Lev turns me in his arms, loosing my wrists only to wrap an arm around my waist. His grip is so firm there's no way I'm getting loose, but it doesn’t stop me from clawing at his flesh.
"Don't touch me."
"Vivika—"
"I said don't touch me!" I scream, digging my fingernails into his precious inked arm.
It makes Lev react like a biting serpent. He whips me around and lifts me off my feet, kicking and lashing out, and starts walking through the house.
"Let me go! Lev, let me go!" I shout at him, kicking backward at his legs so he will let me loose, but his grip remains firm.
He keeps walking no matter how hard I kick until we reach a door at the end of the hallway where he shifts my weight to one arm and opens it with the other, revealing a small bedroom I've never seen before. It's sparse—just a bed and a dresser and a window with bars across it.
Bars.
He dumps me on the bed and I scramble to my feet, but he's already backing toward the door.
"Lev, don't you dare—" I hiss, charging at the doorway, but the door slams shut and the lock clicks into place.
"Lev!" I throw myself against the wood, pounding with my fists. "Let me out! You can't do this!"
Now the tears flow freely as I hear his feet retreating away from me. He thinks it's easier to lock me up than to face my real, honest questions, and maybe I'm the fool for thinking he ever had a heart. I'm so mad, so hurt that I'd give myself to someone so heartless and cruel.
"Please!" I'm sobbing now, my hands aching from hitting the door, and my ability to advocate for myself is gone. I'm melting, willowing back toward his placating bitch because I'd rather be at that table stewing and watching video footage of Ana Veche than locked up and ignored. "Please, I'll do whatever you want. Just let me out. Let me go home. I won't tell anyone, I swear. Please, Lev. Please."
But there's no response at all—not a footstep or a creak in a floorboard. The house is quiet out there, and even if there were sounds, I'm blubbering and sniffling so loudly, I'd never hear them.
I don't know how long I stand there crying before my legs give out and I slide to the floor. My back presses against the door and I pull my knees to my chest, making myself as small as possible. The wood is cool against my spine, the room bone cold.
He isn't coming back.
The realization makes me feel so alone and scared. I can't believe he locked me in here after I was so willing to help him. I'm such a fool, so stupid for thinking we had any real connection. Lev is a user and a creep. He never had any good intentions toward me. He has been using me for whatever he wants since he dragged me here, including sex, which I willingly gave up to him because I'm desperate and needy and stupid!
I crawl onto the bed and curl up on my side. The sheets smell clean, unused. I wonder how many others have been locked in here before me. How many people have stared at these same walls and wondered if they'd ever leave.
How fucking stupid. How incredibly, painfully stupid I am.
The women… The trafficking. Was any of it real? I believed Lev because I wanted to believe him. He made me feel like a hero instead of a victim, and I let myself be convinced that I was choosing to help instead of being forced to comply.
But there's been zero proof that anything he told me was anything more than a pretty lie designed to keep me docile and cooperative. Not a single update or shred of evidence that those girls ever existed.
And I slept with him.
The thought makes my stomach turn and bile rise in my throat. I let him touch me and I let him put his dick inside me. I shudder as I think about how I moaned his name and felt his seed dumping into me. What is wrong with me?
But he's been taking advantage of me from the start. Every kind word, every gentle touch, every promise of safety and freedom—all of it was manipulation. Pretty lies about saving lives, andI ate them up because I wanted to believe I mattered to him as something more than a pawn.
I'm such a fucking idiot.
The tears come again, soaking into the pillow beneath my cheek. I hate Lev for what he's done. I hate myself more for believing him and for wanting him. For opening myself—my body, my trust, my foolish, hopeful heart—to a man who saw me as nothing more than a means to an end.
He will never let me go, I know that much now, but what he'll do with me if I don't keep pretending to be what he wants… I have no clue. And it scares the fuck out of me.
But I know one thing for certain.
I'm never trusting Lev Gravitch again.
Never.
