Tears spring to my eyes, not because of the way she bends my arm.
Because I know she means it about Tia.
When I turned fifteen, I started to fight them. Fought so hard and so often, I was sure they’d kill me. Maybe I wanted them to. Then one night I heard a loud bang. The crazy part is how no one screamed. Not Tia or any of the women in her room. No one made a sound when Margo went inside and shot Tia in the knee. They silently bandaged her up while I was still locked in my room, banging on the door, screaming for them to let me out. It’s a miracle she survived.
I’ve been obedient ever since. I can’t let them hurt her again.
Margo leans close enough that I feel her breath, hot and sticky against my neck. “Say it, bitch.”
The words are ripped from me. “Welcome to MM Textiles. How may I help you?”
CHAPTER TWO
We pass through the main room to get to the stairs. All the women look nervous. They know something’s wrong. There’s an energy in the air—of expectation, of fear. They can all see the strange clothes I’m wearing. And even worse, the shoes. As if I’m going somewhere.
Tia catches my eye, a question on her face. What’s happening?
I give a short shake of my head. I don’t know.
And that much is the truth. Why do they need me to pretend to be a secretary? Whatever angle they’re playing, it means that one of the women will be hurt. I only hope that it’s me.
I protect all the women, but it’s Tia I love the most. She was here when I showed up, a heartbroken little girl who’d watched her father get gunned down. I didn’t know that he was in the mafia. I didn’t know about his enemies. All I knew was that he smelled like pine needles and sang to me when I got sick.
Tia let me cry for five days. Then she told me I was done crying. I was a lucky one, she said. Other twelve-year-old girls got sent to brothels. That’s what had happened to her. That’s where most of the women go first, until they’re too old to be wanted by the men there.
For some reason the man who killed my father, my father’s second-in-command, sent me here instead. Maybe it was a form of respect for my father’s position in the family—that Viktor would kill him and sentence his daughter to servitude, but keep me out of the whorehouse.
For seven years, I’ve tried to be grateful.
“Sit down,” Mercedes says at the top of the stairs. There’s a desk that’s little more than a folding table, the wrinkled army green surface filled in with something black over the years. A small black chair waits for me behind it, its leather padding cut open, spilling beige foam from its edges.
Every muscle clenches. I’ve never been this close to the front door.
Not since I came in, and I don’t even remember that. I don’t remember how the sun feels on my face without a dirty window between us. I don’t remember what it feels like to be free.
My whole body cants toward the door, aching for the touch of fresh air.
But I know better than to run.
I still remember the pop of the gun and the thud of Angelica’s body. Jorge stands guard at the door, most of the time, but that day it was Margo who took his gun and shot her. And I remember how she beat Tia afterward, as a warning to the rest of us who might run.
The lumpy office chair might be made of needles for how it hurts. I can almost feel the breeze in my face. Instead I’m here, a few yards away from a glass door that’s been painted black.
“Remember what Margo told you,” Mercedes says, brown eyes narrowing. “Not a word except for what we told you. Don’t even make eye contact.”
Margo gives me a cold smile. “Say it.”
My throat feels dry. “Welcome to MM Textiles. How may I help you?”
Mercedes puts a laptop on the table, clicking on the screen until a blank white page sits in front of me, a curser blinking mildly. Her hands are shaking as she stands, smoothing her black skirt. I’ve never seen her nervous like this. Who is this man? What does he want?
Then Mercedes disappears into the back room with Margo, and I’m left staring at the white page, a blinking cursor. I only have vague memories of computers, of phones. The only technology I’ve touched in the past few years are the old sewing machines. This doesn’t feel real. I expect to wake up on my mat and start work like every other day.
The letters on the keyboard are all out of order.
