Chapter 8: Chapter 8

Charleigh

“Wake up. Wake up, dammit.”

I gasp, making the violent transition from slumberland to my cruel new reality. Even if someone weren’t violently shaking me by the shoulder, and I’d woken up on my own, it would still have taken only seconds to remember the hellhole my life has fallen into.

If you’re lucky, dreams take you away from your waking problems. When I lost my mother, nighttime was the only break I got in an otherwise twenty-four-hour cycle of horrific grief. I the ‘beforetimes’ I’d wake up in my simple but sunny bedroom with thoughts of the day ahead. Who would I walk to school with? Had I finished my homework? What would I have for lunch? Then, I’d abruptly remember none of that stuff mattered anymore. Not a bit of it. Mother was gone. I’d never see her again. My view of the world switched from color to a dull black and white in one wretched moment.

But with Dominika peering down on me in my bed, there’s no momentary forgetting the turn my life has taken. There’s no transition, sudden or otherwise, from the innocence of dreamland to wakefulness. It’s probably just as well. Why postpone the inevitable? Why go through the agony of realizing nothing is as it seemed only seconds before?

With the covers yanked down to my ankles, I shiver in the freezing room. I wasn’t provided anything to sleep in, so I just wore my panties to bed. Fortunately, my bed does have a nice, fluffy down comforter—strangely luxurious for someone who’s essentially a prisoner. I get to my feet before Dominika touches me again, my arms flying to cover my chest. I stand before her, pale, shivering, covered in goosebumps.

She looks around the room. “Why isn’t there any heat in this goddamned place?” she snaps.

Locating a thermostat, she marches over to it like she’s mad at it. She punches a few buttons and nods in approval. A whoosh fills the room, and a baseboard heater begins to blow warm air.

At least they’re giving me heat.

Actually, the room I am sequestered in is unexpectedly nice. Being kidnapped-slash-sold off by my father didn’t leave me much hope of ending up anyplace other than a dump. The room the guys dropped me in has a large and comfortable mattress, I’m happy to find, and the softest sheets I’ve ever touched. The bed itself is a feminine all-white four-poster, with a matching dresser on one wall and a beautiful vanity on the other. And even though I know we are in an undesirable part of town, being on the top floor provides a view that stretches for miles.

The contradiction is almost too much to grasp.

Like, really?

I didn’t absorb any of this, where I was or what I was surrounded by the night before when I arrived. Hysteria will do that to a person. All I could focus on was how life as I knew it was over, and what lay ahead looked to be pretty freaking dreadful.

“Put your arms down,” Dominika barks. “Now turn around,” she demands, twirling her finger for emphasis.

I slowly rotate, I presume so she can check me out, maybe to do some sort of assessment. I am hoping against hope that she finds some sort of deficiency—crooked teeth, a strange BO smell, even an ingrown toenail—and report back to the guys that I can’t possibly add any value to their operation there at the club. That I am ugly, skinny, flat-chested, and generally useless, and that they made a mistake bringing me here. And that they should return me to my father without delay.

If only I were so lucky.

But hope, faith, optimism—whatever you want to call it—doesn’t give a damn. Not about me, or anybody. At ten years old, when I yearned for my mother to be returned to me, she wasn’t. My pleas didn’t fall on deaf ears. They fell on no ears. There’s no fairy godmother looking out for us—at least not for me. And I know full well no matter how much I wish it, I’m not about to be sent home from this place for my inadequacies. Dominika looks like the resourceful type. She will force-mold me into whatever she and the guys want, deficiencies be damned.

Clicking her tongue, she shakes her head with disapproval. “What are the guys thinking with this one?” she mutters under her breath, not so much to avoid offending me—I doubt that would even cross her mind—but because she’s just thinking out loud.

“Let me see your teeth again,” she barks.

I open my mouth like a horse at auction, careful not to breathe on her since I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.

She seems not to notice.

Then she steps even closer and pulls down the skin below my right eye, then moves on to my left. Her gaze travels to my shoulders and arms, my breasts, and to my stomach. She swats my tummy so fast I don’t have time to flinch, again mumbling under her breath. “Solid. At least there’s that.”

Chalk one up for me!

“You’re flat as hell, but some men like that. They’re getting tired of the giant fake tits so many of girls have.” She nods approvingly, or at least as approvingly as she’s inclined. “Now, pull down your underpants.”

Really? What the hell does she need me to do that for?

But before I can find out, and because I hesitated with my thumbs hooked in the elastic of my bikini panties, she grabs them herself and rips them to my ankles. I am now stark naked. And this time I don’t cover anything up. Why bother?

“Ugh. Do you really have the full bush thing going on there? Don’t you know all the girls your age are waxing or shaving that thing these days?”

She looks at me. She really expects an answer.

So I shrug, not sure what I can say that will satisfy her. “Um. Well, no. I don’t make a habit of asking my friends about their pubic hair.”

Her eyes narrow at my minor sarcasm, and she shakes her head like I’m hopeless. “We’ll get you cleaned up down there before your physical.”

Physical? Cleaned-up? Huh?

