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Chapter Three

Dante

T he girl is scared. That much is obvious.

She should be scared – she’s my enemy, my prisoner, my hostage. I have no care for her. Yes, she’s stunningly beautiful in her wedding gown but she’s a Bratva woman. I’m Italian. We’re raised to think of the Russians as scum and they’re raised the same way. I know she must think low of me, not just because I kidnaped her but because I’m an Italian man who kidnaped her.

Nadia is scared silent. She almost looks dead for how frozen she is.

Good. I want her to suffer for the crimes of her sister and brother-in-law and father. I want all of them to suffer for trying to kill me. I want them to suffer for thinking they succeeded and that I wouldn’t be a problem any longer.

Matteo arrives at the house I bought to keep Nadia in. It’s a simple ranch house far from the city. Nondescript. Blends in with every other house on the street. Nothing special about it. Fitting for a Bratva princess in my eyes.

“Do you like the place?” I ask Nadia as we get out of the car. I have a strong grip on her arm so she doesn’t run. But she hasn’t run yet. I’m not sure if it’s fear, bravery, or plain stupidity.

“No,” she whispers.

“Not fine enough for your standards? ”

“No.” She ducks her head, staring at her feet. Already, I’ve noticed she does that a lot. I wanted Nadia to be proud. I wanted Nadia to fight back and tell me I’m Italian trash and that I deserve to be killed by her brother-in-law.

But instead, she’s been nothing but a ragdoll. Silent and easy to maneuver.

“Come on,” I growl, nudging her forward. Matteo scans the area just to be safe but we know it’s secure. I wouldn’t have chosen this place if it weren’t. No one followed us from the chapel. I’m sure they tried but they failed. That makes me gleeful.

The inside of the house, just like the outside, is simple. Simple furnishings. Little decoration. Updated so it’s a not a total pigsty. It would be a nice place to live if you didn’t have much money. I’m used to mansions. I’m used to housekeepers and maids and chefs. I was raised in it.

Until I was torn from it when I was forced into the shadows.

Nadia looks around curiously and still doesn’t say a word. I want to know what’s on her mind. I crave it.

But I can’t ask her. It would seem too desperate. Nadia is my prisoner. I am not hers.

“This way,” I grunt, leading her towards the basement door off the front entrance. Unlike the rest of the house, the basement has not been updated. In fact, it’s a fucking filth pile. It’s just cement on the floor and plywood on the walls. Unfinished. In the middle of the room lays a mattress and a bucket.

“This is where you’ll be staying.” I let her arm go. Her only response is to rub the spot I was just holding. She doesn’t snap at me. She doesn’t slap me. She doesn’t try to run.

She just stands there looking sad and dejected. This is not what I wanted. If Nadia were trying to fight me, it would be fun. I’d laugh in her face and tell her she deserves this.

But Nadia only looks more sad as she stares around the room in silence. It’s not as much fun to mock her when she’s not giving me anything to mock.

I stand right behind her and speak in her ear. “How does it feel to know that you’re nothing but trash? That you belong in a room like this?”

She whimpers.

“Nothing to say back to me? You don’t want to tell me off? You don’t want to say that I’m trash? That I’m vile and disgusting and not worthy of your time?”

“No,” is all she says.

“No… what?” I skim my fingers down her arm and she shivers in response. At least that means she’s not dead inside. She has feelings.

She’s just not showing any of them to me .

“I have nothing to say.”

I pull back from her, staring at the back of her head in shock. How can she have nothing to say? I just told her she’ll be staying in this filthy basement and she has no words?

“I don’t understand you,” I admit, turning her around to face me. “Tell me you hate me.”

“Why?”

“Because you do. There’s no way you don’t hate me.”

“But if you already know, then why do you need to hear it from me?”

I huff. Nadia is a confusing little thing. Yes, my plan worked in kidnapping her but the rest of my plan hasn’t come to fruition. I expected her to beg me as she fought to run away.

But she’s not begging. She’s not fighting. She’s just staring at her feet like a scared child.

It makes me feel kind of like an ass for taking her in the first place.

I immediately push that from my mind. There’s no time to feel guilt over this. Nadia belongs to the Bratva. I belong to the Mafia. We’re natural enemies. By who she’s related to, that makes her my enemy and she’ll be nothing else.

She deserves this , I remind myself. Even though it was Anya who stabbed me all those years ago, Nadia was there. She followed her sister and Erik out of his house as he blew it up, leaving me inside for dead.

I managed to escape just in time before getting blown to fucking bits. It was only luck and fortitude that helped me survive.

