Prologue
Fifteen Years Ago
Sophiana
My skin crawls as I pull the sheet up to my chest. One of my regulars, Rodney—if that’s even his real name—dresses quickly and drops a handful of bills on the dresser. As soon as the door slams, I slip out of bed and scramble for the money. Counting quickly, I curse under my breath.
Der’mo.
Two hundred. That sicko left the bare minimum. He hadn’t bathed in days, and the things he wanted? Yet I cannot say no to him. Or any of them.
“You are nothing, cyka! You do what I say, and you get as much out of the men as you can or you are not worth keeping alive.”
Dimitri’s words play on a loop in my head. Every day, he threatens us. Hits us. So often, starves us. And we can do nothing. Because we are nothing.
Shuddering, I fold the bills and rush into the bathroom. After I hide the cash in a plastic bag underneath the toilet lid, I run the tap and use the rough washcloth to scrub between my legs.
The icy water raises goosebumps along my skin, and the towels are as stained as the sheets. This place is worse than the one room flat I shared with my mama and three sisters back in Penza.
No heat. No hot water. Nothing but dirty sheets, stained carpets, and cockroaches hovering in the dark corners. The only good in this slice of hell? The motel owner hides candy bars in the rooms every day. He knows Dimitri does not let us eat while we are working.
Hurry.
I only have five minutes until my nextguest, and I snake my hand under the sink, fingers stretched as far as I can until I feel the plastic wrapper. The bar comes free with a single tug and the corners of my lips twitch as I start to salivate.
Snickers. My favorite.
Cramming half the bar into my mouth at once, I continue scrubbing. Tits, pussy, ass. Nothing will make me clean. But I cannot smell like my last fuck when the next one knocks on the door.
The scent of the cheap soap makes my nose burn. If I ever have money, I will buy—stop it, Sophie.
Trying to balance on my too-high heels while wolfing down the candy barandwriggling into my cheap polyester-made-to-look-like-silk dress sends me careening into the bathroom door.
The pain sings along my shoulder and back, but I won’t let myself cry. I still have to brush my teeth.
I can’t focus on my reflection when I brace myself against the sink. If I do, I will see a girl who’s too thin. Collar bones sticking out, elbows and shoulder blades like razors. Tits that barely fill a bra. Bruises everywhere.
But mostly, I will see a girl who was so naive, she thought twenty-five thousand rubles could buy her a new life in the United States. A girl who didn’t realize the man making that promise would take so much more than money.
This is no life. Dimitri owns me. He took my passport as soon as I landed in the United States and tattooed hismarkon the back of my neck that same night. I will never escape him. Nor will any of the dozen other girls I sleep shoulder to shoulder with whenever I am nothere. He keeps us locked in a basement on the outskirts of the city. One house among ten he oversees in Philadelphia. We are never free. Never allowed to be outside alone. Forced to have sex with men we do not know, night after night.
The knock on the door makes me choke on the last of the toothpaste, and I hurry to rinse out the sink.
Three more men tonight, then I can shower and sleep. If I earn enough, Dimitri will let me use the hot water. Or finally make good on his promise of McDonald’s. Plastering on a shy smile and lowering my gaze, I open the door.
* * *
It’safter two in the morning when Anton—Dimitri’s driver and ourguard—pulls the van behind the two-story house in south Philadelphia. “Inside. Quickly,” he barks. The twelve of us obey without a sound, barely slowing until we’re down the stairs.
I gave Anton enough to earn my hot shower, but before he calls me upstairs, I pull half a candy bar from a rip in the hem of my dress and hand it to the newest girl. Anya is only eighteen, and she still cries before, during, and after every man who buys her. She sniffles and swipes at her cheeks, her eyes wide as she stares at the forbidden treasure.
“Fast, fast,” I whisper. “I hide the wrapper.”
“Sophiana!” Anton snaps from the doorway. “Up here now.”
I barely have time to shove the evidence of my rebellion inside the lining of my dress before he calls my name again. A third time and he will beat me.
He curls his thick fingers around my upper arm as he escorts me to the bathroom. But before we get there, the front door bangs open with such force, it flies off its hinges.
