2. Elira

2

ELIRA

O nce again, my world is bathed in darkness, only now the rumble of the truck is a distant memory I long for. Music plays so loud wherever we are that I squint, seeing nothing through the black bag my buyer has put over my head.

He cut the bindings around my wrists when he hauled me out of the trunk of his car, so I have one arm wrapped around my stomach while he holds the other, guiding me.

Is this a party?

Where are we?

I almost ask, but I can't. I don't think he'd tell me anyway.

Will he be angry when he finds out I lied about not speaking English?

Should I ever tell the truth?

How much will he reveal in front of me if he thinks I won't understand?

So many questions. Too many. I try to focus on what I do know, on learning the man next to me. He's … evil. How could he not be?

Do I know anything else?

I think for a moment, my mind spinning, searching for information that may be important. All I can think of is for a guy who can afford to buy women, it's strange that he can't afford a good dentist.

My foot hits something, and I gasp.

"Up," he commands over the music, tugging on my arm.

I cautiously toe the metal thing that I hit, but I have little time to figure out what it is before Chipped-tooth drags me off the floor. My feet seek to ground me and find the metal piece. Finally, it registers that we're at a staircase.

Communication would really come in handy right now.

His touch made me recoil when he first grabbed me, but now I find myself leaning into him, begging him for guidance.

When my toe collides with metal, I cry out and try to pause, but he doesn't let me. It isn't until we reach flat ground a few moments later that I whimper my relief, pulling away from Chipped-tooth to create as much distance as his grasp will allow once again.

He knocks three times on a door we must be standing in front of, but it doesn't open, and he doesn't knock again. We stand silently, the music still loud but distant while I count back from forty in my head for the sake of slowing my mind.

Eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven…

"Come in," a voice calls after what feels like an unusual amount of time.

A knob twists and the door creaks open right before Chipped-tooth shoves me forward, my hands flying in front of me to catch empty space. I manage to right myself, standing hunched with my arms crossed over my chest, itching to remove the bag.

I don't have to wait long. Chipped-tooth rips it off my head, revealing three men staring at me. Two stand on either side of a desk that the third man sits at, his feet propped on top as he leans back in his chair with a cane balanced on his lap that he seems too young to have.

Do you remember when I said I shouldn't have made eye contact with those men? That I could see evil?

This man… One nanosecond of eye contact has me lowering my head to the floor, hoping my hair will double as an invisibility cloak.

It takes less time for me to figure out that this is Chipped-tooth's boss than it did for me to figure out the staircase.

He reeks of malicious authority. This room reeks of it. Now that the bag is off my head, it's like I can smell it throughout the whole building, along with the stench of the truck that I seemed to have carried with me.

I don't dare look at the boss, but I do peek at the man on his left. By the way his nose is wrinkled, I'd say he's noticed my stench as well. Or he's just disgusted with me.

I almost look away, but a scar running across his neck catches my attention, and it's hard to command my eyes from it.

Did someone try to cut his throat?

Who are these people?

"Pakhan Nikita," Chipped-tooth says, and I can't be sure, but I think he does some sort of weird bow. "I hope I'm not interrupting?"

Nobody answers. Chipped-tooth waits maybe five seconds before going on.

"I thought you might want to see your new girl." He bunches the back of my dress and uses it to propel me forward. I gasp, stumbling before catching myself on the edge of the desk. "She's fresh from overseas. I don't know what country, but I think there's a chance she could be a virgin. I thought you'd appreciate the first taste."

The first taste .

The first.

The first of many.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying and stare down at the smooth mahogany. My hands threaten to shake, so I grip the desk tighter, not standing up, not even moving. If I move, I might try to run, as stupid as that'd be. I don't know if I'd be able to help myself.

"The first taste…" Nikita says, his voice even. He laughs, but I don't get the sense that he's amused. "The first taste of what? Crusted pussy? I could smell her as soon as you walked into the building. Is this what you'd like me to taste?"

"No, sir." Chipped-tooth sounds nervous, and I look behind me to see him raising his hands, a chuckle coming up his throat like he's trying to play this off. If I could sink into a hole in the earth, I would. "I will clean her up first, of course."

"I don't want you to clean her up, Anton. I want you to be smart." He taps his head to emphasize his words. "I want you to know not to bring me dirty girls. I want you to not waste my money on dirty bitches you buy out of the back of a fucking semi ." He seemed relatively calm before, but now his face darkens, casting a storm cloud over the room.

