4. Elena
ELENA
I entered my father’s office and closed the door quietly behind me. Even like this, giving him my back for another second, was an action of avoiding attention, of buying myself a few more seconds of not having to face him.
Once I turned, though, nervous and confused, I lifted my gaze and fought not to show how scared I was.
As expected, he looked furious. His ruddy cheeks were redder than usual, showing how he really probably should care more about his blood pressure.
His eyes were slitted as he narrowed them at me, seething.
Pressed thin in an angry, pursed expression, his lips remained unmoving as he seemed to size me up.
A scathing once-over from him was nothing new.
I was used to him viewing me as a waste of space, an inferior bother to deal with.
Even though I worked my ass off for him. Even though I never asked for anything and did as I was told, too ingrained in this mentality of having to please him and anyone else who tasked me with an assignment or expectation.
I had no clue what to say. I didn’t know what to do or ask.
Standing here and feeling like a trapped animal, I endured a horrendous wait for him to explain why he’d yelled for me like that.
Maybe he’d explain why those spreadsheets were off, too.
If he were to ask me why that account showed insufficient funds, I’d only be able to offer him the truth—that I didn’t know.
They’d been right when I left last night.
“I have a situation with a client,” he stated in his raspy baritone.
“A client?” I blinked. “The one whose account was changed overnight?”
It didn’t seem possible, but he narrowed his eyes more. “You’re aware, huh?”
“I’m not sure what, exactly, I’m supposed to be aware of, but I noticed that the files I checked last night are showing something different this morning.”
“Hmm.” He huffed, but I couldn’t tell if it was grunt, a laugh, or a kind of murmur of agreement.
It was dismissive. And it worried me.
What is going on? I wanted to scream it, almost trembling with the urgency of too many questions swirling in my mind.
“Have you forgotten to inform me about a change in a transaction?” I asked.
He smirked now. That was even worse than him dismissing me.
He’d dismissed me my whole life. While he’d never cared for me to speak up or question him, probably seeing that as an act of disobedience, I couldn’t help but feel like I wasn’t acting out of line to ask him that.
If there was a new condition or policy or request that I needed to adjust to, then all he had to do was let me know and I’d smooth it out.
How could he expect me to read his mind or guess what was going on?
I swallowed hard, my mouth dry as I stood stock still and stared at him.
“I haven’t ‘forgotten’ anything,” he replied tersely, sitting upright.
Without him leaning back in his chair, his posture was suddenly that much more threatening even though he remained seated.
The idea that I could stand over him was laughable.
There was no trick or power play in here.
He was in charge, and I’d never have autonomy over my life.
“However, I did call you in here to inform you about a change.”
I almost exhaled in relief. If he wanted to always lord over me and remind me that he called the shots, whatever. He could enjoy his power trip so long as I knew what my expectations were.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Maybe this was all just a misunderstanding.
“A change for those accounts? And that transaction?” I stupidly jerked my thumb over my shoulder to indicate the direction of my office. “I’ll get right on it now.”
“A change in your role.”
I blinked.
My role?
My only role was to be the accountant in charge of his criminal clients.
“You will no longer come to this office,” he stated, steamrolling right over the confusion that washed over me. “You will no longer go home to your apartment. As soon as a representative of my client arrives, you will leave with them.”
I blinked again. And then some more. I wasn’t sure what moving my eyelids would do to make this make sense, but I wasn’t even thinking now. I was reacting, running on instincts to process this.
“I will go… with your client?” The words came out shaky. Like I was testing out a foreign dialect.
“You will go with them. That’s what I just fucking said.”
“To work for them directly?” I asked.
He grunted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure. You can tell yourself that.”
A flicker of anger shot through me. “Why don’t you tell me? Tell me what is going on.” Because of his thunderous expression at how I’d talked back, I cleared my throat and added, “Please.”
“There’s a situation that got a little out of hand. A miscalculation?—”
“ My miscalculation?”
He growled at my interruption. “It doesn’t matter. Something didn’t line up as it should have, and now I’m stuck having to face off with a very angry representative from the Volkovs.”
Blood drained from my face. A weightlessness tugged me down and had me nearly panting. “ Volkov ?”
Oh, no.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Like anyone else in the area, I’d heard of them.
The Russian Bratva was notorious for skirting the law, acting like the worst of criminals.
If they were one of the clients I’d been doing accounting work for, this was the first time I was learning of it.
I never knew actual names. That was the whole point of it, covering up and hiding what and who was doing what with gross amounts of money.
“That’s what I fucking said,” he snapped. “You will go with the Volkovs when they arrive. As collateral damage.”
Now I reacted. I stepped back involuntarily as if he’d hit me.
