Page 78 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

Tiny bottles of hotel shampoo and body wash get thrown through the slat in the door to me. When I bend over to pick them up, a guard whistles.

I close my eyes, grit my teeth against the cold, and wash myself.

I can’t imagine they would be getting me cleaned up for death, so I take a small amount of solace in the fact that they want me to look presentable.

After I shower, I’m given a thin, itchy towel and walked down the hallway to another cement room. A black dress is hanging from a rafter, floating like a shadow in mid-air.

The command is unspoken but clear:put it on.

I dress with frozen, fumbling fingers, grateful at least to be covered again.

After a few minutes of anxious waiting, the guards appear again. They walk me to the end of the hallway. Down here, I hear voices.

When they open the door, the sight is enough to make me think I’ve lost my mind.

A gaggle of women fill the room. They’re bunched together, dabbing each other’s cheeks with blush, brushing their hair, and dolling themselves up in cracked mirrors. For some reason, I’m imagining I’m a contestant in a beauty pageant.

But when the guards push me through the door and close it behind me without explanation, it becomes obvious I’m not dreaming.

The women all stare at me for a second, and then go back to their work, quietly. A few of them are crying.

Definitely not a dream.

More like a nightmare.

Whatever is going on, I know I’m not amongst enemies right now. Based on the fear that lanced through the group when the guards appeared, they are victims, too.

Victims of what? I’m not sure yet.

My hair is still dripping wet, so I use the towel I dried my body off with to squeeze the water out of it. When it’s passably dry, I find a brush on a nearby table and run it through my long locks. The strands around my face are already drying in curls.

“You can use this.” A rail-thin woman with blue-shadowed eyelids and dark purple lipstick hands me a plastic bag of make-up. “It looks like you need it. You have bruises.”

I’m too stunned to do anything but accept the bag and open the compact mirror.

She’s right. I do need it. The punch from the guard is already changing from red to purple on my jaw and the bruises I earned from Fyodor in the hospital a few days ago are fading, but still a nasty greenish-yellow color. I look like I’m about to be sick.

“I don’t want this,” I say quickly, closing the compact and handing it back to the woman. “Thanks, but… I don’t want it.”

“No one here does,” the girl whispers. She’s missing a few important teeth and she has the tell-tale scars of drug abuse etched into the hollows of her face. “But it’s for your own good.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The girl looks annoyed that she has to explain it to me and slightly nervous that the other women might get upset with her for doing so. Her eyes dart around the room before she leans in, whispering. “The prettier you are, the more money they’ll spend. The more money they’ll spend, the better off you’ll be.”

My stomach bottoms out. Suddenly, I don’t just look like I’m about to sick. Iamabout to be sick.I clutch my abdomen and turn away, certain I’m about to spew everywhere.

Thankfully, the feeling fades before I actually vomit. The woman lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. Even with the bruises, you’re one of the prettiest girls here. You’ll be fine. The auction goes quickly.”

An auction.

I’m at anauction.

When Dima told me, even as don of the Bratva, he didn’t participate in human trafficking, a small part of me had been impressed. As if he was doing something noble, something good.

Now, I realize it was just basic human decency. Who could look around this room full of human beings and think about selling them for a profit?

Dima didn’t stay away from human trafficking because he was a saint.

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