Chapter 2
Chapter two
Jana
The door closes and I'm alone with him now—truly alone, despite the two men flanking the exit like sentinels. His security doesn’t count.
They belong to him the same way he clearly thinks I do.
Rafail Ismailov doesn't move from his position at the base of the stage.
Just watches me with those winter-gray eyes, his stillness more threatening than Volodymyr's pleading ever was.
The other girls ran. Smart girls. Girls with backup plans and people who'd notice if they vanished. I have a dying grandmother and a delivery app that'll replace me by morning. I Besides predators chase what runs. So I lock my knees and stay where I am, even as every instinct screams at me to bolt.
"Come down here."
His voice is soft. Almost gentle. It's the gentleness that terrifies me most—because gentle men don't shut down auctions with violence. Don't have soldiers who move like trained killers. Don't look at women like they're inventory.
I descend carefully, grateful when my ankles hold. Each step closes the distance between me and whatever he's already decided.
“Auction.” The word tastes like shame and desperation—like the moment the hospice nurse explained they'd reduce Grandma's pain medication, and Grandma smiled and said she was fine even as she winced with every breath.
I'd give anything for her. My dignity. My body. Whatever pieces of myself I have left to trade. He can have all of it.
Just not my soul.
"What's your name?"
Something in his expression tells me he already knows.
"Jana." My voice comes out steadier than it has any right to. I hold onto that small victory. "Jana Spears."
"Jana." The way he says it sounds like a decision. Like he's testing the weight of it in his mouth. "Tell me why you're here."
Not a question. A command wrapped in courtesy.
I could lie. I *should* lie. But liars need good memories, and I'm so exhausted I can barely remember what day it is.
"My grandmother is dying." The words crack something open in my chest. "Renal failure. Stage five. Dialysis three times a week, medications that—" My throat tightens. I stop before I spill everything. Before I hand him all of it. "I needed money. Fast."
"And you thought selling your virginity to strangers would solve that?"
Heat surges through my chest, sharp and sudden, burning clean through the fear. "I thought fifty thousand dollars would buy her another year."
"Fifty thousand." He says the number like it offends him. "You sell yourself too cheap." He takes a step closer. "I don't sell women, Jana. I don't allow women to be sold in my establishments." Another step. "But I understand transactions."
My heart hammers against my ribs. "What are you saying?"
"A private contract. Two weeks under my protection." He closes another foot of distance. "Your grandmother's medical care—all of it—handled. And I'll pay you."
*Under his protection.* The phrase does nothing to comfort me. If anything, it drops my stomach, because protection from a man like this comes with conditions I'm not ready to consider.
"How much?" The question escapes before I can dress it up in anything more dignified. We're past pretending.
"How much were you willing to leave with tonight?"
I swallow. "Fifty thousand. Starting bid."
His eyes narrow. "I'll give you one hundred and fifty thousand. For two weeks."
The number steals my breath. Three times what I'd hoped for. Enough to cover Grandma's care for years instead of months.
Before I can stop myself: "What would you want? For that price?"
His smile is a wolf's smile. "Everything."
Something reckless rises in my chest—some last shred of defiance that refuses to go quietly—and the words tumble out before I can catch them: "For two hundred thousand, I'll stay two weeks. And I'll give you *some* things."
His eyebrow lifts. "Some things?"
"Some things." I hold his gaze even though everything in me wants to look away. "No one gets everything they want in life. Not even you."
The silence stretches long enough for me to understand I've miscalculated. Pushed somewhere I shouldn't have.
Then he laughs—real, genuine, and somehow more unsettling than his coldness, because it means I've surprised him. And surprises from men like him rarely end well.
"You have spine, milaya. I like that." He closes the remaining distance until I could count his eyelashes, until I can see the pale flecks in those winter-gray eyes. "Four hundred thousand."
The number doesn't register. "What?"
"Four hundred thousand dollars. Two weeks. You give me what I want, when I want it, how I want it." His hand catches a strand of my hair, rubbing it slowly between his fingers. "Your grandmother gets the best facility in Boston. Private room. Round-the-clock care. Whatever she needs."
"Why?" The question slips out raw. "Why so much?"
