Bonus Content #2
I know she’s lying to me, but I don’t push it because that’s not the kind of relationship we have. Since my father refused to respect our boundaries, my mother and I tend to go overboard trying to respect each other’s. It means we don’t always say how we really feel.
We pay for our frozen meals and then leave, neither of us continuing our conversation.
When we return home, I can tell something is wrong.
The front door is cracked open, and we left it locked.
“Get behind me,” Mom tells me, inching closer to the door. She pushes it open and ducks her head inside. “If someone is stealing from us, then please, just go.” To me, she says, “Call the police.”
I grab my phone and dial 9-1-1.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
Before I can give an answer, a man appears in our doorway. A man I know every well.
My father.
Mom screams right before he grabs her and yanks her into the apartment.
“We’re being attacked,” is all I can get out before my father grabs me and pulls me inside, ripping the phone from my hands. He smashes my phone to the ground.
The apartment is ransacked. The couch cushions are on the floor. The beautiful pieces of pottery my mom made are left in pieces. He must have smashed them. There’s broken glass everywhere.
“What are you doing here?” Mom asks.
Dad pulls out a gun and aims it at us. We both cling to each other as if that will somehow protect us.
It won’t.
We ran from my father, and now, he’s come to get us back.
“I’m here,” he says, “because you two bitches left me.” Spit flies out of his mouth.
My father was never a conventionally good-looking man, with thinning gray hair and a heavy belly.
My mom, on the other hand, is a classic beauty, with her blonde hair and soft features.
She always told me she didn’t marry him for love but for safety.
And even that, he couldn’t provide.
“If you want money,” Mom says, “we don’t have any.”
“Of course, you don’t. I was always the one who had it. But I’ve fallen onto some hard times. I’m in need of money.”
“But you just said we don’t have any,” I say.
“Shut up,” he screams at me, making me flinch. Mom holds me closer against her.
“Don’t talk to her that way. You were always a horrible father.”
He gets right into her face, pressing the gun to her head and making her cry. “So, then, why did you marry me?” He pauses. “Oh, that’s right. Because you’re gold digger.”
“How can I be a gold digger when I left you and all your money behind?”
My father’s face contorts into an ugly sneer. It’s a look I’ve seen hundreds of times, and it never fails to send a shiver down my spine.
He whips my mom across the face with his gun, knocking her to the ground.
“Mom!” I bend down next to her, but my father grabs me. “Let me go!”
He places the gun to my head, forcing me to go still. “You were always too pretty for your own good. I hated having a pretty daughter. I saw the way men looked at you.”
I never saw those looks because he never let me be around men at all. It’s another delusion my father made up to make me feel terrible about myself.
“But right now, I’m glad I have a beautiful daughter.” He runs the gun up and down my face. “Because you’re going to earn me a pretty penny.”
I’m not sure exactly what he means by that, but I can guess enough to know I need to be terrified. And I am terrified.
“Let her go,” Mom warns, standing back up. “You don’t need Ava. Take me instead.”
“Why would I want you? You’re old, woman. No man would want to buy you.”
Buy?
“Just let her go,” she reiterates. “Please. I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?”
“Yes.”
“Mom, don’t.” I can see the desperation in her eyes. I can’t lose her.
“I’m the reason we left,” she says. “Punish me. Leave Ava alone.”
“You know, I would love to punish you. But I need money more. And Ava will fetch me a good price. You see, I bargained. There’s a man who wants a wife, and he’s offering a lot of money for Ava. So, I’m going to give her to him.”
“What man?” I ask.
He shrugs. The fact he can act so nonchalant hurts even more. “Some Mafia man. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“You sold our daughter to the Mafia? You fucking bastard.” She lunges at him, raking her hands down his face. He shoves her away and points his gun at her.
Then he fires.
The bullet lands in her stomach.
“No!” I scream, wrenching away from my father, but he pulls me tighter against him.
Mom staggers back and drops to the ground.
“Let’s go,” he growls, dragging me out of the apartment.
“No! Mom!” I continue to scream down the hallway, but no one leaves their apartments to come check. I’m invisible. I’m alone.
“Stop,” Father hisses and whips his gun against my face. The shock and pain of it makes me stumble back. He uses that to his advantage and shoves me forward. My feet just barely catch up as we leave the apartment building.
