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He looks at me, reading something in my face I wish he wouldn’t. “Did he touch you?”

“What?”

“Kento.” His voice stays calm. “Did he touch you?”

There are a thousand possible answers, and all of them are dangerous.

So naturally, I choose the stupidest available one. “Why?” I ask. “Jealous? Do you want him?”

His expression turns to stone. I realize my mistake exactly one second too late.

The shove isn’t hard enough to throw me far, just enough to force me back into the headboard and jar the air from my lungs. “Answer me properly.”

I swallow and glare at him, because if I stop being angry for even a second, I might have to admit how scared I actually am. And I’m not ready to do that. “What do you care?”

He leans in slightly, not close enough to comfort, only to dominate the space better. “Because word is that the bright yakuza heir likes sticking his cock into ass more than pussy, and he’s been circling around you a little too much lately. I remind you that his marriage to Alya would benefit us a lot, and I won’t let a spoiled brat like you flaunt your ass like a whore and get in the way of that.” His face hardens, whatever small thread of restraint he had left pulling taut. “You won’t see him again alone. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

I almost add “and sparkly,” but I would like to keep the use of my legs.

He lets go and steps back, smooths a hand over his sleeve like he hasn’t touched me at all, and says, “You’re making very expensive mistakes lately, Ilya.”

I rub my arm with one hand once he’s no longer controlling where my face points. “Send me the bill, then.”

His eyes go flat. “Don’t test me.”

Too late. I already have. We both know it.

He turns toward the door, then pauses with one hand on the handle and looks back at me over his shoulder.

“If he comes here again to see you, I’m going to assume it’s to fuck you,” he says quietly, “and then I’ll break your legs.”

Then he leaves. And I sit there on the bed in the wreckage of my own breathing, rubbing feeling back into my arm.

I have to stay away from Kento.

Maybe if I start now, it’ll hurt less when I finally have no choice but to lose him.

Little Prince

Mommy,

Anton hurt me.

I didn’t want to write that. I sat with the paper for a long time first. I drew a sun in the corner so it would look like a normal letter, then I crossed it out.

First he said it was a prank.

He put a box of big spiders in my bed. I didn’t see the box. I only felt them when I got under the blanket, all at once, on my arms and on my neck and one on my mouth. I couldn’t scream at first because my mouth stopped working. I think I made a sound anyway. It didn’t sound like me.

I forgave him because I wanted him to still be my friend. I thought if I forgave him, he would go back to playing with me. I even saved him a sweet. The big one. I put it on his pillow and waited outside his door like an idiot, because I thought he would come out and ruffle my hair and say it was only a joke and we could be us again.

He didn’t take the sweet.

Then he started hitting me.

I don’t like when he hits me, Mama. It isn’t like when I fall. Falling is stupid and then it’s over. This is different. He waits until no one is in the hall. He doesn’t even look angry all the time. Sometimes he looks calm, and that is worse, because I can’t tell when it’s going to happen. My arm is purple in a place my sleeve hides. My ribs hurt when I laugh, so I stopped laughing as much. Alya asked why I was quiet. I said I was tired. She believed me. I hate that she believed me.