Chapter Three
The address led me to a building with a doorman who looked at my cheap black coat the way men at The Samovar Room looked at tap water.
I stood under the canopy with cold air biting through my tights, one hand wrapped around the strap of my bag and the other around my phone. The screen showed the last message from the number Tamar had given me.
No name. No explanation. No promise that I could turn around, go back to Brooklyn, and find another way before Gennady’s three days ran out.
Across the street, a black town car slid to the curb in front of a restaurant with candlelight glowing behind tall windows.
The back door opened, and a man in a dark suit stepped out with a woman on his arm.
She wore a silver dress under a white fur jacket, her blond hair glossy against the white fur.
She laughed at something he said, light and easy, and he bent his head toward her like the whole cold city had narrowed to the sound.
My fingers tightened around my phone.
Manhattan rose around me in glass and gold.
Office windows burned against the late-autumn dark.
Wind dragged dry leaves along the gutter and lifted the hair at my temples.
I had washed and pinned it twice before leaving the apartment, but the train ride had pulled pieces free.
My lipstick was the drugstore red I used at work because it made my mouth look steadier than I felt.
The east entrance sat half-hidden beyond a row of planters and black iron railings. No sign. No line. Just a brass-handled door, a security camera above it, and a man built like he’d been poured into his suit and left there to harden.
I walked toward him before my feet could decide for me.
He didn’t open the door.
“Confirmation code,” he said.
His voice was low and flat, with no curiosity in it. Not my name. Not why I was there. Not any of the normal questions a person might ask a woman standing alone in the cold with a bag from a discount store and fear under her lipstick.
I read the six digits from my phone.
His gaze moved to the screen, then to my face, then to the camera above the door. “Put the phone away.”
I did.
He touched the small device clipped inside his jacket cuff and waited. The cold slid under my coat while the door stayed shut in front of me.
A lock clicked.
He pulled the brass handle open. Warm air spilled out, carrying the smell of lilies, polished wood, and expensive men’s cologne.
“Go to the reception desk,” he said. “Give the code again.”
The entry hall had ivory walls, black marble underfoot, and a chandelier shaped like falling ice.
My low heels sounded too loud on the floor.
A woman in a fitted black dress stood behind a narrow desk with a tablet in front of her and a discreet earpiece tucked behind one smooth brown wave of hair.
Her dress was plain enough to be called a uniform and expensive enough to make the word uniform feel like a joke.
She didn’t smile. “Confirmation code.”
I gave it.
She typed. “I need your ID.”
My fingers fumbled once with the zipper of my bag. I hated that. I hated that she saw it. I handed over my license, and she compared it to the tablet.
“Nadia Yelchin,” she said.
Hearing my full name in that room made the skin between my shoulders tighten.
“Yes.”
“You confirmed voluntary entry by text.”
“Yes.”
“You submitted a photo.”
“Yes.”
“You understand payment depends on acceptance and final settlement.”
My hand closed around the strap of my bag. “I understand the payment is guaranteed if I’m accepted.”
Her dark eyes lifted to mine. “If the sale settles, payment releases according to contract terms.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I can give.”
She had a tablet, a desk, a locked drawer, and men near every exit. I had three days and no money.
She turned the tablet toward me. “Read it. Sign where indicated.”
The screen held paragraphs in small black print.
Private contract. Voluntary participation.
Virgin status verification. Confidentiality.
Forfeiture. Discretion. Release of liability.
My eyes moved over the words, but my attention stayed on the door behind her, the keycard clipped to her waist, the hallway camera tucked into a dark corner near the ceiling, and the second man in a black suit standing near an elevator bank.
There were no windows, no public lobby beyond the entry hall, and no other women waiting where I could see them.
I took the stylus.
My name looked too small on the screen.
The woman took the tablet back. “Phone and bag.”
My grip tightened before I could stop it. “Why?”
“No personal belongings in prep or presentation.”
“My ID stays with me.”
“Your ID stays with your checked belongings.”
“No.”
The man near the elevator turned his head.
The woman’s expression didn’t change. “You may decline intake.”
My pulse beat hard in my throat.
Decline intake. Walk back out under the canopy. Take the train home. Find Petya awake or pretending to sleep. Wait for Gennady to decide that three days had been generous.
I unhooked the bag from my shoulder and set it on the desk.
