evidence on my reddened cheek where he had hit me. He'd actually threatened to treat me the way they treat Katya. I was family, but he never placed value on me as a sister.
Chapter Two
The next day while in class, I kept my hair smooth to curtain my face to hide the mark where my brother had hit me.
Ever since Katya had been brought into our home, I felt different from everyone else. Even ashamed. Maybe that was why I no longer spoke to the few friends I'd once had. Truth be told, despite Katya’s detest of me, she filled the gap once I'd distanced myself from others. Without her, it felt as though the only people I had were family, and they were hard to accept. Even my mother had mistreated Katya out of jealousy.
I believed my brother's threat about defending Katya and knew better than to return to her while he was home. Instead of going back at the end of the day, I walked across campus to the coffee shop to hang out alone on a couch, watching as the other students talked.
Even they had changed due to the war. Some had relatives lost, others feared the conscription of a loved one. Most of them were affected from a distance—not by someone kept in their garage. But worse would await Katya if someone even crueler had her, and there were plenty of cruel people around.
"Is anyone sitting here?" a male voice said. I looked across the short table to the man standing in front of the stained, beige corduroy chair.
