Page 2 of Stalked & Bred by the BRATVA
And worst of all…
I think whoever it was is still watching… Not just watching me. Butwaiting.
I change quickly in the cramped space of the bathroom, telling myself I’m just being paranoid. Who would waste theirtime watching me? Following me? Unless my brother has put someone up to it, maybe? To keep an eye on me and make sure I’m behaving myself.
The thought instantly angers me. I’ve had to deal with Thom’s meanness ever since I can remember.
Even when we were kids, he’d find ways to hurt me without getting caught. A shove when no one was looking. A cruel nickname hissed into my ear at the dinner table. He was older, faster, meaner. And no one ever believed me. Not when I told them he broke my doll. Not when I said he took my birthday money. Not when I came home with bruises and said he’d grabbed me too hard.
“You must have fallen,” they’d say. “She’s always been dramatic.”
Eventually, I stopped telling. Learned to keep my mouth shut and stay out of his way. Learned to tiptoe. To flinch first and speak second. To lie about how I got that scrape, that bruise, that black eye.
And Thom only got better at hiding it. More careful with where he hit me. More clever with his punishments. A missed dinner here. A locked door there. My phone taken away so I couldn’t talk to anyone but him.
When I got a job waitressing without his permission, he showed up and dragged me out by the elbow in front of the entire restaurant. Said if I was going to play at being grown up, I could learn what real work looked like. The next day, he packed my bag, slapped me so hard I saw stars, and told me I was going to work for the Vasilievs.
“Maybe they’ll break that snivelling attitude of yours,” he sneered, like he was sending me off to a labor camp.
I didn’t cry.
Not in front of him.
I waited until I was alone in the back of the car that picked me up. Silent tears. Tiny, burning ones that I blinked away before the driver could see. That was the first time in years I let myself cry. It didn’t last long.
He doesn’t deserve my tears.
I wrap my arms around myself now, just thinking about him. My skin prickles in that way it always does when I remember too clearly. The hot throb of a slap. The way he’d snatch my wrist and twist, just to watch me wince.
Even when he wasn’t touching me, he had this way of making me feel small. Like I was something to be endured. A stain he couldn’t scrub out. His favorite phrase was, “If you weren’t so pathetic, I wouldn’t have to be like this.”
Like it was my fault he was a monster.
I stare down at my bare feet against the varnished wood floor. My chest is tight, stomach hollow. I shake my head to clear it. That life is behind me now. He can’t reach me here. Even if he tried, I don’t think the men in this mansion would let him through the gate.
The Vasilievs might be dangerous. But they’re not cruel.
Not to me.
At least not yet.
Still, I can’t stop thinking about that nightgown. The delicate fabric. The price tag. The invisible hands that placed it there without a sound. Was it meant for someone else? A mistake? Or was it a gift? And if it was… who gave it to me?
I think again of the way I feel sometimes. That prickle on the back of my neck. The shift in the air when I think I’m alone. The way I never feel truly alone anymore, not even in my sleep.
Someone is watching me.
And I don’t think it’s Thom.
I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.
I peel off my old shirt and pull on the clean one. It smells faintly of laundry soap and safety. I look at myself in the mirror and press my hand to my ribs, where the bones are still healing. The skin there is yellow and green now, nearly gone. But I know I’ll feel the echo of them for a long time.
Thom meant for me to suffer here. But I haven’t.
Not really.
Except now, I’m starting to wonder if I should be afraid after all.
