She was pickpocketing them. I chuckled to myself.
I watched over the next hour, switching from beer to coffee, as she found three different marks. There was no better place to find tourists not paying attention and caught up in the romance of the Vltava River than here.
And she was good at what she did. Small, quick, unmemorable…as long as she kept those blue eyes downcast.
Then he showed up—the younger asshole from earlier. He waited in the near darkness of one corner of the bridge. As soon as the girl saw him, she ran her earnings over to him.
By the look on his face, it wasn’t enough. He grabbed her arm with enough force to leave bruises, jerked her closer, and whispered something. She nodded and pulled away quickly.
Whatever he’d said put her into a near-panic. Twice in the next twenty minutes, she tried to lift another wallet but was almost caught. Her movements were too jerky. Plus, it was getting later, the shops were closing, and people were more scarce and naturally more suspicious.
I kept my head down and my book in front of me so it didn’t look like I was watching as the guy signaled for her to come back over to him. An overweight, balding man stood next to him.
I knew by her hesitant steps and the sly smile he gave the overweight guy, that the asshole had just become the girl’s pimp for the night.
God fucking damn it.
Once again, I told myself not to go over there—literally or figuratively. This was a situation I couldn’t do anything about in the very limited time I had in Prague. But still, I found myself paying for my meal, ready to move.
The girl wasn’t interested in spending time with the fat man; that was obvious. It was also obvious that she wasn’t going to have a choice in the situation.
I scrubbed a hand down my face as Asshole pushed her closer to the fat man. She didn’t pull away, but she hunched her shoulders like she was hoping she could disappear into the medieval-aged bricks.
Once again, I found myself rushing somewhere I had no business going.
Asshole saw me first, his eyes narrowing. This time, he wasn’t going to walk away.
“This has nothing to do with you,” he said in surprisingly good English when I got within earshot. “Go back to your business.”
The girl’s head flew up at his words, those striking eyes growing wide as she saw me. But then she went right back into her hunch, not pulling away from the fat man now holding her arm.
“How much for her for the whole night?” I didn’t know any other way of getting her away from here without this ending in a beating for her.
That fucker who’d hit her earlier smirked. “Five hundred.”
I kept my cool. “We both know that’s not going to happen.” Not that I wouldn’t have paid five hundred to get her out of this situation, but I knew that would only cause more trouble in the long run. “I’ll give you a hundred.”
He crossed his arms over his scrawny chest. “For a hundred, you take her back behind the alley, and she’ll make you very happy.”
“Nikolai,” the girl gasped, face flying up again, despair blanketing her features. This obviously wasn’t usual business for her.
I wanted to beat Nikolai into the ground.
He smirked. “How about for one hundred and fifty, you both can split her. $75 for each. Yeah? She can take it.”
The fat man licked his lips as the girl blanched, breathing so rapidly I thought she might pass out. Fat guy obviously spoke English, looking excited because he was getting a bargain.
I was done with this shit.
I crossed my arms over my own chest, mimicking Nikolai’s posture, but I had at least fifty pounds of muscle on him. “How about I pay you one hundred and fifty, I get her the whole night in my hotel room, and I don’t beat the shit out of you?” I looked over at the fat man. “Out of either of you. My final offer.”
The fat man turned and left. Good. Fucking pervert.
Nikolai didn’t like my solution. He obviously wanted the girl to be as humiliated as possible.
“What are you going to do with her all night?
“That’s between her and me.” I grabbed the cash out of my wallet and slammed it against his chest. “Don’t look for her again until the morning.”
Nikolai folded the money slowly. “You like my feisty girl? Fine, you have her all night. But I’ll escort you to the hotel to make sure you get there safely.”
So much for my plan of sending her on her way as soon as Nikolai was gone. I wanted to beat this little shit until he dragged his ass home crying for his mama.
“Fine by me,” I said.
The girl was silent, all but dragged her feet as we walked the few blocks to my hotel. She sure as hell didn’t look very feisty right now. There wasn’t anything I could say to reassure her, so I didn’t try.
Nikolai had the nerve to walk us all the way to the door of the lobby. “I’ll see you in the morning, Bronya. I’m sure you’ll have a big tip from your American. Be safe, sister.”
Bronya.
I didn’t know whether to hope that she was really his sister or not. If she was, maybe she wouldn’t be subject to any of Nikolai’s own advances. But if he was selling his own sister against her will…what a clusterfuck.
We left him and went inside.
“Do you speak English?” I asked her. I spoke a couple of other languages conversationally, but I didn’t necessarily want to make that information public.
“A little,” she whispered with no trace of an accent.
“Will Nikolai be waiting to see if you actually go up into the room with me?”
She nodded. “He will wait here at least a couple hours. If I come out early, he will want…”
She faded off. He would want her to give him any money? Obviously. He would want her to find a second John for the night? Probably. He’d want to slap her around some more because he was a dick, and I’d spoiled his humiliation plans? Maybe.
I had no idea what I was going to do with her once I got her in my room.
I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in having sex with a traumatized teenager being forced into something she didn’t want to do. I had zero people skills, so talking to her to make her feel comfortable wasn’t going to happen either.
As usual, all I wanted was to be left alone. But that didn’t seem like an option. Not tonight. Not with her.
“I know my word doesn’t mean anything to you, but if I promise not to hurt you, not to touch you at all, would you agree to come up to the room with me?”
Chapter 2
Bronya
Five Years Ago
* * *
The big man was right—his word didn’t mean anything to me.
But I followed him silently into the elevator anyway. I hadn’t been lying about Nikolai waiting outside for the next couple of hours. By now, he would’ve called another member of his crew so that someone was watching both the hotel’s front and rear exits.
If he caught me sneaking out of here before morning, I would definitely spend the rest of the night on my knees servicing anyone he could find who would pay. He’d probably offer my body for free to get back at me for turning him down last week.
His father had made it very clear that Nikolai wasn’t to touch me unless I wanted it. And Gregory’s word was law in our neighborhood. It had kept me out of Nikolai’s bed for the past two years. I’d been sixteen when he’d noticed I had breasts and started a haphazard pursuit of me.