sat in silence, she saw that same prayer behind all their eyes.
Everyone believes in God when they fly, she thought.
Otherwise, who would have the courage?
“AND WHAT?” RASA asked again.
“Play with them,” Galya said.
“And now you’re here in Belfast. So what are you going to do?”
Galya twined her fingers together.
“So this Aleksander lied to you, and you wound up at that farm, slaving every hour of the day,” Rasa said. “You were filthy when I found you, you stank like a horse. Now look at the nice things I bought for you to wear. And you can make some money, once you’ve paid me back.”
“Paid you back?”
“The agency that brought you here. I had to pay them good money to get you out of that farm. How are you going to pay me back?”
“I didn’t ask—”
“I don’t care what you asked for,” Rasa said, that hardness in her voice once more. “I took you out of there. It cost me plenty, and you owe me. All you have to do is make the clients happy. Is that so bad? Just do what they ask, smile for them, be pretty.”
Rasa edged closer to Galya, reached out a hand to brush the hair from her face. “And you’re
Galya chewed a nail.
“Like a doll,” Rasa said. “That’s all you have to do. Smile, be pretty, and do what they ask.”
Galya turned her head to Rasa. “What if I say no?”
Rasa gave a sad smile. “Then the client will be unhappy,” she said, speaking slowly, the Russian colored by her Lithuanian accent. “And the men who gave you this room and this roof over your head, they will be unhappy. You don’t want to seem ungrateful, do you? You don’t want them to think you’re difficult, hmm? They’ll be upset. They need the money to pay your rent. You don’t want to make them angry, do you?”
“No,” Galya said, her voice barely audible even to herself.
“Good girl,” Rasa said. She leaned in and placed a dry kiss on Galya’s cheek. “Do as you’re told and everything will be all right. I promise.”
And so Galya had taken off the gray tracksuit and plain underwear they’d given her a few days before and put on the lacy things and the shoes she could barely stand in. She had sat there for an hour, goose pimples sprouting on her bare skin, waiting for the client to come. The weeks since she’d flown from Kiev to Vilnius, then Vilnius to Brussels, then Brussels to Dublin, they had blurred into one long, arduous smear, work and sleep, sleep and work, always wet and cold, always dirty, always tired, always aching for home.
Now she sat in a room with a soft bed, cold but dry, and all she had to do was make a client happy. Could she do such a thing? Maybe, if she forced Mama from her mind.
She might have done it, might have given herself away, if not for the kind man and the cross on a chain he’d pressed into her hand, and the piece of paper with a telephone number written upon it. The hope he gave her had turned to courage in her heart and blood on her hands.
“Call me,” he’d said in an accent that was not from Belfast.
“I can save you,” he said.
And Galya believed him.
12
HE PLACED THE phone back on the table, next to the glass. Condensation beaded on its surface. He brought a thick finger to the moisture, felt the cold on his callused skin.
She had called sooner than he expected. He had been awake, unable to sleep, nursing a buttermilk shandy. Half a glass of buttermilk, half a glass of lemonade. He took a sip, tasted the sour-sweet mix, and swallowed.
It usually took days, sometimes a week or more, before they would call. Sad as it was, it took a good deal of abuse before a girl would seek a way out. But this girl had taken less than twenty-four hours. She must have suffered at the hands of those monsters, but he refused to think about that.
He had taken a taxi to the apartment that afternoon, not wishing his own vehicle to be seen, and rang the doorbell. A buzzer sounded, and the door unlocked. He let himself in. The older woman waited for him on the landing, dressed far too well for such an occasion.
“Hello, sweetheart,” she said in her thick accent. “Your first time?”
“Yes,” he lied.
“Don’t worry,” she said, showing him into the apartment. “You have nice time.”
Three men stood inside, huddled in the kitchenette. Two of them were local, going by their tattoos and clothing. The third looked foreign, a big man, all belly and fat fingers.
He paused in the doorway, unsure if he should proceed.
One of the local men looked up, barely registered his presence, and fell back into conversation with his friends.
“Come on,” the woman said. “Don’t be shy.”
He entered, wondering why he was so nervous. It wasn’t as if this were the first time he had entered such a place. He had done it many times before.
“Is fifty pounds for massage,” the woman said, holding out her hand.
“What?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
“You give fifty for massage,” the woman said. “You want something else, is between you and her.”
“Ah,” he said. He reached for his wallet, counted out two twenties and a ten, placed them in her hand.
“Is good,” she said, smiling, showing her yellowed teeth.
Nicotine, he thought.
She tucked the notes inside her blouse, pulling aside the fabric of her brassiere. An unnecessary touch, he thought.
“Come,” she said. “Her name is Olga.”
At least a third of the two dozen times he had visited these places, the girl’s name had been Olga. Most of them had hollow eyes and moved like marionettes. They said hello, and please, and thank you. When he said he wanted nothing from them, they tugged at his clothes anyway. They were the lost. He could do nothing for them.
But a few were still alive inside. They listened when he spoke. They gazed on him with hope and awe when he told them of salvation. They called him. Eventually.
The woman led him across the living room and opened a door. He looked back over his shoulder at the three men. One of them lifted a coat, exchanged a farewell with his friends, and let himself out. None of them paid any attention to the man who watched.
“Come,” the woman said. “She is nice. You see, you like her.”
She stepped through to the bedroom.
He followed.
She extended a hand toward the girl on the bed.
The girl looked up, no more than a glance, but enough to see that she still had her soul. They had not yet stolen it. She could still be saved.
Silently, he thanked the Lord on high.
13
T HE OTHERS HAD been waiting when Herkus and his friends pulled up in the old BMW. The moron Sam drove, the Glock’s muzzle pressed against the back of his seat. Darius lay in the trunk. He had given a pained sigh when Herkus told him to get in.
Now Darius and Sam sat side by side, each bound by cable ties to a chair. Herkus stood over them, blowing
