Not always in suits.
Sometimes they were dressed to fit into the crowd of the college campus, but when I saw the same faces over and over, all watching me, even as they kept a respectful distance...
I knew the truth.
The first few days, I tried to ignore it.
Tried to convince myself I was being paranoid. There was no reason for Artem to have me followed.
Maybe it had nothing to do with the Russian mafia.
Maybe I was being targeted by a cult?
Maybe a frat house had determined I was going to be the new challenge for pledges.
I could be a target for human trafficking.
A million ideas ran through my mind, but the truth was clear.
Artem had eyes on me.
My freedom was nothing more than an illusion.
The only question was, was I going to allow it to continue?
Each morning I woke with a knot in my stomach, wondering if today would be the day he'd reappear.
When my phone buzzed with a notification, my heart would race until I confirmed it wasn't him.
The memory of his fingers brushing against my skin haunted me—a touch so brief I shouldn't even remember it, yet I did. Vividly. Especially in those vulnerable moments between wakefulness and sleep.
Until I figured out what his plan was, I had to live as much of a normal life as possible.
The last thing I wanted to do was tip him off before I had a plan in place.
My education was important to me. Even if I could only attend classes temporarily, I could live each moment to the fullest and have an escape plan ready when I needed it.
Sitting in my political science center, I had my head down, taking notes while the professor was lecturing about citizenship rights, when the all too familiar creeping feeling of someone's eyes on me crawled up my spine.
I tried to ignore it.
But it was more persistent than usual, as if there were eyes trying to burn a hole in the back of my neck.
I looked behind me and two men, both dressed in suits, were staring at me, watching me. They must have been new. The others weren't as subtle as they should have been, but these two were painfully obvious.
"Viktoria Zatasevo," the professor called, butchering my name with a terrible fake Russian accent. "Is there something in the hallway more interesting than my lecture?"
"No, professor, I'm sorry. I?—"
"Perhaps you would like to give us a different perspective. Surely a young woman who seems so easily distracted would have a profound opinion to share with the class?"
"I apologize for—" I tried to smooth it over, but the arrogant asshole just talked right over me.
"Clearly, your community college background has already provided so much more information than my class ever could. Are we just wasting your time? Perhaps it would be better spent getting manicures, and whatever else it is pretty young women do when they're not serious about their education?"
The entire class snickered, and rage coiled in my gut while humiliation burned my cheeks.
"I am serious about my education," I said between clenched teeth.
