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Tayana doesn’t move for a second. Then, slow and deliberate, she slides off the stool and pulls me into her arms.
I don’t sob. Instead, I emit the kind of grief that leaks out through clenched teeth and trembling exhales.
She holds me like a sister, her hand gently rubbing circles on my back.
`“You’re not weak for feeling that,” she says into my hair. “You’re human. You’re allowed to want the person who broke you, even while you're learning to survive without them.”
I close my eyes and let the words settle. Because she doesn’t judge me. She sees me. She understands in a way no one else does. Not even Mia. And God, I love my sister—but I can’t unload this on her. Not after everything she’s endured. Not after what I cost her. Because I did. I cost her everything once.
But Tayana? She’s different. Maybe it’s because she’s not just a survivor—she’s a fighter. She clawed her way out of her own trauma and came back not with fire, but with mercy. She’s dedicated her life to rescuing women like me and burning the trafficking rings that tried to erase us. She knows the language of the broken. She speaks it fluently. So yeah. That’s why I’m here. Not in therapy. Not in a confessional. But here. With her. Because Tayana Kamarov doesn’t just understand trauma. She reaches for it. And somehow… that makes all the difference.
I stare at my hands, twisted in my lap, before I let more words rise like bile from the back of my throat. Tayana doesn’t blink. She just leans forward like she’s been waiting for this moment the whole time.
I don’t look at her. My eyes stay glued to the floor, the pattern in the rug swimming beneath me. She’s the only one I’ve ever told about what happened between me and Saxon. The only one who knows the extent of what I went through. And I know that my secrets are safe with her.
“I don’t mean to. I don’t want to. But Saxon… he was the only good thing in a place where everything was designed to break me.”
My voice cracks, but I don’t stop.
“I was nothing there. A number. A body. Someone to sell, trade, beat. And then he was there.”
My fingers twitch. My nails dig into my palms. “And for a second… I let myself believe him. I let myself hope.”
“And then he disappeared,” Tayana murmurs.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “He disappeared. And so did my hope. When he left, I thought I imagined him. That I’d finally lost it. That I’d hallucinated a savior because the pain was too much to bear on my own.”
“But he was real,” Tayana says softly.
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“And now he’s back. In my space. In my head. In my world. And I don’t know what’s worse—that I still want him… or that I sort of still trust him.”
“How does that make you feel, Maxine?”
Tears prick. My chest tightens.
“He’s my trigger,” I whisper. “And my tether. Being around him makes me sick. But it also makes me feel alive. And I hate it. I hate that I still want the man who abandoned me in that place.”
Tayana doesn’t try to patch the cracks or drown me in clichés. She just listens—really listens—like she understands that some things aren’t meant to be fixed, only carried. And when she does speak, it’s never to fill the silence. It’s always something I didn’t know I needed to hear until it’s already settled deep in my chest. She leans in, her voice low and sure.
“You don’t hate him, Maxine. You hate the version of yourself that needed him.”
That shatters something inside me. I close my eyes, a tear slipping free.
“It’s easy,” she continues. “So easy to form a bond with the only light in a place made of darkness. Saxon offered you something no one else did. Hope. Salvation. A moment of kindness in a world built on cruelty. That kind of connection is... addictive.”
“I see him in my dreams,” I choke out. “Sometimes he’s saving me. Sometimes he’s just watching. But he’s always there. Like a scar that never heals.”
Tayana doesn’t console me or offer tissues. She just lets me be. And that, somehow, is enough. Because this isn’t pity. It’s recognition. She knows what it’s like to love your captor, your savior, your sin—when they all wear the same face. Her hand brushes my arm.
“Whatever you feel for him,” she says, “you survived with it. Don’t punish yourself for needing light in a place of darkness.”
21
SAXON
By the time midnight sinks its claws into the city, I’m already at her door. Getting inside? It’s effortless — muscle memory, a dance my hands know too well.