Page 79 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

He did it because he wasn’t the fucking devil.

The powder is a couple shades too light for my skin tone, but it’s better than nothing. I powder it across the bruises on my cheeks and jawline and then dab on some bright pink blush.

I don’t bother with eye shadow or mascara. Enough of the women in the room have black streaks running down their cheeks from crying that I don’t see the point. Very soon, I won’t be any different.

It feels wrong to do, but I try not to think of Lukas. Right now, my goal is survival. Staying alive. I want Lukas with me more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life, but I can’t do anything for him right now.

What I can do is focus on the task ahead of me and getting through it. I can focus on staying alive. And that’s much harder to do when I’m heartbroken and weeping over my baby.

So I push his precious chubby cheeks and blue gray eyes from my mind.

It’s the only way I’ll survive to see him again.

* * *

When the guards come back, the women are ordered to get into a single file line. We are marched from the room with a flurry of armed men on either side of us. They lead us down the hallway towards a door at the far end.

When it opens to reveal a staircase, my spirits lift for a moment.

Up. Out of this dungeon. Sunlight.

Not exactly, as it turns out.

My hopes were too high. The windows on the floor above have all been blacked out with paint or tarps.

We are led through the hallways and past several sets of double-wide doors to a smaller entrance. Through there and up a short flight of stairs. Then out into an open space.

I immediately recognize we are on a stage. Ropes hang haphazardly above us, holding up ancient, rusting lights that look like they could fall at any moment. The red velvet curtains are moth-eaten and dusty.

We are marched to center stage, the curtains still drawn so the audience is hidden from sight. Muffled voices murmur unseen on the other side. My heart lurches as though it wants to escape from my body.

The guard who made the joke about milking me earlier breaks away from the group and stands in front of us, his face twisted into a scowl.

“When the curtains open,” he announces, “you’ll step forward one at a time. Walk forward, spin, and walk back. Anything else and you’ll be punished on sight.”

Surely, they wouldn’t punish us in front of an audience, I think—before I remember what we are here for. Anyone who would sit in a crowd and bid on women surely wouldn’t care if they were beaten in front of their eyes. Many in the crowd have worse things in store for their prizes, I’m sure.

I shiver.

And then it begins.

The curtains open—and I black out.

Not actually. Or at least, not physically. Physically, my body is working well enough. It does what it’s supposed to. I stand, waiting my turn. When the girl next to me steps forward, turns, and then steps back into line, I know that’s my cue. My legs move me forward automatically. I spin—numbly, slowly—and then retreat back to my place in line.

Mentally, however, I’m gone.

I don’t see the faces in the crowd.

I don’t know who says what or what any of it means.

I don’t process a damn thing until the curtains close and the women who were purchased—me being one of them—are pulled into a separate line.

As we’re marched off of the stage, I hear cruel laughter. For some reason, that breaks through my fog.

I look over just in time to see Brigitte.

She’s standing backstage between two layers of curtains. Her eyes fixed on mine. She grins and waggles her fingers at me in a mocking wave. My son is nowhere to be seen.

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