Dorothy hopped off the boat with her luggage in her hand, along with the many other Russian girls on their voyage to America. Something sparked in all of them seeing the flag with forty-eight stars on it.
The colors on this foreign flag to them were red, white, and blue. Similar to their own country, but it felt different now. This was the dawn of a new era, and they felt freer.
Up until Hugo spoke up...
"Remember," Hugo, their pimp barked out in Russian. "You work for me, you will do what I say. And if you disobey me, keep in mind you're here illegally. I'll throw you out just as fast as I threw you in."
Dorothy stood close to Alyona, a girl who quickly befriended her on the boat ride. She snickered before mockingly lip-syncing Hugo's words as he continued on. "'You know what happened to the last group of girls who disobeyed me.'"
The two girls giggled, but Hugo only saw it as a pure sign of disrespect. With one swift movement, his fist connected with Dorothy's jaw, earning gasps from all the other girls in the crowd, including her new friend. She sat on the ground holding her hand to the newly reddened mark on her face she knew would soon bruise within hours.
"You think I'm playing, but your mouth is what's going to get you killed. Lucky for you, these stupid American men can't speak our native tongue! You're here to pleasure them, not talk back. Now let's go!" Hugo growled out before yanking Dorothy up off of the ground, still dragging her with him the entire way to their new home.
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Jack sat in a conference room with other men in suits like him. As the other men were discussing something serious, Jack's eyes were bored and gazed over the mahogany table that were as dark as his own eyes.
"Earth to Jack!" One of the men slammed the palm of his hand onto the table loudly to grasp the bored man's attention. Jack's eyes averted to the man who made the noise, and then to all the different objects into the room.
There were twelve seats in total and almost every seat was being sat in except for one. Everyone knew who that seat belonged to, no other than Al Capone himself. He was away on personal matters.
"You were saying..?" He inquired, not knowing a single thing what was being discussed. All the men roared in laughter, including the beautiful women who continued to serve them with champagne.
One of the women standing in the far corner of the room approached him with a bottle. He nodded for her to fill his glass before telling her to, "Keep em' coming."
"As we were saying... You need to draw less suspicion on yourself. The more people who know about your speakeasy, the more risker it'll be to keep it a secret."
"Well, how the hell can I do that?"
"No one said this type of business would be easy, jack-o-lantern. Best thing to do is find a wife-"
"A trophy wife preferably. Don't have to love her, y'know. Nice body, nice face, something you won't get sick of looking at forty years from now."
Jack scoffed at their sexist remarks. "How will getting a wife help magically solve all my issues?"
"The government will pay less attention to you if you're a married man."
"I suppose you're right..." Jack shrugged his shoulders and raised his glass, the other men did the same. "Let's find me a wife!"
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Days passed by that slowly turned into weeks, and Jack couldn't seem to find the perfect "trophy wife" for him. All the other women his friends picked out for him were beautiful, no doubt, but he never saw the wife-material in them. So he decided to take a break, and go take a walk in town.
Dorothy, out of all the Russian women, was the only one who could speak English. It was poor and broken, but she could get by if needed. After loads of convincing and several pounds of makeup to conceal the bruise on her cheek, Hugo agreed to let her go out into the town.
"Go alone. Maybe you'll finally get killed by wolves or coyotes, you'll be more useful to them than you are here." Hugo told her. Somehow that seemed to hurt her than the physical harm he caused her. Pushing everything to the back of her mind that these past few weeks have brought upon her, she set off into town.
The first thing Dorothy did was breathe in. She dragged in a long deep breath, and held it until she physically couldn't. Being around Hugo was suffocating, but that's not why she took a deep breath. America smelled so much different than it did back home. "Free..."
Her eyes wandered to the scenery around her. A band playing a different kind of music that she's never heard of before by the water fountain, children dancing or chasing one another in the quarter, couples walking hand in hand, and merchants selling things to people at their stand. One thought crossed through her mind; could it be like this all the time?
"Oi, pretty lady!" For a second, Dorothy didn't even think that the person was talking to her. But she looked anyways at the young boy with gleaming eyes in front of her. "How'd you feel about buying this?"
She soon realized that she was standing by one of many booths. The kid, who seemed way too young to be a merchant dangled an expensive-looking emerald green necklace. The silver chain almost seemed to shimmer in the light. He had neat blonde hair, and blue condescending eyes with a matching smirk to go along with it. The necklace looked like it costed more than anything she's ever spent in her life.
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Jack saw a woman stroll past him in a pale green dress, her black hair whipped past him and smelled almost like fresh strawberries to him. He wanted to talk to her, get to know something about her even if it was as little as her name.
This woman was stopped by a perky young merchant-boy, who was persistently trying to get her attention and almost reminded him of Jack himself in his younger days. "Oi, pretty lady!"
She seemed taken back. Either no one has ever complimented her before, or she had no clue he was talking to her. Jack thought to himself that it must've been the second option, how could it be possible for a beautiful lady like her to never be complemented?
"How would you feel about buying this?" The boy held out an emerald necklace in front of her.
"It's green, just like your eyes." Jack pointed out. He wore a brown suit that matched the color of his dark eyes, but she saw the gentleness and sincerity in them.
"I-I-I don't have no money..." When she spoke, it was in a thick Russian accent. Her voice was fragile and sweet and she spoke in broken English. This intrigued Jack. If anyone was the first to compliment her, it had to be him.
"Not a problem..." Jack confidently fished his wallet out from one of the many pockets in his suit. He pulled out three one-hundred dollar bills and threw them at the kid's face. "Keep the change, little man."
"Thank you, sir!"
Dorothy stared at the necklace that was now in her hands, no one has ever done anything so kind for her before. Her thoughts soon turned dark and worried that his intentions weren't pure. "Why you do that for me?"
"I just wanna get to know you. Is that so bad?" Jack almost immediately noticed the flash of fear in her expression. "Lemme take you out for dinner tonight, my treat."
Her lips pressed in ponder, quickly going through all the possible consequences she could get for even being seen with this man by Hugo. Taking the risk, she said, "Okay."
"Walk with me." He extended his arm out for her, and she gladly looped hers around with his.