Page 17 of Sapphire Tears

I look around, but I have no idea where I am. It’s mostly dark. I catch a whiff of it again—that nauseating smell of cheap aftershave.

Then I catch the man’s silhouette in the corner of my eye.

He’s sitting on what looks like a picnic table, his legs kicked up on the bench. A thick fog of mist engulfs his face, hiding his features. Not mist, actually—smoke. Cigarette smoke.

“I’m pregnant,” I snap fiercely. At least, I try to. But my voice comes out weak and scared.

The man climbs off the table and ambles over to me. He’s fat enough to look comical, like a pear with legs, but his eyes are determined. That scares me.

“I’m supposed to let you go because you’re pregnant?”

“You’re supposed to put out the cigarette, at the very least.”

He raises his eyebrows and looks down at the cig in his hand. “Hm,” he says, as though he’s forgotten it’s there. Then he shrugs, throws the cigarette on the floor, and stamps it out with his foot.

What a gentleman.

“What am I doing here?” I demand, still trying to put up a tough front, though it’s a little harder when the pain in my arm makes my eyes water.

“You’re askin’ the wrong guy, hon. I’m just following the boss’s orders,” he says. “Very specific orders, I gotta say. You must be some kind of special.”

“Boss? What boss?”

“The big man,” he repeats, like that clears things up. “Said you were a problem that needed solving. Told me to bring you down here and ‘take care of things.’” He has a foul habit of licking his lips after every sentence. They’re wet and oily-looking, yet chapped and bleeding at the same time.

I look around as my eyes adjust. It’s dark, but we’re clearly in a barn of some sort. Scattered hay lining the wooden floors like a threadbare carpet, the obvious stench of manure.

“Who’s your boss?” I ask when my eyes finish the circuit and land back on the bearded man. “What’s his name?”

His eyes scale down my body and then up again. It’s not sexual or violent like I might’ve expected. Almost… confused, I guess. Like he knows what roles we’re supposed to be performing in this fucked-up play, but he can’t quite figure out what happens next.

“Kolya Uvarov,” he answers at last, sort of woodenly.

I twitch.Kolya.Kolya hired this sad little stereotype of a man to abduct me and bring me here?

Something in me says no.

Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s abducted me.

I swallow past my dry throat. “Why?”

The man shrugs. “Apparently, you turned out to be a lot more trouble than the boss was anticipating. He’s decided that your baby isn’t worth the wait. So now, you’re gonna be sold.”

Every bone in my body rejects his words. Kolya would never sell anyone, let alone me. “You’re lying.”

He shrugs again. I’m getting sick of it. The nonchalance of it. “You can believe what you want,” he says. “I’m just following orders.”

He pulls out the knife he was wiggling around back in the laundromat from a sheath in his boot. Then he tosses it in the air, flips it, and catches it by the hilt, again and again. It glints in the dim light like a shooting star.

“The boss didn’t tell me you’d put up a fight, though,” he muses. “Oughta charge him extra for that.”

I strain against my bindings, but there’s not a chance in hell that they’re coming loose anytime soon. The skin of my wrists is already losing the battle against the edge of the zip ties. Blood seeps down my fingertips.

“Although I don’t know why he would let you go. You’re much prettier than the usual tier of whores I deal with.”

“I’m no whore, asshole.”

“No,” he agrees pleasantly enough. “But you will be soon.”

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