"L-Lily," I manage. "Just Lily."
"No surname?"
"I was in foster care. I don't... I don't have one."
Something flickers in his eyes. Gone before I can identify it. His gaze drops briefly—not to my body, not the way the senator looked at me—but to the bruise on my collarbone. His jaw tightens.
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen."
"And how did you come to be here, Lily who is nineteen?"
My throat tightens. "My foster parents sold me. A month ago." I hate how small my voice sounds. How scared. How aware I am of him standing so close. "I was supposed to turn nineteen next week. They told me the men were going to help me find a job. Instead they—" My voice breaks. "They sold me."
His jaw tightens further. A muscle ticks beneath the scar on his eyebrow. He looks angry, but not at me. At the situation. At the people who did this.
That shouldn't make me feel safer. It shouldn't make me want to step closer instead of away.
"The senator says you are a virgin."
Heat floods my cheeks. I want to look away but I can't. His eyes hold me in place. "Yes."
"Is this true? Or were you told to say this?"
"It's true." My voice cracks. "I've never... no one's ever..."
I can't finish the sentence. The tears I've been holding back for weeks are suddenly threatening to fall.
No one's ever wanted me like that,I almost say.No one's ever looked at me the way you're looking at me right now.
Because he is looking at me. Really looking. Not at my body, not assessing my value—but atme. Like he's trying to see something underneath the fear and the blood and the bare feet.
He stares at me for a long moment. Then he asks a question I don't expect.
"What do you want?"
I blink. "What?"
"If you could have anything." His voice is quieter now. Almost gentle, though that seems impossible. "What would you want?"
The senator makes an impatient noise behind him. "Leonid, this is hardly—"
"Quiet." The word is sharp as a blade. The senator shuts up.
The Russian, Leonid, is still watching me. Waiting.
What do I want?
No one has ever asked me that. Not once in my entire life. Foster parents didn't care. Social workers had too many cases. The Hendersons certainly didn't ask before they handed me over for cash.
And now this terrifying stranger wants to know.
"I..." I swallow hard. The answer comes out before I can stop it. Small and broken and honest. "A family. Someone who wants me." The tears spill over. I wipe them away quickly. "That's all. That's all I've ever wanted. Just... someone who wants to keep me."
Leonid is completely still. His ice-blue eyes are fixed on my face, and something has changed in them. Something I can't read.
Then he turns.