“You are not innocent,” I growl, running the backs of my fingers down her cheek. “You are the enemy. Don’t stand there, looking so pure in your wedding dress. You belong to a family of villains which makes you a villain yourself.”

She nods, like she agrees with me. Still, she doesn’t look me in the eye, even though I want her to. I need her too. If I can read her expression, maybe I’ll get a better sense of her.

I tilt her face up so I can look into her eyes. “When I talk to you, you will look at me. Is that understood?”

She gasps, fear on her face, but she nods anyway.

“So obedient,” I murmur. “What has made you this way? Your father? I’ve watched you and your family over these past four years and I’ve noticed that you don’t live with him any longer. Why is that?”

She shakes her head. Suddenly, her body begins to tremble. Fast, hard shakes.

“Interesting. Are you scared of your father? Is that why you’re trembling?”

“I’m scared of you,” she whispers. For the first time since kidnapping her, I see a bit of defiance on her face.

“There it is.” I cup her cheeks and press my forehead against hers. “How does it feel to have an Italian touch you? You were raised to marry a Bratva man. But I am no Bratva man.”

“I’m scared.”

“You already said that. Answer my question. How does it feel that I’m so close to kissing you? Does that disgust you? Or does it… excite you?”

“Disgust.”

“Because you were raised to hate Italians.”

“Because you’re my kidnapper.”

“Oh. Interesting.” I pull back, dropping my hands from her face. “You don’t hate me in principle, do you? Obviously, you hate me for my actions. As you should. Anyone would hate their kidnapper. But do you hate me for what I stand for?”

“I don’t understand the question.” She wraps her arms around herself, shivering like crazy. It is cold down here. I don’t want Nadia to ever get too comfortable.

“Tell me I’m Italian trash.”

“Why?”

Because it will be easier to hate her if she hates me for a part of myself I cannot change.

“Don’t you think so?”

“No,” she says simply.

“Were you not raised to hate Italians?”

“My father hates you but… I don’t really like to agree with my father. So, no. I don’t hate you for being Italian. I hate you for kidnapping me. And for what you’re going to do.”

“And what am I going to do?” I ask eagerly.

She finally looks me straight in the eye. Her eyes are doe-like. Large and brown. Beautiful. Innocent. “You’re going to hurt my family.”

“I am going to hurt you family. I want you to hate me. I want you to despise me.”

“Why do you have so much hate inside of you?”

The question is so innocent, so child-like, that it makes me laugh. I only answer when my laughter subsides. “Because your family put it there. ”

Nadia’s eyes widen comically. There’s no way she can be this innocent. I know how Bratva women are raised – Mafia girls too. They’re raised to be virgins until their wedding night. I’m sure Nadia was a good girl and never gave herself to any man.

But just because she’s a virgin, doesn’t make her innocent.

“Tell me. Did you ever kiss him?”

She blinks. “Who?”

“Viktor. Your future husband. Did you ever kiss him?”

“No,”

“Why not? You two were betrothed for many years. Why not explore before the wedding?”

“Because he’s an honorable man. He wanted to wait until I was a full grown adult before marrying me.”

“Well, good for him,” I mock. “I guess he has a code. I guess he’s better than me.”

“He is.” She doesn’t say it to be biting. She says it simply as a fact.

Somehow, that makes her comment sting more.

“Well, I’m not good like Viktor is.” I take her face back into my hands and make her look at me in the eye. “I just might have to take your first kiss from you.”

She inhales sharply.

“Ah… that got a reaction out of you.” I pat her cheek then let her go. “But I won’t kiss you now. I’ll only kiss you when you beg me to kiss you.”

“You’re my kidnapper. I could never.”

“Don’t sound so sure of that, Nadia. I’m going to put you through torture. You just might come around to me soon enough. And that’s the real pain I’m going to cause to your family. I’m going to make you want me. Your enemy. And it will kill your sister right to the core, which will kill Erik in turn. And it will piss off your father, which will just make me laugh.”

“I’ll never be able to love you.” She doesn’t say it with passion. She says it with dejection. Sadness.

God, it’s tough to kick her when she’s already down.

“I never said anything about love,” I growl before turning to the stairs. “You’re going to be staying here for the time being. You better get used to it.” I stomp up the stairs just to get away from Nadia as fast as I can.

She’s in my head and she doesn’t even know it.

Anya

The gunfire finally stops.

When I lift my head off the chapel floor, I see that Aiden and Finn, Dante’s hired hitmen, are gone. Dante is gone.

Nadia is gone.

The quiet in the room is almost deafening. After a long moment, people begin scream and run for the entrance. A few people are dead. Gunned down. Their blood is splattered on the walls.

Erik gets off me, helping me up. I pull away from him.

