don’t.”
“Do you think Donato’s having me followed?”
She shrugged. “We don’t think so, but we don’t know for sure, and it’s not worth the risk. He knows you come from Talia’s, but he knows nothing about me. He knows nothing about my association with you, or with Talia’s establishment. And it has to stay that way, Misha. We can’t risk him finding out about the clan, or about just how many things I’m involved in. And we especially can’t have him finding out that you’re being paid to do more than fuck him. So from now on, I’ll come to you, and if that’s not possible, then you report to Talia.”
I sighed. I didn’t like it, but as much as I hated to admit it, it made sense. “Fine.”
“Now, back to this Dollhouse whor— slave. Did he tell you anything? How long he’d been there? Where he came from before the Dollhouse? Anything at all?”
“No. He barely spoke. The only thing he told me was his age, and even that, he doesn’t remember for sure.”
“He doesn’t remember his own age?”
“Apparently not.”
“Interesting,” she said, leaning back in her chair to look up at the ceiling.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
“Well, I’ll report this information to my client, but for now, it’s business as usual.”
“And what about the boy?”
She was lost in thought, barely listening to me at all. “So much money...” she said.
It was all too much—Donato’s violence, and the possibility that he was spying on me, and being kicked out of the den, and the boy...
The boy.
Mostly, it was him. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, he was there, staring back with his strange, empty expression. I was haunted by the way he’d begged, and then sobbed. At his shame. After Donato had left, I’d reached up to touch him, wanting to comfort him, but he’d fled the room, leaving me feeling dirtier than ever.
“You say he’s proud of his slave,” Anzhéla said, sitting up to look at me again, “but nobody knows about him. I’m sure it would have come up if any of my people knew. Which means Donato’s keeping him a secret. Why?”
It seemed obvious to me. “Because it’s sick and cruel?”
Again, her eyes narrowed, as if she couldn’t quite see me. As if she were assessing me. “I doubt that’s it.”
“I’d like to know exactly how much a Dollhouse slave costs,” Frey said.
“Oh?” Anzhéla raised her eyebrows playfully at him. “Thinking of buying one?”
If he found any humor in her joke, he didn’t react to it. “Maybe it didn’t cost him as much as we think, in which case, this is a dead end. Or maybe he simply has that much money.”
“True,” Anzhéla conceded. “But if this slave costs as much as I think, it means either Donato’s making money some other way, or he’s indebted himself to someone much richer than him.”
“He said, ‘a small fortune,’” I said. “But he didn’t say he’d bought him. He didn’t say, ‘he cost a small fortune.’ He said, ‘he’s worth a small fortune.’”
“That’s a good point,” Anzhéla said. “It implies he didn’t buy him himself.” She sat thinking for a moment. “Either way, we’ll finally have a place to start. Good job, kid. This may end up being our meal ticket.”
I didn’t feel proud though. I felt dirty and powerless. “He’s been used enough.”
“Who? Donato?”
Of course she was thinking about the mark. Of course I wasn’t.
“You’re not getting cold feet again, are you?” Anzhéla asked with obvious exasperation.
I looked down at my hands, clenched in my lap. “No.” If anything, I wanted to go back now, not for Donato, but for the boy.
“I hope you put on a better act for him than you’re doing for me.”
“I’m fine.”
“This is a job, Misha. Stop worrying about some slave from across the sea. I can’t have you going soft—”
“Anzhéla,” Frey snapped. “Lay off.”
A strained silence claimed the room.
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