Page 71 of Take the Sub and Run

Andrei sucked in air. “Fuck. Angel, no.”

“I am. It’s not a bad thing. Just a fact. My life is not normal. You’re right, I was trafficked for labor.”

“You knew?” he asked gentle. “I mean, you’d heard the term human trafficking?”

“I knew that what I was doing was in some ways forced labor.”

“In all ways. You were deliberately isolated and trained to perform a specific task.”

“But I love what I do.”

“Would you love it more if you were creating your own art? If you could show people, tell people what you created?”

That struck a nerve, he could see it. She started to say something but stopped herself.

Of all the things she’d created, how many bore her signature?

“Colette was right, I’ve made several passports. They’re fun. I have a holographic printer.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Her lips twitched, and the ache in his gut lessened at that small sign of mirth.

“The point is, I could leave,” she repeated. “But if I do…no one will bring me originals to paint.”

“A passport isn’t the only thing you need to leave. Do you have a bank account?”

“Yes. My father’s friends, they pay their fees to him. But people like Colette, they pay me directly. Digital currency mostly.”

“Digital currency isn’t the same as having a bank account and debit card.”

“My father has an account for me. There’s always money in it for things I need.”

“Meaning, your father can see every transaction you make, if it’s an account you both gave access to.”

“I get cash too. Colette once paid me a hundred thousand euros in cash. It came in a briefcase.” Sofie grinned. “It felt like a movie when she gave it to me.”

“And you have that money somewhere you can access it?”

“Yes. And my father doesn’t know about it. I haven’t used much. Mostly I use it to buy?—”

She cut herself off, and even in the moonlight he saw the blush.

Andrei shifted closer to her, almost close enough to brush her arm. “Buy what?”

Sofie raised her chin but didn’t look at him, instead staring resolutely out the window. “Toys.”

The word hit him like a punch to the gut. He’d been trying, desperately, not to think about her in a sexual manner since realizing what was happening with her life. Maybe she was right; he was treating her as if she were damaged.

Yet she was the furthest thing from damaged he’d ever seen. She was pure. Flawless. Innocent.

And if he put his hands on her again, he’d drag her even further into the darkness.

Every part of him wanted to ask her about the toys she owned. Make her describe how she used them on herself.

Instead, he stepped back, running a hand through his hair. “I won’t touch you again,” he vowed.

She didn’t move or react, but her stillness took on a brittle quality. “I know.”

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