Page 45 of The Dancer and the Grumpy Billionaire

She nods again. “Not here, and not to send me away to work for someone who makes me.”

“So this is what? Like a meeting point? To get sent somewhere else?”

“Mostly, yes,” she says. “They bring girls here and then send them to work. But they also bring other things to go other places.”

“Do you know where we are?” I ask.

“Not really,” she says, frowning. “One of them once said he was going to Harrisburg?”

“Harrisburg,” I repeat, wishing I was better with geography. Is that in Virginia? Pennsylvania? “Do you have access to a phone?”

“No. And there are many. Too many. There is no getting in or out.”

“How many is too many?” I ask.

Elena lifts a bony shoulder. “Fifteen? Twenty?”

I sink lower into the tub. They can’t have fifteen or twenty men in place just for me, can they? No, she said this is a place where they make transfers and I assume they move drugs or weapons here, as well as trafficking other humans. It would make sense for the facility to be heavily guarded. And it must be far out into farm country, where the nearest neighbor is many miles away, or that many armed men would be a conspicuous sight.

When the water starts to grow cooler, I wash my hair and body with the small bar of soap Elena hands me, and then rise from the water as she hands me a towel and points to a pile of clothing on the floor. My wardrobe consists of a simple black T-shirt, cotton panties, a pair of jeans and a flannel. Everything is too big, but I am happy to be out of the glittery, next-to-nothing of a dress.

“Come with me,” she says once I am dressed.

I squeeze more water from my hair and pull a comb through the tangles as she waits by the door. I ask if she has a hair tie, andshe points to the medicine cabinet. Inside, I find what I asked for, quickly braiding my hair so it won’t drip down my back.

In bare feet, I pad down the creaky wooden stairs to the first floor of the house. The place is quaint, the way a farmhouse would look in my imagination, with wood floors and vintage-looking wallpaper throughout. Elena leads me to a sitting room, a wood-burning stove in one corner and a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf along one wall.

In an ornately carved armchair, a middle-aged man in an expensive, grey suit sits with one leg crossed over the other as he reads a book. He looks up as we enter, tilts his head, and smiles.

“You must be Galina Gusev,” he says cheerfully.

I back away instinctively, the way someone might back away from a snake on a hiking path. The danger seems obvious, despite the beauty. Unfortunately, I bump into a solid wall of human and turn to find Alexei, grinning.

I spit on him. He looks shocked and disgusted, to my great pleasure, and raises a hand to smack me before hearing the other man clear his throat. Alexei drops his hand and shoves me forward.

“Sit,” the man commands, gesturing to a free chair.

I sit because what else is there to do?

The man is good looking and slick, still smiling at me like an old friend. I hate it.

“I am Ilya Baranov,” he says, as if I should know what that means. At my blank expression, he laughs again and says to Alexei, “Sheisa feisty one, as you said. It will be fun to play with her. It is so much more fun when they fight back.”

“Pig,” I say, disgusted.

“Meh,” he says with a light shrug. “There are bigger pigs than me. Like your father, for instance. Did you know that Sasha Gusev wiped out my whole operation in a critical businessdistrict? He infiltrated, turned my men against me, and forced me out so he could take over business operations.”

I yawn theatrically. “I have no interest in my father’s business.”

For the first time, the slick smile on his face falters. He sits forward, the happy mask dropping. “Little girl, youshouldcare. You should care that your father, when I demanded compensation, had one of my best lieutenants slaughtered as an answer. You should care because you, my little dancer, are paying his debt. The one thing he cares most about. He has hidden you away, but I found you. I have you, and you will be the payment for your father’s crimes.”

My heart might skip right out of my chest and onto the floor, it is beating so hard, but I manage to maintain my mask of disinterest. I pick at my fingernails. “I have not been hidden. I have performed on the world’s biggest stages, haven’t I? I have just been living my life, away from my father’s shady business.”

The easy smile returns to his face as he sits back, resuming his posture of relaxed authority. He taps his fingertips along the arm of his chair and stares at me for a long moment.

“I like your bravado,” he announces. “It will be a treat to break you while I wait for your father to provide the restitution I deserve. The way I see it, I am due about a hundred-million US dollars, if I am to walk away from this loss. Each time I have to ask, he will receive a new souvenir from your stay here.”

A souvenir. My mind races. Body parts? Videos? Photos? What? I truly have not paid attention to the truth of my father’s business. Perhaps I should have. Perhaps it might have prepared me for the reality of this violent world he lives in.

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