1
Molly
When I can’t sleep, I wander.
In the shelters, it wasn’t possible. People would think you were trying to steal their things while they slept. Plus, I couldn’t leave Theo in the bed alone. So, I’d lie on the lumpy mattress with him tucked into my side and stare at the cracked ceiling.
Now, I wander through the spacious apartment Viktor is paying for while Theo sleeps in his own room. I know the apartment is luxurious and spacious, but I can’t keep myself from growing accustomed to it. To all of the wealth and riches and comfort. I want it to stay new and bewildering, but human nature is to adapt. I know that better than anyone. Now, despite my efforts, I’m adapting to being Viktor’s bird in a gilded cage.
Viktor has reminded me over and over again that he is doing all of this to protect us. The apartment and the guards are to keep me hidden and safe from his crazy brother. Theo’s crazy father.
That is the memory that keeps me up the most. The one that propels me out of bed in the middle of the night and sends me pacing around the house.
I thought I’d overcome what happened to me. I can’t remember the rape, after all, so it seems like it should have been easy to push aside and move beyond. But now that Fedor is threatening my life and coming for my son, the trauma of it rushes back fresh and new in waves that threaten to pull me under.
Those are the times I wish Viktor could be in bed with me. The times I wish I had someone to talk to. Someone to confide in.
I wandered instead of sleeping last night, so when Theo woke up at seven this morning, I struggled through breakfast and rocket-ship building until the nanny could take him for a while. I’m supposed to be studying, but I can’t seem to focus. My stomach keeps doing nervous flips, and I want to eat but nothing sounds good. Nothing has sounded good for days.
After I force down some toast with butter for lunch, I call Hannah as per our unspoken schedule.
My old friend Hannah has been a comfort to me. I can’t call her in the middle of the night when I need someone most, but we chat a few afternoons a week. Before a few months ago, it had been years since we’d spoken. She helped me out after Theo was born, setting me up with connections who could provide diapers and wipes and free vaccinations. She is the reason I made it through the early months, so now that the shit has hit the fan again, she is the only person I can think of who might be able to help.
I fall back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. Light is streaming through the wall of windows to my right, and I curl up in the sunlight like a cat. The sun has been the only source of external warmth in my bed for over a month. Mostly because the last man I had sex with locked me in my bedroom and refused to let me leave. Viktor apologized and bought the penthouse to make it up to me, but no matter how accustomed I’ve grown to the luxury, I won’t become accustomed to his betrayal.
“Molly?”
I blink and suddenly remember I’m on the phone. “I’m here.”
“You got quiet,” Hannah says. “My service is shit, so I thought maybe I dropped the call again. Honestly, it could be my phone or my service, maybe both. But I don’t have money to fix either.”
The phone in my hand is brand-new. Viktor just set it up for me a few weeks ago. He said he wanted me to be able to talk to my friends and get in touch with anyone if I needed to, but I know he is probably using it to track me. I want to throw the phone across the room, but guilt holds me in place.
Viktor cares about me.
Sure, his care feels like a prison sentence. It is suffocating and overwhelming and toxic in more ways than I can count, but isn’t that what I always dreamt of? All those nights sleeping in shelters with Theo tucked into my side, I stared at the ceiling and prayed for someone who would care. Someone who would take care of us. Now, I have it. I wonder how fast Hannah would trade places with me if she could.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know what that’s like.”
She sighs and then seems to brighten. “Speaking of, how are things going with your sugar daddy?”
Hannah doesn’t know the half of it with Viktor, but she knows that my one free night in a hotel turned into a free apartment. She assumes Viktor is taking care of me because I’m his mistress, and crazily enough, that story is more palatable than the truth, so I let her think what she wants.
“I’m in an interior design class now,” I say. “Only one and it’s online, but it’s a start. I wouldn’t have even been able to afford the textbooks before.”
“That’s amazing. Damn. What do I need to do to find me someone like that?”
Get raped by the brother of a crime boss, have his secret baby, and then go into hiding at his brother’s apartment to keep him from killing you and stealing your son.
I laugh and change the subject. “How are you?”
“It’s the same old story,” she says. “Except now, it’s the same old story without Matt.”
Matt is Hannah’s son. He is almost six. She had him when she was even younger than I was when I had Theo.
“Why? What happened to Matt?”
“He is living with his dad for a while.” She says it casually, but I can hear the hurt in her voice. “I just … couldn’t swing it. I was working too much to pay for this shitty apartment, and then I couldn’t afford day care. Everything was kind of falling apart.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “We’ve been talking a few times a week for weeks now. You could have said something.”
“Would it have made a difference?” The question isn’t meant to be biting, but I feel the sting of it regardless. Hannah helped me after Theo was born. She was most of the reason we made it through the first year at all, and in her time of need, I let her deal with everything on her own.
“Maybe not before, but it would have now. I have help, Han.” The words are out of my mouth before I can really consider their meaning.
“What does that mean?” she asks. “Is your sugar daddy a pimp or something? Why would he do anything to help me?”
“Ew. No. I’m not a prostitute. Viktor just … values me,” I say, wincing at the words. Loves me certainly isn’t right, but values me makes it sound like I’m a prized hog. Both options suck. “If I tell him my friend needs help, he might help.”
I don’t know if any of this is true. I never would have guessed Viktor would trap me in a bedroom rather than let me leave his apartment, so clearly I don’t have a full grasp of what he will and won’t do. But I can’t sit by and let Hannah suffer. Not when there is something I could do to help.
“I’ll talk to him,” I say. “Give me some time, and I’ll ask him.”
Hannah is in the middle of thanking me when her phone really does drop the call. And not a moment too soon, either. The second the phone beeps in my ear, telling me we’ve been disconnected, my stomach roils.
I sit up and press a palm to my belly, trying to understand the feeling, but a second later I know exactly what is happening.
I jump out of bed, wrench open the bathroom door, and barely make it to the toilet before my lunch comes pouring out into the bowl. I heave until there is nothing left and then fall back against the wall.