I didn’t react. Not outwardly. I didn’t give Ruslan the satisfaction. I remained seated, spine rigid, hands curled in my lap, safe only because six men stood at my back—six brothers who would tear this mansion apart brick by brick if he so much as reached for me.
Harlan.
He had stalked the cellblock like a king surveying livestock. He’d lingered by my bars long after lights-out, his shadow stretching across the concrete like something monstrous.
“Such a fucking waste,” he used to murmur, fingers curling around the bars. “Pretty little thing like you, locked up in here. No cameras in the showers. Five minutes—that’s all it would take for me to bend you over and fuck that sweet pink cunt until you forget your own name.”
When I refused—when I turned my face away and pressed my hands over my belly instead—he’d smiled.
That was the worst part. The smile.
Then the punishments began.
Half-portions. Sometimes less. A spoonful of watery gruel tossed onto my tray like scraps to a dog.
I would swallow it slowly, forcing my body to believe it was enough. Sometimes they’d yank the tray away mid-bite, laughing as my stomach twisted in on itself.
I would sit on that narrow cot afterward, rocking gently, cradling the small swell beneath my palm.
“It’s okay,” I would whisper before my voice was taken from me. “Mama’s here.”
I scavenged crumbs from the floor once. Actual crumbs. The prison kitchen servers had stopped giving me food — following Harlan’s orders.
My pride dissolved the moment hunger turned into a living creature inside me, clawing and gnawing at my insides. I remember pressing my forehead to the concrete, sobbing silently as I picked up hardened bits of bread and dusted them off against my sleeve before eating them.
One night, I woke to warmth on my cheek.
Thick. Foul.
The cell erupted in laughter before I even understood what had happened. One of the women—Harlan’s favorite enforcer—had squatted beside my cot and defecated on me while I slept.
A message.
I scrubbed myself in the rust-stained sink until my skin bled.
Harlan leaned through the bars the next morning, eyes glittering.
“That brat in your belly won’t make it,” he’d whispered. “Not unless you spread those legs for me, sweetheart.”
I had looked at him then—really looked at him—and made a vow.
Over my dead body.
But vows mean nothing in hell.
The beatings started in my fifth month. Blows to the head. Repeated. Methodical. The world had begun to sound muffled, like I was underwater. Voices warped into distant echoes.
Then one morning, I woke to silence.
Total silence.
I screamed and heard nothing.
I lost my voice a month later. They crushed my throat during what they called a “disciplinary session.” I remember the crack of cartilage beneath a boot, the way my lungs burned as I tried to inhale around the swelling.
I clawed at my neck, trying to drag air inside.
No sound ever came back.
