Page 31 of For a Price

I sigh and drop my gaze back down to my untouched plate of food. I’ve been served salad and some type of dumpling stuffed with ground pork. It’s a meal that’s far superior to some of the stuff I had to eat on the streets on my most desperate days—as a starving stray growing up I wasn’t above picking partially eaten things from the trash—but the taste hardly matters when I’m stuck in such a hostage situation.

Roman finally notices I’ve barely had a few bites. While the other men exchange hearty words in Russian, he drops his voice low enough so only I can hear him.

“What’s the matter, devochka? You have to be hungry. You haven’t eaten in over a day.”

Aware I can’t really answer him, I barely move my lips, mumbling, “I don’t feel well.”

“Because you need to eat. Eat or I will make you.”

He’s reeled into conversation by another man off to his left, his attention diverted away from me all over again.

Another sigh blows out of me as my shoulders slump and I stare miserably at my food. Yet I can still feelhisgaze; if I look up again, I don’t doubt I’ll find Uncle Leonid practically salivating over me.

I’ve gone back and forth in my head about whether or not I should say something to Roman.

The depressing truth is that I don’t know him well enough to be sure his reaction would be in my favor. What if he blamed me for Leonid’s advances? What if he didn’t care?

It wouldn’t be the first time I wasn’t believed.

Years after I became an orphan, I was once pulled off the streets by a social worker. Her name was Ms. Belinda and she promised she’d do everything she could to help me. She put me in the foster system and found a family that was supposed to take me in as one of their own.

The next year was the worst year of my life. I was stuck in a household where I was treated like Cinderella while the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, treated their biological children like royalty.

I had the chores. I lived in the garage turned bedroom, where there was a permanent cold draft and mice regularly snuck through.

And I was the one who Mr. Harrison visited at night after lights out…

One night it all became too much, and I ran away only to turn up outside Ms. Belinda’s office early the next morning.

So long as I live, I’ll never forget the pitying look she gave me when I told her what had been going on. How she turned it back on me and brought up how Mr. and Mrs. Harrison had told her all about my behavioral issues.

“Sometimes, Kat, we have to accept responsibility for our bad behavior,” she’d told me. “You should be grateful Mr. and Mrs. Harrison were nice enough to take you in…”

I fled from her office and never looked back.

I chose to sleep in alleys and on park benches rather than return to their home.

Never again did I trust anyone would help me when I sought it.

I was on my own. Completely alone in the world.

What makes now any different? The collar around my neck? The fact that I’m some Russian mobster’spet?

Being a stray is better than being a pet. At least no one owns you.

Dinner ends and the men transition into the huge den for more drinks, cigars, and conversation.

Most of the women are taken away. I overhear Ivanka ordering one of the men who seems lower level to get them ready for work.

What work she’s talking about, I’m certain I can guess…

Probably the same kind of work that causes a quarter of the sovietnik’smen to mysteriously disappear too.

I’m different.

Roman makes sure of that, keeping me pinned to his side at all times.

“Not you,” he whispers into my ear as the other women are collected. His thick fingers clench shut around my wrist and he tugs me closer to him. “What did I tell you, devochka? The night’s almost over.”

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