Page 36 of For a Price

“It was the hand he used to touch her.”

Father’s eyes shrink into a cold, suspicious glare. “Why not buy a new one? We have more like her.”

You are missing the fucking point, you old fool.

“I won’t stand for disrespect,” I say instead. “You have a problem with that, you tell Leonid to keep his hands off what’s mine. If he survives the night.”

“This girl. I have never seen her at other dinners. Where did she come from?”

“What does it matter?”

He reclines in his chair and juts his chin at one of his men to fix him a drink. It’s only a moment later that he’s handed his vodka tonic.

“She appeared out of nowhere,” he says. “You seem attached.”

“You seem not to understand it’s about respect. I don’t know how else to tell you. Warn your brother to not touch what’s mine and he will keep his other hand.”

I turn away and stride toward the door, regardless of how insolent it comes across. There’s nothing else I can say to explain why I reacted the way I did. As far as I’m concerned, I did not react harshly enough.

Leonid should be in pieces on the floor right now. Not being treated for his wounds.

I make it a few feet from the door when the sovietnik stops me in my tracks.

“I think…” he says slowly, pondering, “I will make a point of finding out who she is. You have important work to do. Do not let some pussy get in the way.”

Katerina is sitting on the window ledge when I finally make it up to the room I’m keeping her in. Ivanka meets me at the door, an impatient air about her.

“She’s fine,” she says. “Just some swelling. Some bruising. Girls have come back worse from jobs. I don’t see why she is so special.”

I scowl at her. “Get out of my sight.”

Ivanka huffs with as much attitude as ever and makes a point of slamming the door.

I don’t give a shit. She’s a non-factor like many of the sovietnik’s other employees.

At the moment, my concern is my kitty cat. Katerina hasn’t so much as blinked or given the subtlest hint she’s fazed by my presence.

She peers out the window with an unmistakable sense of longing. I approach slowly, taking inventory of the harm done.

It seems Ivanka didn’t do much to clean her up.

Her satin dress is torn, one of the straps ripped entirely. Her hair’s no longer pinned up but come undone in a cloud of unruly lavender curls. Bruises mar her golden-brown complexion, some black, others blue.

Leonid must’ve struck her hard. Right in the fucking face.

I recognize the signs. The swelling along her cheekbone. The discoloration covering her entire jawline. Dried blood clings to one of her nostrils.

Tears shine in her eyes. But still she doesn’t take her gaze away from the window.

Night has fallen and the view is unremarkable—trees and more trees with only the distant skyline of Northam in the backdrop.

She stares anyway, a stray longing for freedom.

“Devochka,” I say. “Let me have a look.”

When I reach for her face, she turns it away from me. She angles her body toward the window even more as if she can’t stand to be touched.

I’m not sure I can be angry by it. The last man who touched her had her on the floor cowering in terror.

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