My nostrils flared.
I only had a few more threads to get through then I’d be free.
I could fucking save her.
“Don’t do this for me. I am not a good man, Lucia.” My voice emerged gravelly.
“You were to me,” she said softly.
As soon as she gave her vow to Sabato, she was snipped free.
With big golden-brown eyes glazed over with unshed tears, she stood in front of me.
I yanked again and again, straining against the binding I’d almost broken through until her hands rose to my face.
Stilling beneath her touch, I suddenly knew what it was to care about something, someone, other than the Bratva or my brothers.
“Goodbye,” Lucia whispered.
20
Lucia
IF NOTHING ELSE, I’D saved Arkady’s life. I refused to let him die for me. It was bad enough seeing him beaten up then viciously shocked over and over again.
With that vile son of Sabato’s all too thrilled to get his hands on me, the elders led the way from the room.
“Tell them you made a mistake, Lucia,” Arkady uttered in a stark, low-voiced growl.
Roberto chuckled behind me, his hand on my waist climbing dangerously close to my breasts. He disgusted me but, as much as I wanted to tell him to get his hands off of me, I held my tongue. One wrong move, and this meathead could simply decide to do away with Arkady for the fun of it.
Sabato’s son, however, took despicable glee in goading Arkady again. “Know this, Russian. I will let my papa take her first. Then I’m going to fuck Lucia until I have my fill of her, and that won’t be for a very long time.”
An inhuman sound came from Arkady.
I glanced back one last time, wishing there’d been some other way this could’ve ended. Even regretting, suddenly, how little time I’d had with him.
He looked absolutely feral, muscles straining on his poor abused body, lips pulled back from his teeth in a fearsome snarl.
Watching me through eyes that bore the black light of hell, he bellowed, “No! Nyet! This is wrong, Lucia, and you fucking know it!”
I swallowed harshly as tears pinged to my eyes. I could look at him no longer without my heart breaking into shards.
“Move, bitch.” Roberto prodded me from the room.
It was then I realized we were in some sort of underground parking structure that contained only the vehicles that had ambushed us on the road and my father’s Lincoln.
My eyes narrowed when I saw the two old bastards, chatting quietly as if they’d just shared a family meal instead of taking me—again—against my will and torturing the man I . . .
The man I what?
Arkady still made a racket, roaring like an enraged animal. The sound sent shivers up and down my body.
Maybe he was close to getting free. I’d noticed him diligently trying to work through the knots binding his wrists together.
I clung to the smallest ray of hope.
Papa and Sabato shook hands, sealing the deal, sealing my fate, which made me volatile with anger I kept pressing down.
Then my father—the pig—approached me.
He lay his hands on my shoulders, and Roberto moved away.
I knew I could get away from Papa, just knee him in the balls and make a dash for freedom. But I wouldn’t make it very far. Even though Arkady had made a sizable dent in Sabato’s forces, at least another dozen mean-looking men milled around, toting various weapons.
“I’ll see you in Italy,” my father said, going to hug me.
I recoiled from his hated touch. “I’ll see you in hell.”
Spinning away, I left him agape. As if he truly couldn’t understand my deeply seeded rage toward him.
Offering me up in order to form an alliance because he was too weak and too stuck in his old school ways to try something different, to branch out, to make his own goddamn way.
I’d never forgive him for this greatest betrayal.
Escorted to one of the cars, Roberto shoved me unceremoniously inside.
His odious father lowered himself slowly beside me then his gnarled hand fell to my thigh.
I shrank from his touch, willing my body to go numb, my mind to go blank.
Just as the car door closed us in together, I heard Arkady’s ferocious shout, “LUCIA!”
Looking out the back window, I saw him. He’d done it, he’d gotten out of the restraints. He ran toward the line of vehicles with no regard for his life at all.
My heart soared for one last moment before plunging to the pit of my belly.
A hail of bullets from Sabato’s soldiers whistled toward this man who risked everything to save me.
He didn’t even have a gun on him. He was still barefoot, shouting, running and ducking the bullets sprayed at him.
“Stop it. Order them to stop firing!” I pounded my fists against Sabato’s arm, screaming in Italian. “You said he’d live. That was my deal!”
With his nod, an order was given.
The gunfire ceased, and the cars began speeding away.
My final vision of Arkady would pain me always.
He stood, roaring, fists clenched at his side.
Silent tears clouded my eyes, and I blinked them quickly away.
He’d never know what he meant to me. I was just beginning to understand the depth of the emotions myself.
A little while later, we arrived at an upscale hotel and zoomed up a private elevator to a large suite. Surrounded by an entire entourage of Sicilian goons, I was closely escorted behind Sabato and Roberto into the main room.
I scanned the area as covertly as possible, looking for any means of escape or even a hotel phone. There was no viable exit, not even a single landline in sight. Sabato must’ve had the rooms prepped well.
He eased down with a creak of joints to a thronelike chair then beckoned me closer with his bony hand.
I couldn’t believe my father ever thought this was a good match.
Of course he only had his own reputation in mind.
Grinding my teeth, I stood in front of the fedora wearing bastardo as he made crude comments about my figure while his leering son agreed that indeed my breasts would produce good milk for babies and that yes with my wide hips, I could bear many.
The old goat probably had no sperm left in his balls, so we’d see how far he got with that plan to force me to breed another generation of loathsome children for him.
After enduring their repulsive remarks, I was ordered to clean myself up and change.
In the master bedroom of the hotel suite, a young female servant waited with downcast eyes, and I wondered how often she’d been raped or beaten or both.
She refused to meet my gaze even after the door was closed and we were left alone.
“What’s your name?” I asked gently.
She glanced toward the door, and I knew at least one man lurked just on the other side.
I spoke to her in hushed tones, in both Italian and English, and she kept shaking her head and pretending she didn’t understand.
I couldn’t blame her. She’d no doubt been forced into servitude against her will.
As I frowned, she helped me undress, which really wasn’t necessary.
She exclaimed lightly over the bandages on my thigh then clamped her mouth shut. She wouldn’t ask questions and she clearly wasn’t going to answer any either.