Page 77 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

But it doesn’t tell me a fucking thing.

Frustrated, I drop the sweatshirt and tear through the rest of the house. I rip open drawers, trash closets, and flip mattresses upside down, turning the show home into a nightmare in a desperate attempt to find a single shred of evidence.

Then, in the living room downstairs, I find it.

A receipt for Chinese food on the table, surrounded by half-empty takeout cartons. The name of the soon-to-be-dead man is printed across the top.

“Good to meet you, Erik Arnaud,” I whisper under my breath. “Can’t wait until we meet again.”

24

Arya

The Cell

When I wake up, my breasts are pulsing and full. I palm them and groan with pain.

As I’m doing it, breast still exposed, the door to my room suddenly opens. A guard stands in the doorway, taking up most of the frame with his wide-set shoulders.

He chuckles when he sees me. “I’ve heard milk is best straight from the tit. Care to give me a taste?”

“That’s fucking disgusting.” I pull my shirt down to cover myself.

The man just laughs again, pleased with himself.

“What do you want?” I croak. “Where’s my baby?”

“You don’t have a baby anymore,” he barks. “He belongs to someone else now. Just like you will.”

I frown. “What does that mean?”

Apparently, it’s not for me to understand. The man doesn’t say anything else as he hauls me up by my elbow and drags me out of the room.

For a brief second, I’m relieved to be out of the small room. I was growing convinced I would die in there.

Then I realize we are in a windowless, gray hallway.

Wherever I am, I’m still trapped, still underground, and still probably going to die. My circumstances haven’t changed.

The guard pulls me up by two others dressed just like him at the end of the hallway. One of them grabs my other arm roughly. They drag me, feet dangling, into yet another cement box.

The walls of this one are riddled with shower heads. Before I can fully comprehend what is happening, they’re dropping me onto my hands and knees and retreating.

Then ice cold water spurts out of every shower head on the wall.

The guards slam the door. There is nowhere to escape the icy spray. It bites against my exposed skin and soaks into the clothes I borrowed from Erik, dragging the sweatpants down my hips.

“Strip!” a guard orders through the door. “You can’t come out until you’re clean.”

I don’t want to get naked in front of these strange men, but what choice do I have? So I let the heavy sweatpants fall to the floor and peel off the borrowed hoodie.

“All of it!” another guard bellows. His voice is deeper, but I can hear the enjoyment in it. “Panties and bra, too.”

I raise my middle finger to the door, my small act of rebellion, and strip entirely nude.

My stomach is still extended from having just given birth, and I can see dark stretch marks on my upper thighs and my side.

I look how I feel: utterly ruined.

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