He followed up with, “And you have no right to keep my daughter.”
“Because you’ve already promised her to that old bag of bones Sabato?”
I could tell I’d shocked him again when his eyes crinkled in the corners and the wrinkles on his face deepened.
“Does Lucia know?”
I shrugged negligently. I wasn’t here to answer his questions.
Instead, I marched closer to him.
Either the man had always been short of stature, or he’d shrunk with age because I was at least a good foot taller than him. “I don’t know what kind of sick operation you’re running, but we don’t abide by human trafficking. The kind your son attempted with Joanna O’Sullivan or what you’re planning with the other Sicilians and your own daughter.”
“How dare you say something like that when you took Lucia!”
“Because I didn’t buy her from you like some sordid transaction.” Even though I understood my logic was flawed, I didn’t care.
“I want to see her.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Proof of life?”
He nodded curtly.
Stalking from the room, I left my two soldiers as sentries.
Once I reached the bedroom, Lucia took one look at me and began scrambling away. “What’s going on?”
I said nothing, and I knew my expression had to be absolutely vicious to make her scurry from me like that.
She’d dressed in my absence, and I cornered her beside the bed.
“What was that? Is someone here? Answer me.” Her eyes slid to mine, wide with terror.
I gripped her cheeks unforgivably hard. “No questions.”
Pivoting her around, I retrieved the bolas from inside my suit jacket. I ruthlessly tied her wrists behind her back with the leather lashing, listening to her harsh gasps.
“Arkady!” She cried out plaintively.
16
Lucia
I HAD NO IDEA what was happening.
Arkady yanked my hands together behind my back with single-minded savagery.
The moment he’d marched into the bedroom, I could tell he’d become a completely different man. His face an unfeeling mask, his blue eyes had turned absolutely arctic.
He was a monster, one who wouldn’t tell me anything.
My arms stretched heavily down, bowing my spine. He quickly lashed my wrists together, and I heard and felt the heavy clank of stone balls.
Oh god.
He was using that primitive looking whip. The weapon he’d used to strangle my attackers in the alley then bound my ankles with the very first night.
When I kicked out at him, he slammed me forcibly against the wall, knocking the breath from my body.
Arkady like this was truly terrifying. No longer the hotly controlling lover or the gorgeous man who’d captured my interest while talking about his upbringing. In this manifestation, he was pure evil, his fearsome nature taking total root.
After swinging me around, he slapped a gag into my mouth before I could even scream in protest.
Undiluted anger flashed through my veins quickly followed by the cold spikes of horror when he brought his phone out to snap a picture of me thus demeaned.
Before I could even comprehend his actions, he marched me from the bedroom and propelled me down the stairs. He shoved me so hard I almost lost my footing.
What is going on?
Downstairs, he took me past the sitting room toward the very back of the house then pushed me into a dark corner. He disappeared, leaving me frantic and frightened. Then two fierce Russian soldiers came from the room Arkady had entered.
They stood over me, imposing with their stoic expressions and massive stature.
One of them pressed a finger to his lips that bore a wicked grin.
“Where is she?” A man’s voice filtered out from the next room.
That man was my father!
I tried to squeak, but the bulkiest soldier clapped his hand on top of the gag.
“Proof of life, da?” Arkady said gruffly.
Proof of life? What?
“Photo should do,” he added.
Oh my god.
My father was here, and Arkady had no intentions of letting me see him let alone returning me to him.
I jolted against the corner, attempting to bang the bolas’ balls against the wall to gain my papa’s attention.
Both beastly guards snarled at me, one of them brutally hauling me into his body and mashing me against him so I couldn’t break free.
“You treat her like an animal.” That was my father again.
“Da.” The evilness in my captor’s tone was unmistakable. “Tell me again why you want her back so much you were willing to come here alone when you know what I’m capable of.”
I stopped struggling then, intent on the conversation in the other room.
I heard glasses and the glug of liquid. Was my father drinking in there while I was bound and gagged and guarded just feet away?
“She is necessary to bring my organization together with the Sicilian faction,” Papa said. “You already know that.”
“But she doesn’t.”
“Of course not. Lucia likes to think she has a mind of her own and something to offer the business besides the merits a well-positioned marriage will obtain for me.” My father scoffed.
I would’ve reeled had I not been held so tightly by the unyielding soldier.
Papa continued, “She is worth too much money. I’ve already promised her to Don Sabato. He came to Boston expressly to collect her.”
Don Sabato?
All I knew of the Italian boss were snippets I’d heard about his cold cunning and his habit of running through wives. The photographs I’d seen portrayed him as a man stooped with age. He might’ve even been an entire generation older than my own father!
“You said she needed a strong hand,” Papa continued. “I will admit as much. Sabato would control her with an iron fist and has no problem using his fists on a headstrong female.”
I gulped behind the gag, and the guard finally removed his hand from my mouth.
I glanced up, tears swarming my eyes and, for a moment, I almost thought I saw a certain kindness shining back at me from the Bratva soldier. But that couldn’t be.
Arkady wanted me to hear this.
He wanted to break me.
And my father . . . I thought I’d be saved by his mafia. Eventually returned to the safety of my life. To hear all these horrifying revelations, I was floundering, heartbroken and, most of all, betrayed.
“That isn’t exactly what I said,” I heard Arkady mutter.
“It does not matter.” Papa spoke again. “I have too much time invested in Lucia. Her career”—he laughed harshly—“will be to serve Sabato and breed the next generation.”
Cold clamminess prickled all over my flesh at his pitiless words and derisive tone.
“I have too much money and respect at stake to let you keep her, Arkady Krasnov.”
I knew my papa wouldn’t be saying such things if he knew I could hear him too. The blind trust I’d had in my father was destroyed in an instant.
My brother killed.
My mama dead.
I was alone in this world.
Alone with Arkady.
I didn’t realize I’d shut my eyes until I was roughly passed to someone else.