Married Lovers

Read Married Lovers for Free Online

Book: Read Married Lovers for Free Online
Authors: Jackie Collins
getting out?”
    “This week.”
    “Is he going to A.A.?”
    “He says he doesn’t need to.”
    “Evie—”
    “I know, I know,” she said, refusing to look him in the eye. “Please don’t lecture me. It’ll be fine.”
    But they both knew it wouldn’t be.
    She touched his arm again. “Is everything okay with you and Mandy?” she asked as they walked toward the front door.
    His sister had excellent instincts when it came to him, but he didn’t care to get into it.
    “Yeah, sure, everything’s great,” he said breezily. “Why?”
    “I don’t know, you look tired.”
    Hmm…reminding him of his upcoming birthday wasn’t enough, now he looked tired. Great!
    Today was not turning out to be the best of days.

ANYA
    L ife in the city of Magas was harsh. With so many refugees pouring in–over two hundred and fifty thousand–food and housing was short. Anya soon found herself separated from the mother and children she’d traveled with. Before long she ended up alone with only the clothes she was wearing and a chunk of stale bread a kindly old woman had given her. No money. No identity. But still, nobody could take away her delicate beauty .
    The refugee camps were filled to bursting, nowhere to go, nowhere to settle. Anya hovered on the perimeter, shivering, half-starved, her thin body trembling, unable to speak as she remembered the horrors she’d witnessed .
    This was how Sergei found her. A resident of Magas, he’d been given a job to do by his boss, fat old Greedy Boris Pinski, a man of many trades. Greedy Boris dealt in arms and black-market goods. He also dealt in women, and his young henchman, Sergei, was dispatched to the refugee camps to see if he could come up with any strays Greedy Boris might put to good use in the underground brothel he ran in the middle of the city.
    Serge drove a dusty American station-wagon his boss had won in a card game. By the time he came across Anya the wagon was already filled with two sisters, a scrawny girl with lank red hair, and a short fat woman who Sergei knew Greedy Boris wouldreject–but what could he do? The pickings were not exactly abundant.
    He almost didn’t stop for Anya. Such a skinny little thing and much too young. Then he caught a glimpse of her face, and for a moment he was lost in her pale blue eyes–so filled with pain, so expressive. He pulled the wagon to a sharp stop. “Get in,” he ordered, jerking his thumb.
    She did as she was told and climbed into the back of the station-wagon. The other women ignored her; they had their own problems.
    Sergei drove his carload of women to the center of the city and delivered them to Greedy Boris, all of them except Anya, whom he hid in the trunk. “Stay quiet,” he warned her. “If you behave and give me no trouble, you’ll get food and a place to sleep.”
    She stayed quiet. She was fourteen. She didn’t know what else to do.
    At first Sergei decided he would keep Anya for a few days, have his way with her, then hand her over to Greedy Boris. But this was not to be, for twenty-year-old Sergei, who’d lived most of his life on the streets using his wits to survive, fell in love with the child.
    He took her to the room he rented in a run-down house, made her strong tea and pieces of burnt toast with thick black pudding spread on top, then after washing her in a communal bathroom, he allowed her to sleep in his bed, while he settled on his one ratty chair with loose springs and a torn cover.
    He considered himself mad to do this, but there was something about Anya, he didn’t quite know what it was. She refused to speak, not one word; all she did was look at him with those big sad blue eyes and that was enough.
    He realized she must have been raped, for when he’d washed her he’d discovered dried blood stuck to her thighs. It was obvious that the girl had suffered a terrible ordeal.
    Yes, he could have left her with Greedy Boris, but why would he do that? She looked at him with such longing, a

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