8) The Seduction That Went Too Far

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Warning, the following episode contains explicit language and sexual themes.

Listener discretion is advised.

Somewhere, Guinia elav It's a yes.

The voice you hear is that of Aliah Rose's father. We've asked him to tell us about Alah in his own words.

So she's like saying, from very early childhood, I always trained her mentally training and physical training.

She was like, this is a Liah, translating her father's words with some editorial comments still double up the.

Always like every day we would like speak about patriotes and like what is it to be a real patriot?

Yea.

And then he's not saying I pushed her to like enrol. He's like, and I'm so proud that she followed my steps and she became like a military.

To this day, however, Leah has never told her father that she wasn't just trained at the academy to fight the country's enemies, but to sleep with them.

This training, he says, really he does not know about the missions. So all these trainings were so good for her life because she's strolled the world and now she's successful and entrepreneur, and so I'm very proud of her.

Disapproval means everything to a Leah even today. So the biggest risk she feels she's taking with this podcast is not upsetting Putin or even the US government. It's upsetting her father.

If they would find out about this reduction program, it would probably kill.

Him to kill you.

I'm really sorry.

I had to do it that I could on my.

You did away found out, and my god.

I got to you.

I had to kill you.

Say so much.

Episode eight, Chapter seventeen, Graduation. By the time Eliah's training at the military academy near its end, the colonel was fully protecting her, not just from the other predatory men there, but from almost everything.

I stopped doing this hard work, standing all night and protecting our academy. I wouldn't go to the kitchen anymore and pill thousand potatoes and cook for everybody and wash all these huge fans. But the most important that nobody were picking on me from like male students. They looked at me, but in another way, so like, okay, so

But I didn't. I don't know why.

Everybody in the academy by that time already knew that I had relationship with Cornell and I was his protegian, and everybody knew that major voice fired because of me as well, so nobody could like mess with me.

That spring, Leah completed her examinations. As she prepared in her dorm room for graduation, she noticed that she was no longer the same person who her father had dropped off of the academy the year before.

We had to wear this official uniform for parade, so I got dressed. I remember I had a really nice jacket with golden buttons and scart. Cornell brought me High Hills beautiful boots. So I put an egg cup, I put makeup on with the red lipstick, and I looked at the mirror, but it was another woman. It's a big change from the girl who just entered this building. I became a woman in just one year. I looked at the mirror and I saw my dad in the mirror telling me, I'm so proud of you.

I went downstairs.

We lined up in front of our teacher, and each of us had to come to him, take an oath and salute him, and we would have to tell him I swear and as to serve my country. And we all did like a marsh and it was beautiful. I had pride that I did it. I survived somehow. Now I can go home and I can be proud of myself, and hopefully my dad will be proud of myself too. Knowing that I can kill, knowing that I can seduce anyone, knowing that my target at Cornell, he was like literally

But Leah's excitement about beating the system was only temporary, because graduation meant that she was now trapped in an even bigger system, a life sentence in the Russian military.

So I didn't feel free. I felt even more involved. I was official part of the system.

One thing that made us easier is that the colonel's reach extended beyond the academy, and he promised to protect Eleia in her career and then the assignments that would follow. As a le recalls, he told her.

I'm here for you to help you, and i will protect you so you don't need to go to all these risky missions. You will have a good office in the department, and everybody will respect you, and you will have your high rank very soon. So he was giving me all these promises, and he was in love. And Cornell asked me to call him daddy. That powerful man could have sex with any female students, could organize orgies with other students. See how it's changing. So he wanted

We will unpack this power dynamic more later in this episode. In the meantime, to ensure that everything went well in a Leah's new position at the Investigation Department of the Bureau of Internal Affairs, the colonel showed up and spoke to her commander there.

He came to the department. Everybody saluted him because he had much higher rank, and he spoke with my commander. I don't know what they were talking in that room. But after that meeting, everybody were speaking with me with the highest respect, and I had my separate room from everyone, and I had just a good mellow days. I had to answer some calls and like write some documents, and that's it. Nobody could tell me anything. Some of us the easiest and relaxing till something happened.

That's something happened in late July when Aleah left the office one evening.