I don’t ask. I don’t need to. She sees the confusion written all over my face.

She rolls her eyes impatiently. Like I should know all this. As if being nabbed by my father’s debt holders is an everyday thing. “You’ll be examined by a doctor. Blood tests, hymen test, all that business.”

* * *

Charleigh

Hymentest? What in God’s name is that?

“Wh… why?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself again, creating a little shell of protection.

She huffs loudly. “First, to make sure you don’t have any STDs. Or at least any that aren’t curable.” She drops her head back and cackles like a witch. “And then, to make sure you really are a virgin.”

“I… I don’t understand,” I sputter.

“Honey, you may start out serving drinks, but that’s not all you’re going to do here. If you’re really a virgin, like your creep father said you are, you’re going to be making the Alekseev brothers a lot of money.”

The disgusting taste of bile rises in my mouth and I try hard to swallow it away. I was brought a nice dinner the night before but managed to choke down only a few bites. I’m now so hungry I’m light headed, and Dominika’s casual comments about my future compound my nausea.

“I… I think I’m going to be sick,” I whisper, bringing my hand to my mouth.

Taking me by the upper arm, Dominika shoves me to a seat on the edge of the bed. “Here,” she says with a push, “put your head between your knees. It’ll pass. Take some deep breaths.”

I close my eyes and wish I were anywhere else. Really, anywhere. I don’t care where. Just someplace that’s not the Alekseev brothers’ club. Or whatever the hell this weird place is.

When the fainting sensation passes, that’s the only thing that’s improved. I look up at Dominika. “What do you mean about being a virgin? And making money?”

She puts her hands on her hips. “Look. Don’t worry about that for now. Just throw on this robe. We’re going to the salon.”

I catch the plushy robe she throws in my direction but am stung by new fear. “Don’t I need to put on something more than this? If we’re going out to a salon?”

She gestures for me to get a move on. “We’re not leaving the premises. We have a salon here.”

Here? At this nasty place? This creepy warehouse hiding a fancy bedroom and sumptuous dinners also has a salon?

It’s so… disorienting. Even if they don’t have big plans for me, the jumbling in my brain is enough torture.

I pull on the thick robe, nothing like the tattered one I have at home, and follow Dominika out of my room. As my bare feet slap the floor beneath me, nearly drowned out by the sky-high platform shoes Dominika is wearing, I take in my surroundings in a way I wasn’t able to before, hysterical as I was.

The hallway is dark, not in a creepy way but in a fancy-chic style with glittery chandeliers and gold-painted trim around the doors. Up ahead I see one that’s slightly open, so I slow my walk, pretending to adjust my robe, and glance inside as I pass. I catch a sliver of the brother with the dirty blond hair, Niko, and before I am out of sight, he glances up from his desk, a corner of his mouth upturned as he lays his eyes on me.

It's a momentary sighting, but as horrified as I am by my situation, I also get a strange rush that a man so exquisitely handsome smiles at me. And before we get much further down the hall, he calls after Dominika and me.

“Ladies, how are things?” he says from his door.

In the dim hallway light, he’s better looking than the night before, if that’s possible. He has a little unshaven scruff on his face, and his necktie is loosened. His belt hangs nicely around his hips, emphasizing an incredibly flat stomach. He walks toward us in two or three steps, that’s how long his legs are.

And I am shaking so hard.

He might have been calling the two of us, but he doesn’t even glance at Dominika. His gaze is locked on mine. I wish I’d thought to brush my hair or something before leaving my room because I’m a horrible mess. In the robe and along with my bare feet, I must look like some sad little orphan.

Before I can answer him, not that I know what to say anyway, Dominika is by my side, her chin raised and her lips tight around what looks to be an utterly fake smile. “Everything’s coming along, Niko,” she says. “Just taking the new girl to the salon to see if we can fix her up a bit.”

She looks me up and down disdainfully, because she can. I so want to do the same back to her. The woman is no freaking prize. I mean, has she looked in the mirror, with that orange hair and caked-on makeup? She’s repulsive.

Jesus.

Niko continues eyeing me and gets closer, acting like Dominika hasn’t said a word. As if she’s not even there. When he reaches us, he takes a hank of my hair, slowly twirling it in his fingers as if it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.

I consider pulling away from him, even though it won’t do any good or change my circumstances. But I don’t. While I have no power over my situation, I oddly want him to continue. In spite of the fact that I am essentially a prisoner, taken against my will—even if I did sign a damn contract—I am calmed by his touch. I want more.

But that’s not happening, at least not right now.

Dominika grabs me by the upper arm and pulls me away from Niko’s touch. He looks away from me only to scowl at her, but she’s not deterred. Turning her back on him, she drags me down the hall without so much as a word.

And while she yanks me so hard I nearly lose my balance, I do manage to look back over my shoulder, where I find Niko watching me with that half smile. When our eyes meet, he gives me a slight nod, as if to say…

As if to say what?

That everything will be okay?

Yeah, right.

I have no doubt I am imagining his affection. That man cares nothing for my well-being. If he did, he wouldn’t have brought me here and locked me up.