“Why didn’t you save her?” I hiss.

The pain in his eyes hurts me almost as much as losing Nadia. But not enough. “I had to save you first.”

“No. She’s my sister. You should have saved her, Erik.”

“I will save her. I will get her back. That is my promise to you.”

I believe him. My husband hasn’t let me down in years. But this feels different. Dante taking Nadia feels final, like I might never see my sister again.

My father storms over to us. “What the fuck was all of that? That bastard took my daughter!”

“And I will get her back.”

“How? Do you know where she is? Do you know where that fucking Italian took her?”

“He doesn’t,” Viktor grunts from the altar as he stands up, clutching a hand to his bleeding shoulder. “None of us know where he took Nadia. But she was promised to me. I don’t appreciate him taking something that doesn’t belong to him.”

“You’re hurt,” Erik says. “You need to get that looked at before you can go after Nadia. I’ll send my men out. We’ll find her.” His eyes soften as he cups my face. “I will find her, Anya. You have my word.”

I lean into his touch. This man I love so much; we’ve had to work so hard at our marriage. We’re finally at a good point. We’ve been figuring each other out for years, exploring new depths, learning new parts. Erik has walked into fire to save both me and Nadia before.

He’s shown that he is capable. I just have to trust that he can save my sister again.

Dante

“Dante, what did you do?” Elio Romano asks me when he finds me on his doorstep. I know how I must look – covered in sweat. Disheveled. Like I just kidnapped someone.

“Have you heard yet?” I saunter into his house.

“I’ve heard rumors. But nothing concrete. What did you do?”

“I took her, Elio.”

“Who?”

“Nadia Belov. Sergei Belov’s daughter. I’m finally getting revenge on the man who kidnapped Aria.”

Elio shushes me and points upstairs. That must be where Aria is. “That’s still a sensitive subject for her. She still has nightmares of that day.”

I fling myself onto his couch and stretch out my legs. They’re tired from carrying Nadia over my shoulder. It’s a lot of work kidnapping somebody.

“Well, now we’re going to get justice for that day. I’m going to torture Nadia Belov and it will drive her father mad. He’ll regret ever going after Aria.”

Elio rubs a hand along his neck, looking uncertain.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s just… I’ve been trying hard to work with Aria to get over that day. If she hears about all of this, it might make all of her progress regress.”

“Why does it still bother her? It was four years ago.”

“Because she was only twelve when it happened. A fucking kid. And what do you mean it was ‘four years ago?’ I don’t see you getting over anything that happened four years ago. Instead, you’re charging full steam ahead to your own destruction. ”

“After I was almost killed, I lost everything. You know that. Now, I didn’t reach out often because I didn’t want you to be associated with me. I didn’t want that to hurt your family.”

When new Mafia players take over, they can sometimes hurt or even kill other Mafia families who were aligned with old Mafia leaders. Elio used to be like family to me. That’s why I took it hard when Sergei kidnapped Aria four years ago. He tried to use Aria to kill me.

It didn’t work since I’m still fucking standing.

“But now, I need your help,” I continue. “I need your help in making sure Erik never finds where I’m keeping Nadia. Now, I won’t tell you where for your own safety. I don’t want him using it against you or Aria. Who knows what he might do in his efforts to find his sister-in-law?”

“You’ve put my Aria at risk again,” he growls. “By kidnapping a Bratva woman, you’ve put a target on Aria’s back.”

“They won’t come for you. I’ll make sure of it.”

“How can you make sure, Dante? They easily stole Aria all those years ago. What’s stopping them from doing it again? Kidnapping girls is not the way to go. This will only end in disaster.”

“I want that family to hurt.” It’s not me who says it. It’s a young female voice. When I turn towards the stairs, I see a petite blonde girl standing there.

Aria.

“Go back upstairs,” Elio tells her.

“No.” She storms over to me. “I remember the man who took me. Sergei Belov. It’s his daughter you took?”

“You were listening?” Elio asks. “Of course you were.”

“Yes,” I answer Aria’s question while ignoring Elio.

“Good. I was an innocent brought into a war. It wasn’t fair. And I want that family to suffer for ever putting me through that. If this girl’s kidnapping causes her family pain like my kidnapping did to my father, then I want that to happen. I want the man who kidnapped me to feel fear like I did.”

“And he will. Sergei Belov will regret ever kidnapping you in the first place.”

“And Erik Koslov too. He threatened my father if I didn’t tell him where you were located. I don’t take threats against my family too kindly. ”

“I can see that.” I look Aria over. It’s not in a sexual way. It’s in an observant way. She’s always been like family to me and at sixteen, she’s grown into a fierce girl. She has hate in her heart like I do. Good. We’re all going to need hate in our hearts to make it through this.