“Collateral…” I started shaking my head before I could even determine the need to deny and reject what I was hearing. My body was clued into the danger, and I fought to understand and speak clearly. “No.”
“You don’t tell me no, you fucking bitch.”
“No, Dad. You can’t?—”
I swallowed again, feeling like I’d just run a marathon with how dry my mouth was, how frantically my chest heaved for air, and how rapidly my heart thumped.
“You can’t bring me into this. If they’re upset about a discrepancy with their accounts, it’s not my fault.
” Despite his malicious sneer, I carried on, rambling in panic.
“I can’t understand how you would think to make such a decision.
How can you—why would you—” I squeaked, almost hyperventilating.
“How could you even think to bring me into this situation and think that I?—”
“Bring you into this?” he mocked. “You’ve been doctoring their books for fucking years.”
“I didn’t know that!”
He rolled his eyes.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything to deserve this… this…” I scrunched up my face. “Collateral? You intend to hand me over as some kind of, of, of, some kind of payment?”
“That’s exactly what I’m fucking doing.” He lifted his chin, as if daring me to argue.
“No. This can’t be happening.” I’d been stuck in the numbing hell of the same old, day in and out with no escape, but this wasn’t the sort of change I could’ve counted on. “I… No. I am not at fault. Those invoices and spreadsheets were accurate.”
“That’s what you can think.”
What does that mean?
“I won’t.” I swallowed again, feeling more of a fire inside me to stand up—for once. For the first time in my life. “I won’t accept fault in this. I was just doing my job?—”
He chuckled, a mean, low sound that grated on my nerves. I was used to being dismissed and laughed at. Used to him treating me like I was stupid. But now? I couldn’t stomach it. He didn’t only think I was dismissible but also replaceable.
“Do you think that’s all this is? A job?” He snorted again. “You think you were doing legitimate accounting?”
I’d always known the “clients” he gave me weren’t typical businesses. But I never questioned it. I never told him no.
I had to now. There was just no way I could go along with this .
“No. I refuse to comply with this.” I hugged myself, sick to my stomach as I spoke up.
“You have no choice,” he growled.
“I—”
“You have no choice.” He paired it with a slam of his fist on his desk, cementing it as fact. “You will leave with them after they come to speak with me.”
No.
No!
You can’t do this to me!
Instead of screaming those words to him, I spun and raced out the door.
I couldn’t slow down and go through my usual careful escape.
I wasn’t worrying about hunching over, avoiding eye contact, or scurrying through the office like the meek mouse I wanted to be so I wouldn’t be the center of attention. Those things could penetrate my mind.
Panicking and trying not to pass out from the sensation of fight or flight, I fought the urge to throw up as I rushed to the bathroom.
Linda-Lisa gave me a scowl as I burst into the room.
“Jeez! Be more careful!”
Another woman walked out too, looking at me like I was losing my mind.
Once I got into a stall, locked the door, and sat on the closed toilet to hug myself tighter, I realized I was. Or my father had. Shivering and trembling at the panic attack, I strained to inhale more than rapid pants of air.
He’d lost his mind.
He’d seriously lost his mind if he thought he could do this!
Handing me over as collateral for an accounting mistake I had no part in?
This was crazy talk. Fiction. It had to be.
Fathers didn’t just tell their daughters to go off with Mafia men!
Struggling to wrap my head about how he actually thought he could order me to go with someone from the Volkov family, I focused on steadying my breaths.
I wouldn’t make this easy for them. If I passed out or fainted, they’d just carry me away while my father shrugged.
He was letting this happen.
No. He was choosing to forfeit me.
Hatred took root to deeper recesses of my soul, but in light of how I was expected to obey and go with criminals, I couldn’t find the energy to think about how to hate and scorn and abhor my father.
What I considered normalcy would no longer apply.
Huddling over myself as I hid in the bathroom, I forced myself to confront the terrifying reality that my father seriously intended to sell me. To hand me over like I was nothing but an item to move.
Zoning out at the checkered pattern of the linoleum floor, I tried to convince myself that this stuff even happened in real life. That it would happen to my life.
Running wasn’t an option. My father would hunt me down. I had nowhere to go if these Volkovs were on their way right now. If I ran, my father would sic them on me to hunt me down and that wouldn’t be a good start to my bleak future.
I’m going to be sick.
I forced another swallow, shoving the bile back down my throat. Between the knots clenching my stomach and my lungs racing to fill with enough air, dizziness hit me.
Don’t pass out.
Stay with it.
There has to be a way to survive—even this.
Yet as I trembled and broke down, I feared what could await me with the Volkov crime family.
Stay with it, El.
Just breathe.
You’ll find a way to survive.
Just breathe…
And hope for mercy.