Hours seemed to roll by in this cardboard box of a room, and Victor never came. The
warehouse went deadly quiet. Perhaps it was nighttime now. Eventually, I turned off the swinging
lightbulb, crawled down the bed, fell asleep and rebooted. There were no nightmares while I
slept—I was already in one.
Victor was staring at me in the dark the next time I awoke. I shot up and curled my body to the
wall, as far away from him as I could. In the shadows, Victor smiled his sickly smile and moved
to the bed, sitting next me.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. I felt his hand graze my hair, pushing it away from my
face, like Cameron had lovingly done before him. I was tired of crying, of playing weak. Tears
fell anyway.
Victor shushed me. “Lie down.”
I didn’t move. Hypnotized by my fear.
“Lie down,” he shouted. I yelped with fright.
With every muscle of my body shaking, I laid on my back. Victor got up and pulled on the string
of the light. I closed my eyes as the light came on. The tears had already soaked the pillow by
the time Victor had climbed on top of me. He started to kiss me and didn’t care this time that
I wasn’t kissing back. His breath smelled like alcohol or mouthwash. I couldn’t tell the
difference. Whatever it was, it made me sick to my stomach.
His kisses became more forceful, and his hands more aggressive. I started to struggle. He
grabbed my wrists and with one hand held them over my head. I started kicking and screaming. He
put his hand over my mouth and held me down with the weight of his body.
“If you don’t behave, I’ll have you serve your time in one of my whorehouses. Or maybe I’ll
just kill you. I don’t need you to be alive to make that boy lose control.” He stared me down.
“Now, will you behave?”
I nodded yes. As soon as he let go of my mouth, I spat in his face. “Go ahead and kill me then,
because I will never do what you want me to do. I won’t betray him no matter what you do to me.
”
He slapped me across my already bruised cheek. Tears of pain leaked out of my eyes. I winced,
but I had stopped crying. I continued to try to wiggle away from him, but this only seemed to
egg him on. His breaths became excited. He started fumbling with his belt buckle; I started
kicking and screaming as hard as I could. I managed to unclench one of my hands and scratched
his face. He screamed in anger and in pain and slapped me across the face again. The door burst
open. Victor looked up. I used his momentary distraction to struggle away from him and run to
cower into a corner of the room.
Mickey was in the doorway.
“I said to stay away,” Victor screamed at him.
Mickey quickly eyed me and turned to Victor. “I’m sorry, sir. I heard you scream. I thought—
”
“You thought nothing. Get out of here and don’t come back in!”
Mickey eyed me again. “Sir, there’s someone here to see you.”
I heard short footsteps, and a man I recognized as Rocco’s killer walked through the door. It
took everything I had not to jump at Norestrom’s throat to choke him. But, from the battered
look of his face, it looked like someone had already beaten me to it. One of his eyes was
swollen shut, his nose was bloody and crooked, and he was missing several teeth.
“What happened to you?” Victor asked him.
Norestrom turned all of his attention to Victor. “I got caught by one of Spider’s boys. They
tried to beat the location out of me. But I didn’t tell them a thing and escaped before they
could kill me.”
Victor half-smiled and absentmindedly said, as he glanced back at me, “Well, it’s good to have
you back, son. We’ll need you around for the takeover. Go get cleaned up and make sure that the
young lady and I get our privacy.”
“Sure, Shield.” Norestrom had a smug look on his face as he turned to soldier-man. “Think you
can manage to follow those orders, Mickey, or do I have to draw you a picture?”
Mickey looked furious, but nodded his head in obedience. The men walked out and locked the door
behind them. They gave us our privacy. Victor immediately stood up and swaggered toward me like
he had already won. I got up and met him with my fists up. I threw a punch that fanned him. He
found this hilarious.
“You and your brother have always been fighters. I never understood what you were so angry
about. Bill, I guess, had reason to be upset, what with your father leaving my sister like that.
Can’t blame your father though. Your mother was quite the catch.” He laughed again. “Poor
Billy. He came to me, thinking he would find an ally against his father. But my sister was
nothing but a weak-minded woman. I was ashamed of being related to her. She didn’t deserve to
have her honor defended by me or Bill.”
Victor pulled my fists down and brought his smiling face to mine. “Are you still a virgin?”