“Inventory,” the woman said.
She opened it in front of me. Phone. Wallet. Keys. Lipstick. Crumpled tissues. A protein bar I’d bought from the bodega and forgotten to eat. The sight of it made my stomach twist with sudden, useless hunger.
She placed everything into a cream-colored cloth pouch with a printed tag. Then she slid the tag toward me.
“Initial here.”
I did.
The bag disappeared into a drawer behind the desk. The drawer shut with a soft, expensive whisper.
“I need your coat,” she said.
I looked down at myself. “Now?”
“Yes.”
I unbuttoned my coat and handed it over. Cold clung to my black sweater and skirt. I had dressed as neatly as I could, which meant I looked poor in clean clothes. Black tights. Low heels. Small hoops. Hair trying to escape the pins. Lipstick doing its best.
The woman placed my coat on a hanger and passed it to a staff member who had appeared from a side door. Same black uniform. Same quiet face.
“Follow her,” the woman said.
The staff member led me to the elevator. She didn’t give her name. I didn’t ask. A name would make her harder to ignore later, and everyone in this building seemed trained not to become memorable.
The elevator opened without a sound.
Inside, mirrored walls reflected me from every side. My face looked pale under the soft gold ceiling light. My mouth was too red. My eyes were too large. The woman pressed a keycard to the panel, then touched the button for the top floor.
As the doors slid shut, I saw the reception woman look back down at her tablet.
The elevator rose.
No music played. No numbers lit above the door. The faint pull in my stomach sharpened as the floor climbed, and the woman’s reflection stood beside mine, calm as a locked drawer.
“What happens upstairs?” I asked.
“Intake. Preparation. Waiting. Presentation.”
“You say that like I’m a dessert tray.”
Her gaze flicked to me in the mirror. “It’s better if you listen the first time.”
“I’m listening.”
“Then don’t make them repeat anything.”
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened onto a hallway washed in pearl light.
Thick carpet swallowed our footsteps. Tall arrangements of white lilies stood on black pedestals between smoked mirrors.
Somewhere beyond the walls, men laughed softly.
Glasses chimed. A piano played a slow, pretty tune that made the hallway feel even colder.
The staff member led me through one locked door, then another. Each opened with her keycard. Each shut behind us.
The women’s prep suite looked like a bridal salon until I noticed the lock on the door.
Cream walls. Champagne velvet chairs. Long mirrors framed in smoked glass.
Vanity stations lit by soft bulbs. Garment racks holding pale silk and satin.
Black marble counters lined with brushes, powder, pins, and lipsticks in shades of pink and rose.
A tray of champagne flutes sat beside a silver pitcher of water beading with condensation.
Six women were already inside.
One stood near a garment rack in a pale slip, arms wrapped around herself, her red hair falling in soft curls to her shoulders.
Another sat at a vanity while an attendant painted color onto her mouth.
A tall blonde stared at the floor with her jaw tight and her hands flat on her knees.
Two women whispered together on a velvet couch until the door clicked shut behind me.
The last looked younger than me, with dark skin, wide eyes, and a necklace she kept touching until an attendant quietly removed it and placed it into a numbered pouch.
No one reacted to me.
I tucked my empty hands against my skirt.
An older woman crossed the room toward me. She wore the same black uniform as the others, but hers fit with sharper lines. Her hair was lacquered into a smooth dark helmet, her lashes thick and false, her nails painted a deep wine red. Powder softened the lines around her mouth without hiding them.
“I’m Polina,” she said. “You’ll come with me.”
Her voice held a faint Russian edge, practical and low. Not kind. Not cruel. A voice for getting through things.
“What happens if I change my mind?” I asked.
The room went quieter around me.
Polina’s eyes stayed on mine. “Before presentation, you can ask to leave. The house may charge costs. No sale, no payment. After settlement, you leave with the buyer unless management stops transfer.”
“Management.”
“Yes.”
“And if the buyer is someone I don’t want?”
Polina’s mouth tightened by half a breath. “This isn’t the room for that question.”
“Which room is?”
“The one you should have asked before you arrived.”
Heat climbed my throat.
Her jaw stayed tight after she said it.
Polina gestured toward a curtained alcove. “Clothes off. Everything except underwear. You’ll be examined, then dressed.”
My feet stayed still. “Examined by who?”
“A female clinician.”