Page 7 of Redemption

The bartender handed the other man the rag in her hand, but it wasn’t the same one she’d been mopping the bar top with. She squatted next to Victoria’s face. “He may fuck me whenever, however he likes it. But I said I liked it.” She spat to the side. “No way you’re going to like whatever these psychos do. You’re about to be fucked.”

The man crouched on the other side as Victoria thrashed and pulled away. He held her forehead to the floor, and forced the rag over her mouth, its bitter taste abrading her tongue and burning her nose. She couldn’t breathe without her lungs burning. A heaviness wrapped an invisible blanket around her limbs. She couldn’t kick, couldn’t move, even though she wanted to roll over and throw up. She couldn’t. Her eyes wouldn’t focus; they spun around the room like she was spiraling. Slow, fast, she didn’t know. Gray clouds closed closer, closer, closer…

CHAPTER THREE

Lights flashed. Everything went down. The room spun as the hot air seemed to go ice cold then scorching again. Victoria rolled on her side and got sick. Her arm dangled; her hand reached and found nothing. Blips of the attack burst into her skull alongside the pounding headache that shot daggers behind her eyes, but she struggled to sit up, desperately blinking away the blindness that held her down.

Out of breath, she collapsed again, the sweet darkness of passing out begging her to come to the other side. “No,” she moaned.

Shaking, Victoria pushed up again, needing to fight, to get away. She gasped for breath even as her neck wouldn’t support her head. Falling backward, Victoria hit a wall, and it held her up, its harsh texture a welcome relief.

“Oh, God…” Slowly, her head stopped spinning, and she tried opening her eyes, slits only at first. The room was light but not bright, and it smelled.Shesmelled, and the shocking revelation nearly knocked her back out as she caught her jeanless legs and dirty shirt. The room reeked of urine and vomit, and her mouth was so filthy and parched the idea of drinking water was both fantastic and foul.

“Get up.” A man stepped into the room, and his heavy Russian accent sounded as ugly as he looked.

She stared, limbs shaking—not just from nerves but an uncontrolled weakness.

“Up. When you wake up, you clean.” He strode over and had her on her bare feet, knees almost knocking, then half-walked, half-supported her down a dimly lit hall.

Her raw throat burned with every attempt to swallow, but she managed to whisper, “Where are we?”

“Don’t speak.”

He understood English and spoke it haltingly, and his Russian accent was thick. Very unlike the Russian gunrunners she was investigating. Where had they been hiding this guy? He certainly wasn’t skirting the town limits of Sweet Hills. Someone would have mentioned it.

They entered a bathroom, and he turned on the shower. There was no question about what she was supposed to do, about what she wanted to do, but with him standing there, watching, Victoria couldn’t.Until he drew his weapon. She stripped off the urine-soaked underwear, embarrassed, and trying to cover herself, her shirt, and bra, then stumbled. He didn’t help, seeming not to notice, as she crawled to the tub and pulled herself over the edge.

The lukewarm water rained down, and she opened her mouth, swishing and spitting, then rubbing her eyes. She found bar soap and a small bottle with writing she didn’t recognize and started the process of washing as best she could without standing. She didn’t have the strength to do both.

Once all the lackluster bubbles washed away, the man turned the water off, dropped a threadbare towel on her, and helped her out onto the cold floor. Shivering and shaking, she dried off, trying to stay covered. A dress, somewhat resembling a cloak, landed by her, and she glanced up.

“Dress, dress,” the man ordered.

Victoria shed the towel, tugging on the rough cloth over her still damp, chill bump-covered skin. He yanked her by the arm back onto her feet, and into the hall they went. Victoria felt exhausted beyond what her mind could comprehend. He deposited her in a room, physically lifting her and leaving her on a cot.

Eyes closed and heartbeat pounding in her ears, she tried to catch her breath—and felt eyes. Instincts desperately trying to keep up and keep her alive, Victoria jolted, pulling her legs beneath her and bracing her arms in front, ready as she could be for whatever came next.

Girls.

Women.

She let her gaze sift across the room as they all studied her. What on earth was…Oh, shit.This was a prostitution house? Her foggy mind tried to clear. Not a prostitution house. Prostitutes were pros. These were slaves. Sex slaves? Victoria looked down at herself then at them, at their rows of cots, and the door where the guard had disappeared.

“Where are we?” she asked, willing her voice not to crack. She wouldn’t show fear, not even a sliver of the horror she knew could be found in places like a sex trafficking hellhole.

“Russia,” someone whispered.

Then the whole world turned upside down.

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Three days. Three days in this God-forsaken bleary room, and Victoria was crawling the walls—on the inside. Externally, she was the face of calm resistance. Maybe it was because she was the oldest one at entrepreneurial billionaire pig Ivan Mikhailov’s Russian estate, but the rest of these girls here had been handpicked. She, on the other hand, was captured and sent away, an offering to the big man like a gift.

But she’d yet to meet this Ivan jackass. Some of the guards were more talkative than others. The older ones were stoic, old guard. They’d die before breathing wrong against the former soviet intelligence official, now some higher-up in the Russian government. Talk about corruption. But the younger ones? They didn’t buy into the bullshit nearly as much.

She’d learned a lot from them. Namely, Ivan was a prick of epic proportions. He wasn’t home much, and he was trying to talk his daughter, Taisia, into working this part of the “family business.” What kind of monster would involve his daughter in sex slavery?

The man who brought their food clambered in with two sacks’ worth of meals for everyone in the room. Victoria hastened over, hoping there was something of substance to get them through the night. No. Not only no, but there wasn’t enough to feed all of them now.

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