So I go home and I come in to my house where my parents and my younger sister are, and I mean, Neil, it's so hard to talk about it.

Fuck. I opened the door and I.

See my mom being very angry at me, and I don't understand. She doesn't tell me why my dad was not at home that moment. And my mom she started to like basically beat me, and she was screaming, you are such an embarrassment. You're not my daughter anymore. How could you do this? And I was like thinking, like what exactly that she mean? She said, I get out from here. I just took my cell phone with me and I couldn't take anything else and I left. I didn't know where to go, and I couldn't come back.

Eliah soon discovered that the major, the seduction teacher who'd been dating the colonel, had taken her revenge.

And it was painful to realize that that woman called to my dad and told him that like behaving like a whore. I'm dating a coronel and I am an embarrassment and I failed my mission.

Everything Leah had done up to this point, joining the military, working to be a hero and defend her country, had been done to please her father, to earn his approval, and now she just lost it, possibly forever. And even worse, Aliah had only one place to turn.

I didn't know where to go and what to do. I didn't have money. I was just on the street. I called my only one friend I had. I said, listen, like, I don't know where to go, and she said, you should call to your cornel. He has to take care about you. This is all because of him. So I called him and I was crying. I said, find out about our relationship and they kick me out. So I don't have anywhere to go, and he said, like, stay there, I'm coming to get you. So he came quite quick.

Blame your dad. It's okay.

He needs some time to digestice it will be fine. But I didn't feel fine. I felt betrayed. I felt lonely, and then at the same time, I thought, maybe it's better like it is. My father would never understand or would never forgive himself for what I've experienced already, so I didn't want him to blame himself about it. I just stayed silenced, alone, scared. It's almost like it was beneficial for the Coronel that my parents rejected me, because in this situation he could have his power on me,

I don't know.

Chapter eighteen, The KGB Resort.

I look at her as this super badass woman, but at the same time it is this child. I see this little Aliyah that is still seeking this acceptance in this love from her father.

This is Emily Mark, a trauma healer who is one of several counselors that Aliah has been working with. Aliyah has given her permission to speak openly and help provide some context to this difficult moment in her life.

The father is like the GPS that is the portal to the world of men. So when we have an abusive of disconnected emotionally father, there is an impact in the way we see other men, in the way we even going to choose and we are going to connect with men.

Now.

Add to this, Emily explains a situation where Leah is literally trapped in the same environment with her abuser, with no authority figure to trust and nowhere else to turn for protection. And the situation gets much more complex.

When you look at the Stockholm syndrome or even trauma bonding. There is an emotional tie that can develop between the victim and the abuser. There is this cycle of kindness and mistreatment in the relationship. And for her when the parents just put her out and she has absolutely nowhere to go, there is nothing that she knows then going to the person that is a superior at work, and there is an emotional connection with that person even though he's an abuser.

I asked Emily about the parallels between Leah's father, who's an abusive, high ranking, powerful military officer, and the colonel who is also an abusive, high ranking, powerful military officer who wants Aleah to call him daddy.

When you look at Aliah, specifically her story and what happened with her father, there is why we call the repetition confusion when there is this need to repeat the same painful pattern that you learn at a very young age. Because when someone experienced complex drama, when a child basic need is not met, it creates what we call the

It's important to clarify that none of this is a Leah's fault in any way. The responsibility lands clearly on the colonel and her father. The point is to explain why a Leah may have had actions and feelings that don't seem logical to those of us who haven't had her experience. Abuse is much more complicated to heal from when the perpetrator repeats a childhood pattern we had with

Yes, I would say, when she's really having this conversation consciously, like she's understanding no, no, he did wrong by me. But there is the unconscious part. And if you look at Aliyah, there is a lot of dissociation. So when she is in that place, that's where she talks about him with tenderness because there was a dysfunctional but an emotional attachment to that person. To be called daddy by her, it just perpetuate something that was very familiar to her.

She sort of has this just been abused by authority figures in a sense, whether it's her father's authority figure, the colonel's an authority figure, even just the whole military Russia serve the Fatherland as an authority figure.

There is so much more that she needs to unpack, and she's genuine this is what I feel.

I believe she's.