He drags one foot off his desk, then the other before slowly standing to limp his way around it, not bothering to use the cane. As soon as I see which direction he chooses, I go in the opposite, nearly bumping into the only man left I haven't studied.

I gape at him now, wide-eyed as I wait to see if he'll lash out for me being so close, but he doesn't look at me. His arms are crossed over his broad chest while he watches his boss, his blue eyes serious, his strong jaw set. His neatly cut blond hair and gray slacks would make him look like a businessman if it weren't for the bulging muscles that protest through the white fabric of his shirt or the firm look on his face that could hardly be considered charming. Even lacking the scar across his neck like the other man, he looks just as deadly. I consider moving away from him, but away from him means closer to the boss, so I stay put while watching what happens next.

"You think she could be a virgin. You don't know what country she's from. Do you know what that tells me, Anton?"

Anton's Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. He shakes his head.

"That tells me she could just as easily be someone else's used up whore. That frustrates me, Anton, it really does, but what frustrates me even more is that you came to me lacking information that you could've gotten if you'd just. Asked. The. Cunt." He smiles, but there's nothing friendly about it. When he looks at me, I duck. "What country are you from, darling ?"

The way he says darling somehow sounds more offensive than cunt.

Should I answer?

The idea of lying to this man feels very different from lying to Anton. It feels dangerous. It feels stupid .

I'm just about to open my mouth when Anton speaks for me.

"She doesn't speak English, sir."

As Nikita's eyes close, the energy in the room turns deadly. Anton messed up. Badly. Badly enough that right now I'd rather be me than him, which is really saying something.

A slow, insidious breath blows past Nikita's lips, and when he opens his eyes, he looks this way. I freeze. My instinct is to look down, but our eyes don't meet. He's looking above me.

"Maksim, you're a young, single man. You're quite accustomed to fucking whores, yes?"

There's a pause as the question hangs in the air, then finally, "Occasionally, yes."

"Would you like to fuck the used-up, grimy cunt of a bitch who doesn't understand your language well enough for you to relay how you like your dick sucked?"

"No, sir."

Nikita nods once like he agrees. "Me neither."

He turns back to Anton in a swift movement that confuses me for a moment, and I squint, watching Anton's black shirt get wet with something. His eyes go wide, and he looks down like he's just as confused and surprised as I am.

My eyes find the short blade poking from Nikita's grip just before he jams it into Anton's gut, again and again.

I cover my hand over my mouth as I scream, backing into Maksim only to jolt forward. My eyes instinctively find the door, but I think Maksim can sense it because he lays a hand on my shoulder and guides me backward.

Nikita doesn't stop stabbing. Blood pours from Anton's mouth that he never had a chance to plead from, and his eyes are dead, but Nikita holds him up by his shirt, seesawing the knife into him like an absolute fucking psychopath.

I bite my cheek so hard I taste blood and force my eyes to close but then open them immediately afterward. This is not a sight I want to see, but closing my eyes on a man like this is terrifying. I couldn't look at him when I first walked in here, but now I need to see him at all times just to make sure he's out of reach.

This man is my owner.

This man.

I wish I'd been chosen by the one before. Or any of the men before.

I wish I'd never left Albania.

I press my palm against my mouth when I sob, trying to quiet myself, but it's uncontrollable. It isn't just my hands shaking, it's my entire body. My heart alternates between beating fast and stopping altogether, unable to choose between the two.

When Nikita finally lets go of Anton's shirt, his corpse crumples in a heap on the ground, his head turned my way so those dead eyes can stare at me. There's no evil in them anymore. There's nothing.

Nikita tosses the knife onto the floor, next to a puddle of blood staining the carpet, and as soon as he turns around, I back myself into Maksim. I can't help it. Maksim could have a knife that's bigger, deadlier. He could be just as disgusted with me.

But it seems impossible that any man could be as bad as Nikita.

Instead of granting me any sort of sanctuary, Maksim's hand slips from my shoulder, and he walks around me to a closet, his gait calm and confident, no sign that he has any reservations about what just happened.

I check out the guy with the scar on his neck. He's leaning against a wall with a foot propped against it, his posture relaxed.

Neither man cares about what just happened.

Neither care about what will happen to me.

What will happen to me?

I back against the wall and sit on the carpet, pulling my knees to my chest like I did in the cargo space, trying to make myself invisible now more than ever.

