Every day, my body betrays me in new ways. When he comes home from work and his eyes find mine across the room, my nipples tighten under my shirt. When he stands behind me to show me how to properly chop vegetables, his chest brushing my back, I feel myself getting... wet. Down there. Like my body is preparing for something my mind doesn't understand.
I'm nineteen years old and I've never felt this before. Never wanted anyone. The foster homes weren't exactly conducive tocrushes, and the trafficking... I learned to shut my body down entirely during those weeks. Survive. Don't feel.
But now I'm feeling everything, and I don't know how to make it stop.
One night, I wake from a nightmare—the auction block, the lights, the senator's hands on my thigh—and I go looking for Leonid. He's not in bed beside me. We've been sleeping together every night now, his body warm and solid against mine, and waking up alone sends panic shooting through my chest.
I find him in his office, the door cracked open, speaking Russian into his phone.
His voice is different. Cold. Clipped. The soft man who holds me through my nightmares is gone, replaced by something harder. Something dangerous.
I don't understand most of the words, but I catch a few.Money. Finished. Destroyed.
Then, in English: "Good. Let them rot."
He hangs up. I must make a sound, because he turns, and for a split second I see it—the predator beneath the protector. Eyes flat. Jaw hard. The face of a man who ruins lives without blinking.
Then he sees me, and it all melts away. His expression softens. His shoulders relax.
"Nightmare?" he asks, already moving toward me.
I nod, unable to speak.
He pulls me against his chest, and I go willingly, pressing my face into the warmth of him. He smells like cedar and leather and safety.
But I can't forget what I just saw. The other him. The real him, maybe.
"Who were you talking to?" I ask, muffled against his shirt.
He's quiet for a moment. "Someone who had information I needed."
"About what?"
His hand strokes down my back. "The Hendersons."
I go still.
"Come," he says. "Back to bed. We'll talk in the morning."
I let him lead me back to the bedroom. Let him tuck me against his side, his arm heavy around my waist.
But I don't sleep.
In the morning, he tells me everything.
We're sitting at the kitchen table, coffee growing cold between us, and he's explaining—in that calm, matter-of-fact voice—exactly what he did to the people who sold me.
"Their bank accounts have been frozen. All of them." He takes a sip of coffee. "The house is in foreclosure. Mr. Henderson's employer received an anonymous tip about his drug use—he was fired last week. Mrs. Henderson's nursing license is under review after some... irregularities... surfaced in her patient records."
I stare at him. "You destroyed them."
"They're not destroyed. They're still breathing." His jaw tightens. "That was a kindness they didn't deserve."
"But they've lost everything."
"Yes."
"Their home. Their jobs. Their—"