I don’t know whether I’m crying or bleeding as he forces me into a car. I think a little bit of both.
All I can think about as we drive away is that my mom is dead.
She’s dead.
I slump against the car door, not putting up a fight.
What’s the point? My father will never let me go.
And now some Mafia man wants me. I don’t know anything about the Mafia except from what I’ve seen of movies, and it’s obvious in those films that once the Mafia has their hooks in you, they’ll never let you go.
My education? Over. Jason and my other friends at school? I’ll probably never see them again. My mom? Dead.
So, there’s no point in fighting.
My father drives us into New York City, which takes just over an hour. In that entire time, neither of us speaks. I don’t try to escape, and he doesn’t try to hurt me again.
I grew up in this city. I always thought it was magical as a little girl. People everywhere. Central Park being home to fairies. Cute cafés and bookshops on every corner.
But as an adult, I see New York City for what it really is—pure ugliness. Dark and damp and trash everywhere and people who don’t help others. People who are so preoccupied with their phones that they don’t see what or who is right in front of them.
My father never allowed me to have a cell phone growing up, so I never had experiences with social media. And now, as an adult, I’ve avoided it since I found it overwhelming.
It was just another way for my father to control me. And I hate that he’s still controlling me.
Eventually, he pulls up before an elegant-looking members-only club. Instead of going through the front door, he takes me around back.
A man opens a back door. He has a weasel quality to him that sets me on edge “Is this her?”
“Yes. But before I hand her over, I want to get paid.”
“You’ll get paid by the man himself. But we’ll take her in the meantime.”
Father tightens his hold on me. “No. I want to get paid now.”
“That’s not how it works. Only once he has her will he pay you.”
These two men are talking like I’m not even here. How can people treat others this way? How can my own father?
“Fine,” he grits out. “Take her. But I expect to get paid.”
“You will.” Weasel man grabs me, shoves me inside, then closes the door on my father’s face.
“Please, just let me go,” I beg. We’re standing in what looks like a storage room full of boxes.
“Begging won’t get you anywhere, little girl.” He forces me down a hallway and into a dark room. In the middle of it is a cage.
I back away. “No. Please. No!”
He sighs as if I’m inconveniencing him. “Let’s just make this easy, shall we?”
Before I can react, he punches me in the face, and everything goes black.
I wake up in the cage.
I call out for help, but no one responds because no one here wants to help me.
When the sleazy-looking man appears and tells me it’s time for the auction to begin, I know I have to confront what happened.
My father sold me for money.
And my mother is dead because of it.
Sleazy man opens the cage and pulls me out. I take one look at the open door and make a run for it, but he grabs me and locks my hands behind me in cuffs.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he growls. “You’re going to make us a lot of money.”
He pushes me forward down the hallway and through a door that leads onto a stage. In the middle of the stage is one chair, and it’s meant for me. He locks me to the chair by my hands and ankles so there’s no way I can escape.
Before me is just darkness. The spotlight on me is so bright, I can’t see anything. But I can sense there are people here, and they want me. They want to buy me.
“Look at what we have here, gentlemen,” Sleazy man says. I almost scoff at the word “gentlemen.” No gentleman would buy another human being. “A beautiful young woman. Only nineteen. And a virgin.”
My skin breaks out in goosebumps. The air changes after he says “virgin.” There’s a crackle to it. I can hear murmuring from the people in darkness. The people who want to bid on me.
“We’ll start the bidding at one million dollars.”
I almost faint. One million dollars? To buy me? I almost wish I could pass out again. It would make all of this easier.
“There will be no bidding,” a man says from the audience. He has a feeble, small voice, but it carries.
“Little man, don’t test me,” Sleazy guy says. “We’re having an auction.”
“And this woman is already bought. So, hand her over to me, and you will receive compensation for five million dollars.”
Who is this man who wants me? Is this the Mafia man my father was talking about?
Sleazy man shrugs. “All right. But only if no one out bids you. Will anyone buy this woman for more than five million dollars?”
“Need I remind you,” the man from the audience says, “that Nikolai Petrov wants her?”
Sleazy man’s face goes white. “I … did not know that. Well, yes, of course he can have her. Come, take her.” He rushes to my side and unlocks me from the chair before leading me off the stage and into the audience.