Maksim brings a roll of plastic out of a closet and spreads it out on the floor before proceeding to roll the body onto it, wrapping it up like a burrito. It's the most sterile, unfeeling thing I've ever seen anyone do. Like flossing teeth or setting a cruise control.

The guy with the scar leaves, and although I don't know anything about him, I wish he'd stay just so there's one more person to hold Nikita's attention who isn't me.

Nikita stands facing away from Maksim and cracks his neck. I keep waiting for him to remember that I'm here. Keep thinking that I'm next.

My eyes move to the big roll of plastic. There's still plenty left. They keep it in that closet just for occasions like this.

I want to puke.

My eyes dart to the door when it opens, revealing Scar's return along with two other men, one carrying a bucket. Water sloshes out of it when he sets it on the floor next to the blood.

Bucket Guy crouches and pulls a sponge from the soapy water but stops when Nikita makes a disapproving, humming sound.

"Let the girl make herself useful."

Bucket Guy exchanges a look with the other new man, and together they pick up the plastic-wrapped body and exit the room.

I stay where I am, pretending I don't know what he wants me to do. The smell of blood is taking over the smell of the truck, and the thought of the man's insides being on my hands makes my nausea twice as bad.

I swallow down bile, closing my eyes.

And it's a mistake because I was right, closing my eyes on Nikita is a bad idea.

His hand is in my hair, yanking before I have a chance to register his closeness, and I whimper as he hauls me to the blood stain. My hands sink into red goo when he drops me, and finally, the nausea wins. I turn my head to the side and dry heave, nothing in my stomach to come out.

Nikita kicks my leg, not hard but not a nudge, just enough to make it clear to the non-English-speaking foreign girl that he won't put up with me messing around. I wipe saliva onto my shoulder, tasting dirt and salt, and pick up the sponge to get to work on the carpet.

My lungs burn from excursion as I vigorously scrub and try not to cry out. Not out of remorse or sadness, but out of fear. Pure, horrible fear that I didn't realize deserved a voice.

They talk while I'm scrubbing like I'm not even here. Like nothing has happened. Something about a deal happening tomorrow night at an airstrip. They switch back and forth between speaking English and what I'm growing more and more confident is Russian. I know a little Greek, a smidge Italian, nearly no Russian, but I'm pretty sure ‘blyad' means whore, and it's been said several times now.

The water has turned a bright red color that reminds me of the late Anton's shoes, and every time I dip the sponge, I question if I'm doing more harm than good. It needs to be refreshed, but I'll scrub this entire carpet red before I open my mouth.

"This bitch is taking too long," Nikita says, sounding bored. "I'm going home. When she's finished, you both can do the same." I feel him draw near, so I scrub harder, fighting the instinct to freeze.

"What do you want us to do with her?" Scar, or Roman as I've come to learn, asks.

Nikita pauses behind me, and now I can't fight my instinct to freeze. Even my lungs quit working. Not my heart, though. It beats fast and hard, pulsing in my temples.

"Maksim, you've been a good boy, lately… You keep her." Nikita's cane presses against my ass that's perched in the air while I bend over the blood, and he shoves me so I fall forward, knocking me into the bucket so watered-down blood sloshes onto my face and chest.

My lungs tighten

as the cocktail drips from my hair, my shaking sending the drops flying. I stay perfectly still and don't dare get up while he's behind me.

"I'm sure she cleans up fine," Nikita says. "And who knows, maybe Anton was right about her being a virgin."

He uses his cane to lift my dress up my thighs, making my teeth sink into my bottom lip to keep myself from screaming. "I'd have her tested first."

There's a pause before Maksim replies. "Thank you, sir." He still sounds sterile.

I'm not even a nice gift let alone ‘product.' I don't know that I'm capable of feeling like less of a human being than I am in this moment.

Nikita removes his cane, allowing my dress to fall, and when he leaves, I let my lip go free and sit up, facing away from the two men.

I know I should get to cleaning right away, but I take just a moment. Just a moment to feel truly, terribly sorry for myself.

This is so much worse than any nightmare I ever could've imagined.

Someone behind me laughs.

I hunch forward as my muscles tense, bloodied water seeping from the sponge as I squeeze.

" Don't ," Maksim scowls before Roman has said anything. Roman must've been the one to laugh. Because Maksim getting stuck with me is so funny.

But I'm… I'm only Maksim's?

I'm not a prostitute for others as well?