His hand moves to my chin, tilting my face up. "Always know your worth." His thumb brushes my lower lip—a single, deliberate pass. "To desperate strangers, you were worth fifty thousand. To me, you're worth considerably more."
The word wraps around my throat like a noose.
He releases me and steps back. "You'll live in my home. Follow my rules. No outside contact without my permission."
"My grandmother." The words come fast. "I need to see her. She'll worry if I disappear."
His jaw tightens. "One supervised visit per week. You tell her you have a new job. Nothing else."
More than I expected. The relief loosens something in my chest I hadn't realized I was holding. "Okay."
"In exchange, you don't leave the property without permission. You don't refuse me. You don't lie to me." Each rule lands like a stone dropped into still water. "Break any of these, and the contract is void. You leave with nothing."
You belong to me.
The words echo in my head—*I don't know this man, don't know what he's capable of, don't know what 'everything' means when the door is locked and there's no one to hear me*—but I know what it means if I walk away. Grandma dying in pain because I was too scared to save her.
"I want it in writing." The demand surprises even me, my voice steadier than it should be. "A contract. All the terms. And I want the money for her care transferred before I agree to anything else."
Respect flickers in his eyes. "Smart girl."
He pulls out his phone and holds it out. "Bank account number."
My hands shake as I enter Grandma's information. Within seconds, his phone chimes.
"Done. She'll be moved to a private room tomorrow." He pockets the phone. "Daniil will draw up the contract."
Daniil—the mountain of a man by the door—produces a tablet. His thick fingers move with surprising efficiency.
Rafail hands it to me. "Read it carefully."
The legal language swims. But the terms are clear enough. Two weeks of exclusive companionship. Four hundred thousand upon completion. Medical expenses covered in full. And if I break the rules, I forfeit everything.
If he breaks the contract—
There's no clause.
"There's nothing here that protects me," I say quietly.
"I protect you." His voice is absolute. "My word is your protection."
I should demand better terms. Insist on written protections. Negotiate like the business student I'm supposed to be.
Instead I think about Grandma smiling through her pain, telling me she's fine when we both know she's dying—and my hand moves almost of its own volition. I sign my name. *Jana Spears.* The letters look small on the screen. Fragile.
Rafail takes the tablet, his fingers brushing mine, and his voice wraps around me like silk pulled tight. "Welcome to my world, milaya."
He signs below my name with a flourish.
Just like that, I belong to him.
For two weeks, I belong to the monster. I can only hope I'll recognize myself when it's over.
***
The silence in the back of the SUV is its own kind of pressure—expensive leather, his scent of cedar and smoke and something darker underneath both, Vasily driving with practiced discretion, eyes forward, pretending not to notice.
Rafail hasn't spoken since we left. He sits close enough that his heat radiates through the thin fabric of my dress, his hand resting on the seat between us, fingers still against the leather.
I stare out the window at the Boston skyline sliding past and watch the terrified woman in the glass—the one who just signed herself over to a stranger and called it a choice.
But I also see the defiance in that reflection. The spine.
He can have my body and my time and my compliance for two weeks. He won't have the part that matters.
"You're thinking very loudly over there," he says.
I don't turn. "I wasn't aware thinking had a volume."
"Everything has a volume if you know how to listen." His hand moves to rest on my thigh—not groping. Claiming. "Your fear, for example. It's screaming."
"I'm not afraid."
"Rule four, milaya. No lying." He reaches across and takes my hand. I flinch but don't pull away. His fingers are warm against my ice-cold skin. "Your pulse is racing. You haven't taken a full breath since we got in the car. And you're gripping that jacket like it's the only solid thing left."
I glance down at my other hand. He's right. I'm white-knuckling his jacket like a lifeline.
"Your phone," he says. "I need it."
"I haven't contacted anyone—"
"Yet." He squeezes my hand once. "No outside contact without permission. That includes your phone." He releases my hand, palm up, waiting.
"What if my grandmother needs me?"
"They'll call me." He sees the protest forming. "It's already arranged, Jana."
I stare at his open hand for a long moment, then unlock the phone and place it in his palm.
He opens my messages and scrolls through with the casual ease of someone who already owns the inventory. My stomach turns watching it.
"I need to message my roommate," I say. "She'll notice if I vanish."