Going to be happy and she can hear absolutely one hundred and fifty percent, and she's in her journey. So if you can remind her, just like you are still doing therapy, it's an ongoing journey. There are so many layers to look at the fact that you created that space where she felt safe. And when we create that space where people can just unpack and they feel safe to whatever needs to come, they are held, magic happens. And that's what you started doing with her.

With this perspective in mind, we return now to Aliyah living in an apartment paid for by the colonel, working at a desk job given to her by the colonel, and now as dependent on his protection as he is on her affection.

Everything was really easy, and I loved my job that time, and I just did like my very mellow, boring desk work till something happened. Cornell invited me to spend with him a few days. He called to my commander of my department and basically he asked him to give me some days off, and he invited me to this beautiful resort five star. I've never been anywhere like that. My

The danger of seduction is that sometimes it works all too well. And while the colonel proposing to Aliah may seem like another victory, the fact is that obsession is dangerous, especially when it's a person like the colonel who's becoming obsessed with you.

I would like, literally like no.

Was it, Like oh my god, what shall I tell him? And I think he read my eyes because even though I tried to hide my emotions, my real emotions, I still couldn't find the right words to answer, and he was standing there as an idiot. The only one word I said, but what about your wife? When I started to go into that direction and said like what about your kids? I mean, can we wait a little bit longer? And I saw that he changed like straight, and he asked me, what like, you reject my offer?

You reject my offer?

And I was like, oh my god, what do I do? And said, listen, daddy, I love you so much. And I was still trying to convince him that he should stay with his wife because she's an amazing woman. I mean, I didn't even know her, but I just didn't want to tell him, what the hell are you fin like?

Dude?

You're like thirty years older than me. You fucked me in the beginning, you abuse me. Now you want to propose me fuck you like c literally like that. But I couldn't because I had to obey. He was my daddy and I still needed his protection. He tried not to show his disappointment, but I could feel that he was really disappointed, and he didn't even want to have sex with me that day.

I just tried to.

Pretend that nothing happened, that we still have some time. But I didn't take the ring.

After this short, uncomfortable vacation, Aliyah returned to work at the Bureau of Internal Affairs.

I came back to my department.

Everything was as normal, but I felt attention between Cornell and me. I tried to be more polite, more you know, Daddy, I miss you messages, and then he called me out of blue like just like that. He said, listen, I have a great, amazing news for you. Come and meet me, and I will introduce you to my friend, to my partner, and it will change your life. Well it really did change my life, but in the worst case scenario.

Left with little choice and fearing the worst, Aliyah accepted the invitation.

He met me and we had a dinner. It looked normal in the beginning, but it wasn't. It took me many years to understand what really happened. That night, I came to the restaurant where Cornell was waiting for me with his friend, whom he introduced as lieutenant general. And of course it's a very high rank. That lieutenant general looked gross, like super ugly. I think he was in his mid sixties, and he looked overweight. He had huge belly. He also had such a strong smell, which made me

Life.

The colonel had withdrawn his protection and this meant that not only would Leah have to leave her desk job and survive a more powerful predator, but that she'd be given the most dangerous missions that the Russian Secret Service had to offer.

And I understood that now I'm definitely fucked. This is really bad.

The Colonel's goal is not really to succeed in these missions, but for her to fail.

The next step. What he did literally could kill me. He planned the strategy of my murder.

I asked Aleiah if she's upset at her father for sending her into this world where she injured not just every kind of abuse in trauma imaginable, but the horrors that would come next. We ever, upset your father for putting on this path that went to all this.

I didn't have that feeling because I was strained from sixty years old. I knew that I have to work there. I knew that my body, my life, my soul, everything my brain belongs to the country.

To die for will return. On June fourth, as a Leah prepares to share the rest of her story, Her missions and the Trail of Bodies Left Behind.

I pressed the trigger and it was the silence.

I didn't cry, I didn't feel anything.

Who is Alia Rosa? Find Out to Die For? Volume two, coming June fourth. To Die For is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with iHeart Podcasts. The show is hosted and written by me Neil Strauss, with additional writing assistants by Tristan Bankston. Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Matt Frederick and Alex Williams. Lead producer and editor is Tristan Bankston.