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It’s impressive, I’ll admit, that she can get his teeth grinding with one line. But it doesn’t stop him from getting in her face again, his palm gripping her jaw, and growling, “Look, Meera, either you’ve really got no fucking idea what you’ve gotten yourself into? Or you’re trying to play us. Either way, we can’t risk it. So, I’ll be whatever animal I have to fucking be. You’re guilty until proven inno—”

Meera sobs and wrenches her head back. Valentin’s teeth are bared.

I don’t plan it. I don’t even realize I’ve moved until my hand is fisted in his collar, and I’m already wrenching him back. “That’s fucking enough for today, thank you. Stop. Come on. Out.”

Valentin’s brows knot with confusion. I’m not too fucking thrilled with myself for putting my hands on him—but my body doesn’t yet know it, with my pulse roaring in my ears still, my vision red over him putting his hands on her. Even if it was just doing his job, playing bad cop. What I’d asked him to do. What Trifon had ordered him to do.

“Okay,” Trifon says now, looking at me with curiosity I can’t fathom.

Behind me, I can hear Meera hiccupping through cries she fights to keep quiet. She isn’t too successful.

I exhale heavily. “Miron will have everything on everyone this woman has ever come into contact with. And if I suspect anything, I’ll end whoever needs to be gotten rid of. But, for today, that’s enough. She gets the point.”

Trifon’s gaze moves between Valentin and me, assessing, and I guiltily appraise my brother fixing his collar with a sniff. “Right,” he mutters.

Iosif shrugs, though there’s nothing cheerful about it now.

We file out of the room one by one. Valentin last. He doesn’t look at me. Even when I close the door behind me, I can still hear her crying inside.

My brothers idle in the corridor, waiting for me to say something. “I’m sorry,” I groan. “I don’t like making women cry, sue me.”

Val turns on me with a glare. “Are you implying I do?”

“No.”

“That made me sick to my fucking stomach, too,” he spits. “I took no joy in that. But we don’t know if she’s innocent or playing us. For all we know, she’s the mole’s fucking partner if not the mole. And we can’t risk glossing over that, Leo. After the past year we’ve had, can you?”

I don’t answer that.

He doesn’t really need me to.

Chapter 8 - Meera

Somewhere along the line, my tear-ducts capitulate. The tears dry up.

I can’t say for sure how long it takes. I don’t know how long I’ve been alone in this room, or how long ago I heard the door slam before quiet took over. I’m only aware it’s long enough for time to become a shapeless concept to me; stretched and mangled, until it’s no longer possible to quantify.

None-too-helpfully, my focus breaks down to the various parts of my body that ache: my wrists, which remain raw beneath the preposterous silk ties; my throat, swollen from all this pointless crying; my chest, hollowed out from the effort of not screaming till my throat bleeds. What I can’t bear to do is think about what happens next. I’ve had enough time to discover that thinking about it makes the panic crest within me again, and I can’t think anymore, at least not in any logical, productive manner.

Somehow, all I can think about is my dad.

Ray Gallagher in his blue uniform. Ray Gallagher with his badge and his gun and his sense of righteousness that’s somehow never extended to actually showing up for his daughter. Ray Gallagher, the proud cop, and how much he knows about a world where things like this—sex trafficking auctions in converted warehouses with tinted glass pods and anonymous bidders—apparently exist. I can’t stop wondering whether this would shock the hell out of him, too. Or he’d be numb to it after prolonged exposure. I don’t know which possibility would break my heart worse.

Neither could do it as badly as envisioning him doing to a person what Valentin Yuri did to me today. What all four of them ganged up together to do, with such merciless, inhumane purpose.

It’s true that the only thing I know about police interrogations is what I’ve seen on re-runs of Law & Order: SVU. Somehow, I don’t think any of these men—or Ray, for that matter—have ever asked themselves, What would Olivia Benson do?

But I think about my mother, too. About whether she knows I’m gone by now. About Neil, who texts me seventeen times a week about nothing, and will notice when I stop texting back. About my students, who will show up to third period on Monday and find a substitute in my classroom, and will probably be relieved, because teenagers are terrible and my AP Biology curriculum is genuinely brutal. About Nia, who I never actually replied to about going out that night. Had I really thought someone staring down my blouse was the worst thing that could happen to me on a Friday night?

I squeeze my eyes shut against the misery that roils within me.

This time, when the door swings open, I don’t flinch. I’m grateful that I’ve managed to cry myself out, because what’s left behind is harder, stonier, colder. It doesn’t even stun me to realize I’ve got the capacity for anger like this. I’m glad I do. I need it. Anger is so much more helpful than fear. Anger doesn’t let you feel like a helpless little victim. It doesn’t make you feel like someone’s victim, left at the mercy of cruel men who can, and will, do whatever they want to and with you.

Leonid’s alone this time. I wait for someone to follow after him, but he shuts the door behind himself with finality. Every muscle in my body stiffens. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything about it. When his eyes find mine, they are clouded with pity.

All it does is stoke my fury.

I must look pathetic—with my blotchy face and swollen eyes, sitting perfectly upright on a chair like some kind of fucked-up debutante waiting for a cotillion that will never come.