Page 84 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

I squeeze my eyes closed and take a deep breath, trying to ease my nervous stomach.

It’s been six weeks since Brigitte sold me into this nightmare. Six weeks since Taras snarled that sour breath in my face and told me I’d be his personal sex slave.

It has also been six weeks since the Albanian doctor who looked me over after the purchase—as if I was a cow he needed to inspect—told Taras I wasn’t in any kind of shape for sexual activity.

Taras blew his lid when the doctor said it would be six weeks before anything could be done with me. At the time, I thought that was my saving grace.

Surely, I wouldn’t still be here after six weeks.

Surely, I’d be saved by then.

Now, six weeks later, my grace period is over. The drip of pain meds has all dried up. My body has healed, more or less. I don’t need to see the doctor to know the truth—I’m fine.

Which means Taras is coming to get what he paid for.

Rose can sense my anxiety. “You have to relax,” she counsels, rolling over. “Being tense only makes it hurt worse. Just sit back and do what you’re told. It’ll be over soon enough.”

I’m actually going to be sick. I hurry into the small bathroom we share and grab the wastebasket, clutching it to my chest as I sink to the floor. I’m shaking like a leaf from head to toe. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth.

Nothing feels real. Truthfully, nothing’s felt real since the moment Brigitte ripped my baby away from me.

I don’t hear Rose walk over to me, but she lays a hand on my shoulder and I feel her warmth press into my side. “Sorry,” she whispers. “I sometimes forget not everyone is as damaged as I am.”

“You’re not damaged,” I croak.

Rose barks out a laugh, clearly not convinced.

I look up at her over my shoulder and sigh. Her skin is tight, gaunt, pale. Still, she’s beautiful. Or, at least, she was once. Her hair is long and red and full. She has big eyes and a trim waist that flares into graceful curves.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Rose murmurs. “I know what I am. Even before I came here, I was damaged.”

She’s told me her story in bits and pieces over the weeks. A high school pregnancy left her sixteen years old and already a mama. The father was a deadbeat from the start. Jailed for murder. A gangster, a no-good scumbag. “Human trash,” she always calls him. He left Rose as a single mother caring for her own sick mom, trying to support their fucked-up family of three on a cocktail waitress’s salary. She went to help a friend run an errand, and before she knew it, she found herself on a stage in front of a crowd of violent men.

The similarities to my own life made me retch.

Accidental pregnancy by a mobster? Check.

Single mother? Check.

Sold out by a so-called friend into a living nightmare? Check, check, and check.

We’re two peas in a sickening pod.

“Does Taras hurt you?” I ask in a hoarse whisper.

Rose twists her mouth into a knot at one side and shrugs. “Sometimes. If he reaches into his toy chest, that’s a bad night. But if you pretend it gets you off, he finishes faster.”

My stomach flips again. I clutch the wastebasket even tighter to my chest, certain I’m going to vomit.

“I don’t mean to scare you,” she apologizes.

“No.” I wave my hand. “I need to know what to expect. I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to see that I’m scared. I need to be ready.”

I’ve tried not to think about anything since arriving in Taras’s house. It’s easier to focus on my current situation than to dwell on the past or the future. But I can’t help but wonder if Brigitte knew what fate awaited me.

I don’t want to believe it. How could my best friend sell me out like that?

Because she wasn’t your best friend, I remind myself for the hundredth time. It’s an impossible pill to swallow.

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