Page 100 of For a Price

Not just any kinds of cages. Human-sized bird cages.

Disturbing enough that it makes me stop short. The man pinches my flesh between two of his fingers and makes me yelp.

“Show starts in fifteen,” he grunts. “Get a move on. You’re for sale tonight.”

“But what… I don’t want this,” I murmur in instant panic. The same panic that had washed over me earlier in front of the panel of men. “Can I speak to whoever’s in charge? This is a mistake!”

He laughs. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

“Borys! What have you done to my girls?” shrieks a female voice out of nowhere.

We both look up to find a blonde with fury clenched onto her face storming toward us.

I recognize her at once.

Her fading beauty. Her long, willowy limbs. Her bleached blonde hair that clashes against almost sickly pale skin.

Ivanka is here.

The same Ivanka who had been at the sovietnik’s house and who knows Roman.

Of course she would be!

She was in charge of the girls at dinner that night; she’d been something of a madam, overseeing their interactions with the members of the bratva.

I’m so stunned and relieved to see her that I stumble forward as if we’re old friends.

“Ivanka, I need to see Roman!” I blurt out. “Please, can you help me get back to?—”

Before I can even get the words out, I’m crashing down to the stage floor. My knees slam into the polished surface in a bruising manner and then my head’s yanked back.

The man named Borys glares upside down into my face like he’s about to strike me next. “What the fuck do you think you’redoing?” he spits. “You stay quiet. You do not speak. Do you understand?”

A cry bubbles out of me as my gaze swings from him to Ivanka, who’s stopped in her tracks. For a split second, her anger has faded for shock. She wasn’t expecting to see me here.

Looking from me to Borys, she seems unsure how to react.

A small kernel of hope grows inside me. The vain hope that she’ll do something. She’ll help me.

The second passes and then she regains her bearings, tearing her eyes off me and glaring at him.

“My girl Mila says you struck her,” she says. “You know the rules. Only I discipline my girls. If one of them steps out of line, you come to me.”

Borys makes a disgruntled noise that illustrates he understands.

It’s good enough for Ivanka. She casts me a final quick look and then pivots on her heel.

I watch her go with a sinking stomach.

The one possible lifeline I’ve had since I came here isn’t going to help me. She isn’t going to even let them know I don’t belong here.

I belong with Roman…

“Get up. Get in the cage.”

Wobbling to my feet, I shake my head. “I don’t… I don’t know what you want from me.”

“You are for sale,” he says in a condescending tone. “Be beautiful. Be sexy. The audience will be bidding. Get in now.”

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