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“You’re assuming I have a wife. And I never expected a good Mafia girl to curse like you just did.”
I shrug. “I’m not like all the good Mafia girls you’ve met before.”
He snorts and the sound makes me blush. It’s embarrassing how easily he can make me feel unnerved. “You’re not like other girls? Is that it?”
“I’m not a scared, little weakling like some of them are.”
“Maybe not now. But I can make you into one.”
For the first time since being forced into this car, I go quiet. His words are terrifying. What is this man going to do to me?
When I was kidnapped by Sergei, Erik Koslov was there to make sure I wasn’t hurt. He actually returned me home because he didn’t believe in kidnapping children. I know some Bratva and Mafia men can have honor.
I just don’t think this man in front of me has any. I’m no longer a child, which means he might not have any sympathy for me. He will want to hurt me. Rape me? Even I’m not sure I can handle that.
“Cat got your tongue?” he mocks.
That makes a flare of anger shoot through me. “You think you’re so much better than me, whoever you are. Kidnapping me. Scaring me. But you’re nothing impressive. Just a man trying to scare a woman. If you were really scary, then you’d bring down a man much larger than you. Then I’d think you were scary.”
“I can do that if you want.” He turns the car in the opposite direction, then keeps driving until we reach a nondescript building in the middle of a parking lot. There’s barely anyone else around.
He forces me from the car and shoves the rag back into my mouth and grips my hands behind my back so I can’t tear it out. I glare at him. He only smiles back.
We go into the large building and I’m confronted with the look of a boxing ring. It’s large in the middle of the room. Hundreds of seats surround the area. Only a few men mingle in the middle of the room – otherwise, there’s no one else hear.
The men who are here are huge beasts. Tall and muscular. They look like they fight for a living and the fact that they’re in a boxing ring makes me think that’s the case.
My kidnapper lets me go and whistles at the men, sauntering up to them. I stay back. I could make a run for it but something keeps me planted in place.
The men turn to my kidnapper. “What the fuck do you want?” one of them growls.
My kidnapper throws a punch at the man and laughs when he returns the punch. Who are these men? How does my kidnapper know them? Clearly, he’s trying to make a point of showing me how tough he is by taking on a man much larger than him.
The other men in the room come at him but he dodges out of the way. Then he pulls out his gun and everyone goes still.
“I’m trying to show to that girl over there that I am truly scary. Do you think she believes me?”
I rip the rag out of my mouth but I don’t scream. Drawing attention to myself doesn’t seem like the smartest course of action right now.
My kidnapper then does something I was not expecting. He shoots each of the men in the head, killing all of them.
I stumble back. I’ve never seen anyone get killed before. I know Dante has committed murder. It’s common amongst Mafia men. It’s something I’ve always know but I’ve never seen. It was just easier to stay in the dark but now my kidnapper has made sure I can never stay in the dark again.
He puts his gun away and whistles as he walks back to me. “Do you think I’m scary now?”
Before I can scream, he shoves the rag back into my mouth and marches me back to the car.
“Don’t test me, Aria,” he says once we’re driving again. “I love to play games, you should know. I don’t take human life seriously. I’m a hitman. It’s what I do for a living and I’m goodat it. Killing is nothing to me. So, you should be afraid of me. I could do terrible things to you and you would be unable to stop it.”
I gulp. I haven’t even taken the rag out of my mouth for fear of what he might do to me.
“I kidnapped you because I’m going to piss of Dante. He fucked me over when he teamed up with Erik Koslov. When he convinced my new business partner, Viktor Smirnov, to make peace. But I don’t want peace. I want chaos. I want people to hurt.”
So, he knows Viktor too. Who exactly is this man?
My kidnapper doesn’t stop the car until we finally reach a house. It looks like any other house on the street – craftsman style. Innocent looking house.
But that’s a house of horrors because my kidnapper is going to hurt me inside of it. I just know it.