Chapter 4
KALINA
Isank down to the floor. My knees hit the rough threads of the carpet with a jolting halt. Debris was embedded between the plies, but it wasn’t enough of a harsh abrasion to cut my skin or give me rug burn.
Cuts wouldn’t work.
Any blemish on my flesh would be a scar that Yusef and Erik couldn’t repair or hide. My brother had made it no secret that he needed to keep me in a perfect, pristine, and pure condition so he could sell me off.
Even though Yusef was a monster, he would do what Erik told him. Avoiding any permanent scars on my body was critical when they both counted on getting the highest price and making themselves that much wealthier after selling me.
“You are moving too slowly,” he snarled, as if I wanted an explanation for why he’d knocked me down.
I knew better than to speak up. And I definitely knew better than to talk back—ever.
I hung my head, practically bowing in submission to him as I knelt there.
Getting up without his permission would be a worse sin yet.
Breathing through the simmering frustration from his handling, I dipped my chin until it touched my chest. This was my life.
My pathetic life of being so helpless to do anything but slip back into the depressing void.
The blankness. The numbness that encompassed my soul any time I tried to rationalize why this was my fate.
I would never understand the cruelty my own brother could show me. I would never be able to comprehend why he would task his closest friend and business partner with tormenting me into submission like this.
Almost as if he were reading my mind, Yusef chuckled slowly. “This is all part of the training.”
I loathed that word. Training. Like I was a creature, not a woman.
“You must learn your place, stupid whore.”
I fumed at the insults, used to them but never forgiving.
“When you are given to your husband, he will expect you to be nimble on your feet, not clumsy.”
I doubted that clumsiness was actually the appropriate description for why I had tripped coming into this room.
The pile of garbage rotting just inside the doorstep, a heap I couldn’t see while I was blindfolded, was the only reason I’d fallen.
That and the fact that he’d pushed me to hurry inside the empty bedroom that reeked of old body odor.
He’d prompted me to rush into this room so he could lock me in until Erik returned.
“When you are given to your husband, he will expect his wife to listen to his commands the instant he gives them, not move too slowly to react.”
A flicker of fury lit up inside me. It almost burned bright enough to sear though the numbness that blanketed me inside and out.
My husband can take his commands and fuck himself.
The temptation to yell that tickled my throat. That raw and honest opinion waited on my tongue, heavy and daring.
But I wasn’t stupid.
The last time I talked back and gave my opinion about anything was ten years ago. And I swore I could still feel the phantom agony of the broken bones I’d earned from the beating afterward.
“When you are given to your husband—”
Without lifting my head, because eye contact was a form of disrespect and defiance according to Yusef and Erik, I let out a long breath.
It seemed like I hadn’t had a chance to fill my lungs fully with this last transportation.
Being forced to walk through the cold wintry streets of New York without a coat was cruel.
Only the warmth of the blindfold over my eyes once we entered the building helped.
Still, since coming into this barely heated apartment, I felt so chilled to my bones.
Short, shallow breaths were all I could manage when every icy inhale of air felt like a freeze spreading from my chest.
Yusef didn’t continue.
Time stood still.
He remained where he was, in front of me without speaking or moving. Like always, the burn of his stare felt like a lethal threat.
What?
What is it now?
Anxiety kicked in as I tried to understand why he’d cut himself off so suddenly. Erik had a slightly less volatile temper than Yusef, but both of them were unpredictably ruthless.
Without moving, staying as still as possible, I waited for him to carry on and blather about what would be expected of me.
As if I didn’t know.
I hadn’t ever shown a sign of short-term memory loss, yet they acted like I couldn’t remember any of the rules they drilled into me. That I was expected to always submit and obey.
“Do you think this isn’t serious?” he asked before he backhanded me sharply.
I fell backward, easing into the numbness to avoid reacting to the pain. Before I dropped fully, because I refused to show fear that he could exploit, I straightened on my knees.
Fuck you.
Getting back up on my knees and still not making eye contact with him, I zoned out, staring at his shoes. And I let the numbness take over so I could blank out and retreat into that shell that would keep me sane.
“Am I bothering you?” he demanded. “Is it tedious to listen to me? Are you bored listening to me, you bitch?”
