Page 25 of Pageant

Chills travel down my spine.“What sort of game?”

Number Ten sounds like she’s shivering, too. “We don’t know. Number Four overheard them talking about jewels. Maybe we’re going to be smuggling jewels back to Russia?”

In my experience—which is limited because mafia wives and daughters are always kept in the dark about these things—illegal goods are smuggled out of big cities and ports. Maybe we are in Rome or Trieste. Smuggling doesn’t sound like much of a game to me, though.

“Where were you all taken from? I was stolen from Milan. I was working as a model at fashion week.”

“Me, too,” whispers a voice from along the row of cages.

“And me.”

“We all were,” says Number Twelve.

Sixteen young models all stolen from fashion week. It should be impossible for our captors to get away with this unnoticed, but I heard about women disappearing and I shrugged it off. Even if we’re reported to the authorities today or tomorrow, how long will it take for the search to begin? What if there are no clues?

I press my forehead against the bars and close my eyes, horror sweeping over me. This is sick. All those weeks I spent with Elyah, all those times he touched me, held me like I’d break, I never sensed the depraved monster inside him. The Hyde to his Jekyll. Being a hitman or enforcer for the mafia is one thing. Torturing women for fun, that’s beyond what I’ve ever known from even the most depraved men in my life, and I’ve known some violent bastards. My father was one. My husband was another.

“Number Eleven, how do you know that man?” asks Number Ten. “What’s he like? What do you think he wants?”

“Don’t call me by that number. My name is Lilia. What are your names?”

Taut silence stretches.

“We’re not allowed to say our names,” answers Number Twelve.

“My name is Lilia,” I call out in defiance. “They can keep us in cages, they can take everything else from us, but they can’t take our names.”

My voice fades away, and nothing but silence answers me.

Then someone speaks from Number Ten’s cage. “My name is Olivia,” she says, and then louder, “I’m Olivia.”

Far down the row of cells, someone calls softly in a Hispanic accent, “I’m in cell one. My name’s Alejandra.”

Hesitantly, the women call out their cell numbers and their names. I grip the bars as I commit the names to memory, pride surging through me. These women are suffering a terrifying ordeal, but they haven’t given up hope. No one’s beaten yet.

“I’m so proud of you all. I promise that we’re going to get out of this, alive and in one piece.”

There are a few whispers of agreement. But only a few.

“She didn’t see what happened to the last Number Eleven,” someone mutters.

All the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. “There was another Number Eleven?”

“See that stain on the concrete over there?” Imani whispers. Imani is next to me in cell twelve.

I peer through the darkness to a spot on the floor that’s stained a darker color than the surrounding concrete. A large stain, as if a great deal of fluid has been spilled, and my flesh ripples with goosepimples. There are chains hanging overhead the bloodstain on the floor, and I’m forcibly reminded of a carcass hanging from a butcher’s hook.

I don’t think I want to know. But I have to ask.

“What happened to her? Was it Elyah who killed her?”

“Don’t say his name,” someone hisses. “We’re only allowed to call themser.” The Russian word forsir.

“He must love that,” I say bitterly. An honorific means a lot to a proud man who was kept in a cell and told he was scum. When he worked for Ivan, he was nothing more than a tool. Treated like unthinking muscle, just as I was looked upon as a mechanical doll.

Cook. Smile. Suck. Fuck. Get pregnant. Never complain. Never cry or show weakness.

“It wasn’t him. It was a dark-haired man.”

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