Elena's POV

It was raining heavily, and Joffery was once again drunk. Well, there was nothing new there. He is always drunk nowadays. Bottles of cheap beer were rolling around all over the floor of our small, dingy apartment. But I never said anything to him, I never dared to. The last time I spoke with him, I asked if he could cover the remaining $250 for my high school tuition fee, most of which I had already paid for with my waitressing job.

He had slapped me so hard that I had sported the bruise for weeks on my cheek. It has been two years since my parents died. Two years that I had spent wishing for it all to be some kind of bad dream. For them to come back. But that hadn't happened, instead....

I looked at my step-brother Joffery, his legs unsteady, fully drunk as he stuffed the ends of his grey shirt into his jeans....as if getting ready to go somewhere. He was 25, only six years older than me, and already on a path to destruction. Alcohol, women, and gambling, there was nothing he didn't do. Sometimes, after he would come home completely messed up after losing all his money in a gamble and drinks, and fall onto the couch, I wished, I really wished he had died too. Then I wouldn't have been here....

"Elena!" He suddenly shouted, his voice hoarse as he called out to me.

I looked up from my books. "What?"

"Get ready, we are going out tonight." I had two assignments due tomorrow, a test looming on the horizon, and yet I had no choice but to sigh and get up and put on one of my cleaner jeans to go out with Joffery as his stupid wingman. It wasn't the first time that he was taking me to one of his regular haunts, the joints where they smoked pot, drank scotch, and gambled. I was the precaution, Joffery owed a lot of money to a lot of people, and if someone caught him and beat the hell out of him, it would have to be me to pick him back up, take him either to a hospital or back home, depending on how hurt he was.

Yes, my life was messed up. But only for a few months more, I told myself. I was saving for college, already eighteen, and as soon as I would leave this house and Joffery far-far behind me.

Generally, we walked or took the bus, but tonight I was surprised when Joffery flagged down a taxi, which started to drive towards the more familiar, seedier part of town. with dark alleys, back door gambling houses, and quite a few brothels.

Then Joffrey signed the driver, and he stopped. It was one of the old parts of the city, and the rain was even heavier now, as it drenched me to my bones. The street was completely empty, apart from a man on the other side standing alone, smoking a cigarette.

I was shaking with cold by the time the taxi drove off. And it wasn't one of the places Joffery visited regularly, I was a little confused as he walked forward and straight towards the lone man who was smoking. "Daniel?" The man nodded, and Joffery shook his hand.

"My item?" He asked, coming straight to the point. Joffery indicated his head towards me. "I have bought her with me. Fresh, untouched." A shiver shot down my spine. What the hell were they talking about?

The man with the cigarette laughed. "They all say that." He looked me up and down, the dirtiest look I had ever been subjected to. "She looks like the whole football team has had their way with her. I won't be paying more than 10k for a used-up thing." Suddenly, I knew that despite the disbelief and shock coursing through my veins, I knew that I was in danger, in a very, very grave danger.

"Ain't no way." Joffery hissed, swinging his empty hands in the air. "I am not giving her to you until I get paid in full. 25k at least." I didn't wait to hear more, my legs were already moving as fast as they could. I started running. The empty street and a rain so heavy that I couldn't see even a speck in front of me.

Joffery was screaming my name now, I could hear it, and there were footsteps following close behind. More than two. My heart was beating in my chest like a horse in a marathon, as I ran faster, or at least I tried to. I needed to get help. I needed to get to safety.

Alas. Those were my last thoughts as a heavy pair of hands grabbed me by the neck and pushed me so hard on the concrete road that I felt like my skull was going to crack open. There were more hands on me now, someone was tying up my hands behind my back. I cried, threw my legs, struggled and kicked, and screamed for help. Nobody came.

No one helped. "25k, or I will report her missing." I heard Joffery saying behind me. I cried harder, trying to look at his face, trying to beg him not to do this. I was his sister. "Joffer-Joffery! Please!" I begged, seeing nothing but his shoes, which were at my eye level. "I will do as you say. Please, Joffery, don't do this to me. Please. I will give you all my savings for college. You can have the money, please, Joffery..."

"Oh, for god's sake, shut the bitch up, someone." A man said, and suddenly a thick cotton cloth was thrust into my mouth and tied around my face. My mouth was blocked. I struggled harder, only to be kicked so hard in the stomach that I felt like I would throw up blood.

"You realize that before I can send her up to the beds of my rich clients...I will have to train her....to teach her exactly how to please a man? The ins and outs of being a call girl? huh? And I will have to feed her and clothe her while she is training? I will pay 18k at most, take it or go to hell."

I struggled harder against my bindings, now someone was tying up my legs as well, tears rolled down my eyes as I tried looking at my step-brother. He was selling me to a brothel. To be a call girl!

"Fine. I want cash." Joffery accepted at last, and I knew my life was never going to be the same again.

They drugged me. A syringe was inserted into my arm, and suddenly, my body went limp right there on the wet, cold road. And the sight, the rain, the men, they all went hazy, and darkness engulfed me completely.

---

When I woke again, I was in a small grey room, lying on a medical table, my legs stretched, and I was wearing a simple white cotton gown. "So, what's the situation, doc?" I heard the familiar voice, the same voice of the cigarette man, called Daniel. And suddenly started hyperventilating, scared out of my mind, and knowing fully well that from here on out, anything could happen to me.

"Oh, the hymen is intact," another man said. "She is still a virgin." I heard Daniel laugh. "Wow, so he WAS telling the truth. Well, 18k for an 18-year-old virgin, not bad. Not bad at all."

"So, when are we to start training her boss?" A third voice spoke up, but was instantly rebuffed by Daniel. "Are you a moron? Didn't you hear? She is a virgin." He snapped at the man who had called him boss. "She won't be worth a dime if we put her to business as a call girl."

"Then? What are we going to do with her?"

"Sell her, of course," Daniel replied, like it was a no-brainer. "There are men. Very, very rich men, who would pay millions for virgins as beautiful as this." I wished I were dead. I wish they would just kill me instead of doing this to me. I felt like I couldn't breathe, with fear and panic.

"We will send her to Alessandro Il Re Moretti, the Mafia boss of I Serpenti d’Oro, the golden serpents. He keeps a harem full of young women for his pleasure. Every night he sleeps with one of them, or more than one." Daniel laughed again, his dirty, lewd laugh. The sound of which made my skin crawl. "I bet this one will fit right in with his collection."