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She gauged the time to be sometime between six and seven a.m. If she were home, she’d be getting Olivia ready for school, coaxing her sleepy daughter through the morning routine of breakfast, teeth, clothes, backpack. Ruby closed her eyes, imagined the feel of her small daughter in her arms, the smell of the baby shampoo she used on Olivia’s hair.
The pain was physical, hitting her in the chest like a sledgehammer, and Ruby stuffed her dirty fist into her mouth to stifle her sobs so the men in the hall wouldn’t hear her cry.
She’d made that decision a long time ago. They’d taken her freedom, her dignity.
But fuck if she was going to let them hear her cry.
She heard the rattle of the lock on the other side of the steel doors and scooted back against the wall behind her mattress. So far they hadn’t hurt her — they’d even brought in a doctor when she’d refused to eat or drink, back when she hadn’t been thinking straight, when she’d forgotten that she needed to stay strong for Olivia — but fear still flooded her body every time they entered the large room that had become her private domain.
She tried to relax. It was morning, the time of day when they brought her food.
She watched the door as it swung open. expecting the gruff fleshy guard she’d dubbed Meat Face who usually brought her breakfast.
But the man who walked through the door wasn’t Meat Face. It wasn’t any of the guards.
It was a man in a suit, a tall man with broad shoulders that defied his obvious age.
He walked toward her and she immediately knew this was Roman’s father. He had a similar gait, a similar way of striding slowly across the room like he was in no hurry, like he knew the world would wait for him.
When he got closer she saw it in his eyes too. They were shrewd like Roman’s — measuring, considering — but where Roman’s held the light of humor, this man’s eyes were as cold and flat as a sheet of ice.
This was Igor Kalashnik, pakhan of the New York bratva. Roman’s father.
His abuser.
She had a flash of Roman’s tattoo, the ink splayed across his muscular chest: the mansion in Brighton Beach, Roman’s sharp gaze staring out from behind a gladiator helmet. She’d understood the image even without the context of the bratva, an inked promise to make the man who’d hurt him pay.
She pushed the thought away. She couldn’t afford to feel sympathy for Roman. Not when it was his fault she was here.
And it was. She didn’t know how or why, didn’t know the inner workings of Roman’s conflict with his father, but she’d obviously become a pawn in their game.
“Good morning,” Igor said, his voice thickly accented.
She stared up at him, hoping he could see the hatred burning in her eyes.
He looked around the room. “I trust you’ve been made comfortable.”
“Not really,” she said.
She was chained to the wall, sleeping on a dirty mattress in the clothes she’d been wearing when they took her, huddled in the pile of blankets she’d found on the bed, wondering if she was going to live or die.
Shitting in a bucket, for fuck’s sake.
“Pity,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. He paced in front of her. “Perhaps we can do something to alleviate your discomfort.”
“You can let me go home to my daughter,” she said.
“I’m afraid that’s not on the table.” He tipped his head. “But better food, more blankets, access to a proper toilet…”
It was the toilet that tempted her.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Information.”
“I don’t have any information. One day I was going to work, taking care of my daughter. The next I was here.”
“Now now,” he scolded softly, “you’re leaving out the part about my son Roman.”
