Page 1 of Dark Possession
CHAPTER ONE
Alina
AS FAR AS ideas went, I’d had better.
I hesitate beside the nondescript building before me, apprehension rooting my feet to the sidewalk across the street. It’s raining, a cold drizzle that peppers the back of my neck and plasters my hair against my skull, but that’s a minor inconvenience.
I’m giving myself a minute to steady my nerves, but when that minute is up, I’m going to do something that will make this rain seem like sunshine.
After that minute, I’m going to force myself to cross this street and walk inside that building. I’m going to tell the man behind the bar that Koka sent me and that everything’s supposed to be arranged.
In a minute, I’m going to sell my most precious commodity—myself—because that’s what big sisters do. They protect the young ones, no matter the cost.
I have to be out of my mind.
“Chyort.” Cursing softly, I step back into the protection of a doorway and pull a pack of cigarettes, purchased impulsively from the gas station this morning, from my pocket. Hand shaking, I roll the flint wheel of my lighter once, twice, a third time until the flame leaps to life, and I light one up.
I close my eyes and lean my head back against the brick of the entryway, letting the smoke seep through my tension and smooth it away. I don’t smoke often, but it was either this or alcohol today.
Marina had really fucked things up this time. It was a miracle I’d even gotten the story out of her—the ninny actually thought she was going to handle it somehow.
Work it off, maybe. My blood had iced over when she told me she was planning to go and see if she could work as a maid until the debt was paid. She didn’t seem to comprehend that owing fifty thousand to the Bratva wasn’t something a girl could just ‘work off.’
Especially not as a maid.
And the worst thing? It technically wasn’t even her debt. It was her no-account boyfriend who had convinced her to take on the loan for him.
And where was he now?
In the wind, of course.
Tossing the cigarette down, I grind it beneath the toe of my shoe, wishing it was his penis.
So here I was. Ready to sacrifice myself on the altar of sisterhood, because I knew that there was no way Marina was going to survive any kind of skirmish with the Bratva. Not with this guy, anyway.
Koka.
I’ve heard his name whispered in the café where I work as a waitress, and there’s never anything good said about him. Marina…sweet, naïve, smart-mouthed little Marina…didn’t stand a chance. And I wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to get herself hurt.
So, I told Mama to rein her in and give me a few days to take care of things. Maybe a week.
Mama had given me the squint, a look that never failed to make me confess every sin she knew of and some she didn’t when I was a child. “What are you planning?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just tell Marina not to worry about it, and for God’s sake not to go to Koka. I will handle it.”
Mama shook her head and went back to her ironing, lips pinched. “I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“Think of it this way. Who do you trust to handle something like this more…Marina or me?”
Finished, she shook out the dress and placed it on a hanger, then hung it carefully on a hook on the kitchen door. Mama did ironing and other small jobs for some of the more well-to-do ladies in our little town and the neighboring ones to earn extra income. “Maybe we could call thepolitsiya?”
I shook my head. “No, Mama. You know better. This is the way.”
Eventually, she had agreed.
I’ve stalled long enough. Taking a deep breath, I step back into the rain and cross the street. An unmarked door in a weather-worn red beckons, as described, and after another brief hesitation, I let myself in.
It’s hard to believe they don’t lock the door, but I suppose their security is such that they feel pretty comfortable.