Another backhand.
I hid further inside myself.
“How dare you sigh like that? Acting like you’re too good for a lecture.”
Another hit. This one took me longer to get upright again. My ears rang. Dizziness crept into my head. But still, I stayed on my knees, head up if tipped toward my chest.
“Because you are not,” he growled. “You are not good for anything but doing exactly what your husband will tell you to do. You are not good for anything but being the obedient wife we have trained you to be.”
Heavy breaths left him as he ranted.
“You are a bad waste of space and nothing more. Just a fucking whore to give strong sons to the man who will put up with your presence!”
Despite my protective shell of blanking out, that safe nothingness I shrank into in my mind, his words pierced my soul.
No. I don’t deserve this.
I have never done anything to deserve this.
And I hadn’t even fucking sighed.
I was simply breathing, recovering my breath after the cold. Because that was all I really was. What I’d been reduced to. A breathing animal, not a human. A creature in a cage, tortured, conditioned, and beaten.
Yet, once more, I couldn’t help but exhale deeply. Being thawed out in this dirty apartment wasn’t issuing a conscious effort of respiration. It was merely a physical reaction to the warmth, to needing oxygen and to warm myself.
Once more, he misinterpreted that survival instinct of my diaphragm as a sign of disrespect and disobedience.
“How dare you sigh at me like I am a bother and not your teacher?” he bellowed.
I lost count of all the hits that he rained down on me while always making sure he wouldn’t cut my skin. He pounded his fists on me and slapped his palms against me, giving the kinds of injuries that I would feel deep inside but wouldn’t be permanently visible on my skin.
All I could do was sink into the numbness and wait for it to end.
It wasn’t easy to distinguish the difference between falling unconscious or simply retreating further into the blank shell that I relied on to keep me sane.
Eventually, though, the room fell quiet.
I was alone again. Yusef had finished beating me for the perceived slights and left me locked in this room—one without a window this time.
In a heap of despair, I let my mental shell recede.
Pain radiated from multiple epicenters over my body. Every one of his hits registered as I took inventory of how I would survive this time.
As I tried to stand, sounds returned to me from the other room.
Through the thin walls, I heard Erik speaking, reminding me that I was never alone.
He would come and go as he pleased. Yusef was my typical guard, but even in the short spells he would leave, a camera would be positioned on my door to track whether I would attempt an exit.
That was another lesson I’d learned over a decade ago, the one and only time I tried to escape after I broke the doorknob on the door of a crummy apartment bedroom they had been keeping me in.
That was when I learned that even if my brother and his enforcer weren’t here, they would always be watching. Punishment had followed that failed escape. Swiftly and severely, they both beat me for daring to leave. It was a hellish nightmare I never wanted to revisit again.
Erik must’ve come back from wherever he’d gone because his voice came in loudly as I stood and worked my arms and legs to move through the stiff pains. With the one-sided nature of his tone, it seemed that he was on another call.
Concentrating on breathing through the aches, I listened to another episode of him trying to speak with someone from this Rivera family.
Two months.
That was what he’d told this man a few days ago.
The day I’d been so stupid to think a pigeon was encouraging me to flee.
But how?
When?
Just how the fuck can I get out of here?
I would be a reluctant and unwilling bride to the Riveras in just eight weeks. The short term of that sentence depressed me, yet as I listened to more details, something inside me shifted as I strained to push myself up off the dirty floor.
“I’m doing you a favor, all right?” he said.
A moment of quiet followed, presumably while the other side spoke.
“It’s an insult that you’re trying to lower the price at all,” he said. “I’m talking about a virgin. She’s not just a common whore, but a virgin.”
I swallowed hard.
“Fuck, man. I don’t care if you want to sell her after you’ve bought her. See if I give a damn.”
I tensed, rising onto one foot.
“No, there are no stipulations. You pay me the money, the original price, and you can do whatever the hell you want with her.”
Oh, God.
“Hey, come on now. We’re friends. No, I’m not going to demand commission if you sell or share her after you’re through with her.” Filthy chuckles followed his crude words.
No! I shook as I stood, ignoring the splicing pain that shot up my calf.
No.
Oh, my God, no.
This can’t be true.