"I didn't say anything," Roman replies.

I allow a few more seconds to pass before I push the sponge into the carpet, smearing the blood my senses have become accustomed to. I'm one with it now.

"Out of curiosity…" Roman's tone is full of humor. "Are you flattered or insulted?"

Instead of answering, Maksim starts this way, so I pick up my pace, scrubbing at the blood with as much intensity as I had when Nikita was in the room. I don't know why I ever let up.

When he walks past me, I peek up at his huge form. I registered that he was tall before, but now that his size actually matters, his broad shoulders seem to expand. Muscles ripple through a white shirt with every step, and they're so expansive that the shirt doesn't start to slacken until midway down his back, cutting off diagonally to hint at the V-shape formed by hours spent in a gym. Or worse, a ring.

This man is dangerous. He lacks Nikita's aura but compensates with strength and size. He wouldn't need a knife to kill me, probably wouldn't even think to use a weapon beyond those bare hands.

I lower my eyes and scrub the carpet harder.

He returns from the closet carrying something, but I don't look to see what it is until he sets it down beside me. It's a large plastic bottle with no label. I look up at him, waiting for him to tell me what it is, to give me some kind of instruction, but it occurs to me that he won't because he doesn't think I'd understand him. Obviously, he wants me to use the stuff on the carpet.

He picks up the bucket of water and leaves while I unscrew the cap to the mystery bottle that isn't a mystery for long. I put my nose to it, but it really isn't necessary. The ammonia smell is so strong, I turn my head away and slap the cap back on the bottle.

Roman laughs behind me, and before I can think about it, I toss a glare his way.

His eyebrows raise as a smile blooms, making me aware of the look I'm giving him. I snap my head forward and pray he doesn't hurt me for that.

Can he hurt me?

Is he allowed?

Would he have to get Maksim's permission?

How does this work?

My shoulders hunch as Maksim returns, fresh bucket of water in hand, and when he sets it in front of me, I get to work, pouring a small amount of ammonia in before soaking up the blood. It works so much better.

"I think I like your girl," Roman tells Maksim. "Or as Nikita calls her, your used-up, grimy cunt of a bitch who doesn't understand your language well enough for you to relay how you like your dick sucked ."

"Are you trying to set me off?" Maksim asks with a hint of anger.

Roman laughs. "Come on, it's a funny punishment, and you know it. It could be worse."

"You understand the problem this causes for me." Now Maksim sounds serious. Really serious. I am very obviously a burden for him.

Is it too much to hope that he'll simply let me go?

"Just don't take her home," Roman suggests. "Keep her at Hugh's. Or my place." That last part sounds like a joke. I hope he's joking. But I don't know who Hugh is.

Why can't he just let me go? I'm an illegal immigrant in this country, and these people obviously have a lot of money. They probably own the police, so I won't be going to them for help. I'll head straight to New York to find James, then I'll figure out a way home. Fuck America.

"And look like I'm rejecting a gift from the Pakhan? He's punishing me for having a meager relationship with a Gruco. The last thing to do when he believes my loyalty to the Bratva is compromised is reject him personally." I peek over my shoulder to see Maksim wave his hand dismissively. "You're right, it's a punishment. Not the first, not the last. I will handle it."

"You could just kill her," Roman suggests, making my spine stiffen. I should look away, but I can't. Not until I see Maksim's reaction. "Say she tried to run."

Maksim rubs his thumb over his chin as his eyes drift to me. When they find mine, I don't look away. Don't move. We stare into each other's eyes, me quietly panicking, him weighing Roman's words, thinking I understand none of them.

He's going to kill me.

Slowly, I face forward and will my heart to slow, trying to calm the panic. I close my eyes and scrub leisurely, just enough to keep them from yelling at me while I think.

Where did that knife go?

Opening my eyes, I glance around but don't see it. Did Maksim pick it up when he took care of the body?

He must have.

Does he still have it on him?

Maybe. If he doesn't, he probably has some kind of weapon.

Could I get to it? Could I get to anything?

I reposition myself so I can see the men while I clean. First, I check out Maksim, searching for a gun holster more out of fear than preparation. I don't actually know how to use a gun. When I don't find anything, I move on to the room, and it doesn't take long before I spot the knife Nikita used on the desk.

My eyes lock onto it, garnering all my attention to the point that my movements seize. I have to force myself to look away.

If he's going to kill me, I have no other choice.

I have to kill him first.