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His words made my blood run cold. “I’m not that desperate,” I said. Early on, when I’d barely been able to scrounge up change to survive, I’d told myself that no matter how low I was, I would never trade sex for money. The women in the Bratva only held two roles—wife or whore. In some ways, there wasn’t much difference between the two of them. They were both subservient to a man. Wives just had legitimacy.
“What do you think I’m asking you to do?” Ezra’s words snapped me back into reality.
I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, and I felt my cheeks redden. I wasn’t a virgin by any means, but I’d only ever been with one man, and considering how that went, I wasn’t planning to sleep with another one.
“Whatever it is you want from me, I’m not interested.” Ezra might not be asking me exactly what I assumed he was, but I knew he was asking for something. I could sense it in his words, and I could feel it in the way he looked at me. From the very moment that we met, Ezra set me on edge, and I wondered if I was about to find out why. Not that it mattered. Whatever he was searching for, he wasn’t going to find it in me.
“Don’t turn down my offer before you hear it.”
I shook my head. “I’m gathering my things.” And I would never see Ezra again. The words were unspoken, but I knew that he heard them.
Ezra’s hand reached out and wrapped itself around my forearm. “Don’t let your pride get in the way of things.”
I shook my head and pulled my arm away. “Like I said, I’m not interested.”
Ezra’s hand slid off my arm, and for a minute, I missed the warmth of his touch. “Here,” he said, brandishing a card. “Take this.”
Sighing, I plucked the white rectangle out of his hand. “A business card?” I couldn’t understand why Ezra would be handing me one of his hard.
“When you realize that you need me, give me a call. My cell is one the back.”
The condescension in his tone made me angrier than I could remember being in the last few months, which was saying something because I had a lot of anger inside of me. “I won’t be calling you.”
Ezra said nothing, but I could tell from his eyes that he didn’t believe me.
As I walked out of his office, I nearly tore up the card that Ezra had given me. I might have fallen far, but a year ago, I’d been left for dead, and I survived. I could tough it out again somehow.
I slipped the card into the pocket of my skirt. I’d get rid of it later. For now, I needed to figure out what to do next.
* * *
“Why are you home so early?” Julia asked, as I walked into the apartment.
I jumped slightly at the sound of her voice. “Jesus,” I said. “Stop scaring me.”
I expected Julia to smile and laugh as she always did, but as I walked through the door, I noticed that she was laying on her bed, her leg was elevated, and there was a brace around her knee.
“What happened?” I asked, rushing forward. I’d walked around the city for two hours thinking about everything that had happened that morning. I felt numb, and I hadn’t been able to think of what to do next.
I’d dreaded returning home, but eventually, my emotional exhaustion caught up with me, and I knew that I needed a safe space to think.
I hadn’t expected to find Julia home so early, but from the looks of things, coming home hadn’t been her choice.
“I fell out of a turn,” she said. Her voice was calm and even, but as I looked closely at her face, I could see a rim of smudged mascara and flushed cheeks that told me that she’d been crying.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
Julia always appreciated directness. She called me on my shit when necessary, only letting go of the things she knew that I couldn’t talk about.
There was a long pause, and I felt my heart sink for my friend. She took a deep breath before speaking. “The doctor said that I need to get an MRI for them to assess the level of damage to my knee.” Her voice was emotionless, and she couldn’t meet my eyes as she spoke.
“But I’m out for the season….”
I had absolutely no idea what to say. Being a ballet dancer wasn’t just a career for Julia, it was part of her identity. She worked hard and fought so many obstacles just to get into the corps of one of the world’s best ballet companies. This was supposed to be her big break.
“Shit,” I said, as I realized what all of this meant. I cringed. I’d wanted to offer words of encouragement, but they all died on my tongue as I realized how bad this situation really was.
Luckily, my words brought a smile to Julia’s face. “Thanks,” she said. She reached out and grabbed my hand. I offered her a quick squeeze.
