You told me yourself.
But the bailiffs had already grabbed my arms, dragging me away as the courtroom blurred into noise and motion.
Now here I was.
From scraping by on the streets of Skid Row—cleaning toilets, flipping burgers, sleeping with one eye open—to working sixteen-hour shifts in a restaurant, and now this. Not just arrested, but erased. Reduced to nothing more than a vessel for another man’s hatred.
Ruslan Baranov. My husband.
The man who had vowed before God and witnesses to protect me had instead condemned me to rot for a crime he knew I hadn’t committed.
He had no conscience.
No soul.
This wasn’t justice.
It was punishment by proxy—for my sister’s sins, for my family’s ties to Al-Chapo, for daring to exist in his orbit and survive when Maria hadn’t.
My chest ached with a pain sharper than any physical wound. Every breath scraped. Every thought hurt. It felt like my body was rebelling against the idea of continuing.
“No family visits scheduled,” Officer Ramirez said almost gently as she guided me out of processing. “But you can apply for the list.”
The words were procedural. Routine.
They hollowed me out anyway.
I had no one.
No father—alive somewhere, pulling strings from the shadows but never pulling me free.
No mother—ashes scattered by Ruslan’s cruel hand.
No friends left who could survive the stain of my name.
Yannis.
Sweet, quiet Yannis. The boy who had started to smile at me in those brief moments before Ruslan walled him off. Who had looked at me like I mattered.
Would he remember me?
Or would Ruslan erase me from his life the way he’d erased everything else—photos, memories, truth?
Tears welled up, burning, heavy.
But I swallowed them down.
We entered the main block—a thunderous cacophony of slamming metal doors, echoing shouts, and the overpowering stench of unwashed bodies, cheap disinfectant, and despair that seemed to coat the very walls.
Iron doors lined both sides, each with a small barred window, tiny portals into the cages of misery that awaited the women inside.
Voices erupted immediately, rising and falling like waves of menace.
“Fresh meat!”
“Look at the pretty one—gonna break quick!”
“Welcome to hell, bitch!”
