Page 21 of Volatile

Don’t wear red lipstick. It makes your lips look too large for your face

Call your sister and ask her what she wants you to do

It’s not every day a girl gets married and her little sister is supposed to help

Make sure you bring the Vartanov boy. It will look good

Your father has business associated who will be attending. You’ll need to keep them company and make sure they’re happy.

I’ll make sure the Vartanov boy doesn’t see you with them

Jesus, fuck, woman!

He’s not my fucking father and his cunt daughter is not my sister. They’re nothing to me and I turn into a weak fucking child only able to lock the screen instead of saying everything I want to. She’s like a pimp, but she only offers them the promise of looking. I can’t be touched because that would tarnish my value to any of the Vory who would drop their standards for me. The woman is the most confusing person to exist considering she insinuates I’m a whore at every given opportunity yet promises the highest bidder I’ll be an obedient, virginal housewife for their brutal entertainment.

I’ve spent half my life doing everything I can to run away from the bitch. Escaping her hands was easy but I will never outrun her tongue when it reaches too far, and the old feelings stir up in my gut. All the inadequacies, the self-loathing and the extreme thoughts come back.

They’re not thoughts of hurting myself, they’re worse because I can remember the months of praying, wishing, that something would happen to me so that my mother would wake up and realize that I’m not immortal. That maybe, just fucking maybe, if I got sick, got ran over, or if I was in a coma she’d see that life can be taken away at any moment and it would correct her behavior. It will never happen, she’s not wired that way, and I curl in on myself even though she isn’t fucking here.

Working through my list rather than killing the woman who gave birth to me, I check who will be in close enough proximity for me to target tonight. The man at the top of the chain is too well protected and I don’t even know what he looks like, but his little sicko friends aren’t as paranoid.That should be good enough for me to stop spiraling back into who I used to be since my toxic mother decided to input herself into my life, again.

My heart picks up, seeing a name I haven’t been able to meet in person yet. Genevieve, the women are always the worst. It’s an internal bias when they commit the same sins as their male counterparts, but it disgusts me more. On some deeper level I assume there should be more humanity inside of them. I’ve seen the aftermath of how they use their warmth to lure in the vulnerable and comfort children so they’re ready to be hurt.It’s more sickening, insidious, that they pose as a maternal figure.

I set a time-delayed message without a location to Vanya and rise from my pit to get ready. My phone buzzes in my hand and I look down, expecting to see another message from my mother, but it’s Tali. His messages stopped after I told him that his“want to fuck?”messages were uncreative to get him to leave me alone.

There’s no text in the preview and I click into it as I leave my office. The video auto-loads and I can’t make sense of what it is as I go into my bedroom. Dropping down on my bed, I restart it and bring it closer to my face. I can make out the ground where he’s piled up a patch of snow but there aren’t any buildings in the distance to give away his location as he uses a shovel to compact the snow. The clang of the metal spade hitting the icy patches breaks up his muttering.

“I dare you to say I’m not fucking creative now.”

He throws the shovel to the side and there’s a faint metallic noise in the background before the flattened white blanket melts in lines. I’m going dumb because I can’t tell what he’s doing and I have to move my phone back to see the screen fully. A laugh bubbles out of me as he sprays something on the snow, spelling out,Tali?Stas…

I scrub it back to the beginning to hear his muttering because I miss his voice which I will never admit to him or I’ll end up inflating his ego. The second viewing has my jaw dropping when he pans the phone down once he’s finished writing and I stare wide eyed.

His dick is in his hand.

He used his dick, well his piss, to write our fucking names in the snow. With a heart. There’s no one around to hear my laugh but I turn on my side and mute the sound of it into a cushion because he’s proven he’s definitely not uncreative.

“If you’re a good girl,” he says from my phone, “I’ll let you hold it next time.”

There’s definitely something wrong with me for not blocking his number when he’s telling me to hold his dick while he pees. It feels like trust even though he’s being an idiot, thinking he’s funny.

I don’t reply to his message when I notice the time because I’ll end up getting distracted by him and I can’t be late. There are people relying on me, even if they don’t know I exist, and I drag myself up. Dima allowed me to help with the non-Bratva jobs because he knew I needed something, a goal or a motivation, to live for. On the days I want to die and Tali’s advice isn’t enough, I tell myself that I need to be here to find those children. I can’t have a normal life, a family, but maybe I can give it to those children, allow them to live and their progress is tracked through Steorra as a reminder that my existence has meaning rather than being a burden. Those small children are the only thing that drown out my mother’s voice, so I focus on them, they become my goal.

Dressing for men is easier than a woman. They don’t want anything left to the imagination other than how your body fits into their sick fantasies. The women require intrigue, versatility that they can market for themselves. I’ve spent too much time studying them that my mind fucking terrifies me at times. There’s a deep fear that I’ve become desensitized and I’ll begin to view them as human.Or worse, that I’ll start understanding them and it will warp my mind. If I can understand the mind of a pedophile or those who sell people, then I’m like them, but without that understanding, I can’t find them, I can’t work out how their business operates or who their targets are to make sure they choose me instead of someone innocent.

I go through Genevieve’s previous list of girls, and I find the common theme of her clients’ wants, broken dolls. They’re all beautiful but they’re eyes hold a sadness before they were ever snatched from their lives.It’s not hard to feign as I stand in my closet and drop my mask, allowing the old me to be let out for the night. This version is Stasya, the girl with broken dreams and misplaced hope, she’s hideous and pathetic. Everything my mother says is about her, not me because this Stasya died on a bridge at fourteen. I stepped into her place without emotions or expectations.

My nose scrunches as I uncap the cheap vodka with the strongest smell and dab it on to my pulse points before mixing a generic perfume over the top. Deception is an art and I’m a fucking masterpiece as I walk out of my apartment to collect my prey.

I’m half leaningon the bar when I spot her. I slap my hand against marble, ignoring the way my palm stings as I shout “shots” to no one in particular. It gets Genevieve’s attention and the back of my head heats as I allow my neck to go limp then rest my head on my shoulder, as long as her attention is on me it’s not on ruining some innocent person’s life. Throwing my head back, I sniff and pat a napkin against my nostrils while looking around the bar, pretending to check if anyone has seen. The fake blood stinks and I purposefully freeze as I stare at the napkin, making sure that Genevieve has seen it.

It doesn’t take long for body heat to warm my side and the man beside me nearly has me breaking character. There’s a warning in his eyes that he doesn’t want me to listen to him as he says, “Hey, pretty girl, you belong in VIP. Do you want to come up with me?”

He’s beautiful, model beautiful, a perfect smile and symmetrical features, but that warning doesn’t leave and his smile dips as I act giddy and point at myself.Nodding my head, overeager for the attention, has his warning changing to hopelessness. I’ve never seen him before, and my fingers touch raised skin as I hold on to his arm.

The other people that are used to lure in the unsuspecting are always excited and my heart cracks, knowing he’s being forced to be a hand to hurt like those who have done it to him. All these cunts get off on using people for fuck’s sake. Vanya’s words come back to me at how they would describe human beings as the perfect product, and I push down the urge to offer him an escape.

He leads me up to his table and the model doesn’t say anything at all as Genevieve’s anger vibrates through the space over the sound of the music. She’s wearing a wig; it’s good but I’ve watched the footage of her unloading people like they’re objects to know her real features, and her eyes are soulless as she stares at the man beside me. He must be in his early twenties and he’s going to get himself killed. One look from his handler and he mumbles an excuse before flashing his smile.

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