“Not in the least,” he said quietly.

“Neither was I. As long as they kept me drugged, I did fine. But unfortunately one of the house’s clients was Anton Balkon, who visited the house whenever he was in Istanbul. They gave me to him whenever he was in town. I didn’t care—he was just another client, and I did what I was told to do. But I did it too well. He went a little crazy about me. Of course, he was on drugs, too. He decided he wanted his own private whore back at his compound in Russia, so he bought me from Madam Alya for a very pretty penny.” She shrugged. “The idiot even married me. He told me that the mafia family respected marriage and that it would keep other men away from me. He told the madam to get me off the drugs and he’d be back to get me in a couple of weeks.” She shook her head. “Big mistake. If he’d left me on the drugs, I would have done anything he wanted. He’d have been much happier. But by the time he got back I was starting to get off them, and when I got to Avgar I was almost clean…and beginning to think. That was fatal for me. I began fighting every time he touched me, and he started beating me. I tried to run away, and the beatings got worse. It was a very bad time. And I didn’t think it could, but it got worse. I found out I was pregnant. That made Anton even angrier. All he’d wanted was a sex toy; he had no use for children. Madam Alya had even told him they’d operated on me when I’d arrived in Istanbul before they’d started my training and he wouldn’t have to worry that I’d breed. He was furious that they’d lied to him. He started to grumble about having the child aborted and then having me fixed himself. I didn’t care, I was almost numb by that time and heaven knows I didn’t want to have his child. I thought it would have to be a monster. But he went away on a smuggling job, and while he was gone the numbness went away.” Her hand touched her stomach. “And I felt the baby move.”

“And it wasn’t a monster to you any longer?” Tanner asked gently.

She shook her head. “I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I couldn’t kill it. Maybe it was the way I was brought up. Maybe I thought that out of all this misery there should be something that wasn’t completely ugly, that if I protected it, perhaps I’d feel…cleaner. There was no way I was going to keep it. I’d just have the baby and then find someone to take it and give it a home. Providing I could even convince Anton to let me do it. I knew I’d have trouble getting him to let the baby live. I’d have to fight him until I gave birth and could get rid of it.”