I can’t go soft. Hate will only harden me.

“Sergei and Erik will suffer,” I tell her. “I promise you that.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

The girl smiles.

Nadia

The basement is chilly. I can’t stop shivering as I stand here in my wedding dress. I don’t dare sit down on the mattress. It’s a new mattress at least. There’s no gross stains on it and looks like it has never been used. The thought that Dante went out and bought a mattress just for me makes something inside my stomach slither.

The only thing that encompasses my mind is the worry that Anya could have been killed in that chapel. I know Dante wants to make her and Erik suffer, so it gives me hope that she really is alive. But I can’t take Dante at his word. He could very well be lying to me. Kidnapping me hasn’t won him any favors in the trust department.

The longer I stand, frozen, in the basement, the more I know I need to get out of here. Dante is already causing destruction and fear. I don’t want to know everything he’s capable of.

I try the door at the top of the basement stairs but unsurprisingly, it’s locked. I knock on it for good measure. “Hello? Can anybody hear me? Help me?”

No response. Not that I thought I would get one. I just had to try. If Anya was in my shoes, she would try everything at her disposal.

I look around the basement, taking in anything that might be able to help me. There’s a tiny window near the ceiling. I’m too short to reach it. Besides, there’s bars across the window. Even if I could reach, I doubt I’d be able to pull the bars off and I doubt even less that I’d be able to make it through the small window. I may be petite but I’m still an adult. Only a small child could fit through it.

I check every corner of the basement. Since the walls are not insulated, it makes the room even colder, despite the fact that it’s summertime. I peer into every crevice in the walls, seeking a way out but there’s nothing. There’s no weapons I could use. It’s just a mattress and a bucket.

I shudder at the sight of the bucket. I know exactly why it’s here, which means Dante doesn’t plan on releasing me from this basement anytime soon. The thought of peeing into a bucket feels so undignified.

Dante is so concerned about whether I view him as trash but it’s obvious he thinks I’m gum under his shoe for him to treat me this way.

He has no reason to like me. It is true that we’re enemies, both in the Bratva versus Mafia sense but also in that Erik and Anya and my father all tried to kill him. It’s a messy thing.

But they only tried to kill him because he was trying to kill them. It’s like an ouroboros. A snake eating its tale. A never ending battle.

I just worry that the battle will only end after I die. Dante doesn’t seem to want me dead anytime soon but that could change. If I don’t find a way out of here, I’m not sure I’ll ever find a way out of here.

Footsteps above me make me tense. When I hear multiple sets of footsteps and the murmuring of voices, my fear takes over my entire body. When Anya is backed into a corner, she fights like a rabid dog. It’s why she took the brunt abuse of our father. She would hit him back.

But when I’m backed into a corner, all I can do is freeze. It’s like every fiber in my body constricts and tenses and I’m in unable to move a muscle.

The footsteps get closer to the basement door. It’s clear from the voices that they’re male. Why would I expect anything else?

I’m not sure if one of them is Dante. He frightens me but at least I know him. I know he doesn’t want me dead – yet anyway. But what if it’s someone I don’t know? Someone who doesn’t care if I live or die?

Someone who might delight in my torture?

When the basement door opens, it makes my body spring into motion. I grab the bucket and press my body against the wall off to the side of the stairs. Whoever this is won’t be able to see me right away .

But I also won’t be able to see them.

Two sets of footsteps descend the stairs. They don’t shut the basement door behind them. If I can get past whoever these people are, maybe I can escape. I have to make Anya proud. I have to try.

When the first man steps into the room, I grip the bucket handle tight and swing the bucket right at him. It makes him jerk back and I force my legs to move and run past him.

But another man is still on the stairs, blocking my path.

He tilts his head, smiling down at me like I’m an amusing kitten. “Did you really think you could get past us?”

I know this man. It’s Aiden Murphy, one of the hitmen who Dante works with. Which means…

I turn around and run right into Finn Murphy’s chest, Aiden’s brother.

I met these two before years ago when they attacked Erik’s house. We never spoke but their faces have been implanted in my head since then. Erik explained to me who they are at the time.

But after Dante disappeared, so did they, and I stopped being worried about hitmen coming to kill me in the night.

My worry slams right back into me. My nightmares have become real.

I’m stuck between two hitmen. Their job is to kill, unlike Dante’s. Dante wants power. He wants revenge. He doesn’t want me dead.

But these men… I shiver. They might just kill me for sport and I will not be able to stop them. A quick glance towards Finn’s waist tells me he has a gun.

When I meet his eyes, he smiles. “Just the woman we were looking for.”