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I’m a prisoner. A Bratva prisoner.
Fear lances through me, hot and sharp—not just for myself, but for my baby. I’ve known I was pregnant for less than a day, and already I’m afraid that it might be taken from me.
We should have known. But I can’t be angry with Salvatore. He wanted to believe that he could fix all of this. That he could protect me and still honor my father’s wishes. That he could make a deal with the Bratva that would make up for stealing me from Pyotr at the altar.
That he could smooth everything over.
He was wrong, and my heart breaks thinking about what must be happening to him now, how frantic he must be.
If he’s even alive.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I won’t think that. I won’t. If I do, I’ll fall apart at the seams.
The door to the room opens, and my eyes fly open. For a moment, I think my heart is going to stop in my chest.
Pyotr is standing there, still in his suit from the wedding, and I feel a surge of nausea. Bile rises hotly in the back of my throat, and I try to sit up despite how my hands are cuffed to the bed, feeling far too vulnerable in my current position.
He looks at me appraisingly, a small, satisfied smile on his mouth, and fear follows the sick sensation in my stomach. “It took longer than expected, but there you are, Gia. In a bed, waiting for me, just as you were meant to be.”
“Fuck you.” I spit it out without thinking, seething with sudden anger, but he just laughs.
“That was the plan. Marry you, fuck you, get you pregnant, and then stash you somewhere until I wanted to have a little fun with you again. You were so gullible that it made it easy. You fell in love with me so hard, didn’t you, little Gia?” Pyotr clicks his tongue, making a tsking sound as he walks toward the bed, and I stiffen, trying to scramble backward as far as I can.
“But your godfather got in the way of all of that. A shame, really. Your father put so much work into that treaty, just for one man that he trusted to blow it to bits at the last minute.” Pyotr shakes his head. “I really was looking forward to our wedding night. But it doesn’t have to be a total loss.”
“Salvatore was saving me from you,” I hiss, pulling my legs up under me. I want to be as small as possible, as far away from Pyotr as I can possibly be. My mind still feels a little foggy from the drugs, but one thing is crystal clear—Pyotr wants to hurt me. And I won’t let him if I can manage it.
“Not much of a savior, is he?” Pyotr glances around the room, his mouth quirking up on one side as if all of this is funny to him. “But this is just a temporary measure, Gia. Just to make sure you didn’t get away from me again. My men were needed elsewhere, and I had to make sure you didn’t run from me, or do something foolish like jumping off a balcony or finding a razor blade in the shower. Now that I’m here, we can talk, and then I’ll take those off of you.” He nods to the handcuffs, and I glare at him.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Of course there is.” Pyotr sits on the edge of the bed, reaching over to touch my knee, and I flinch away from him instinctively. “Our future, for one thing.”
“We don’t have a future.” I swallow hard, looking away from him, feeling as if I have emotional whiplash from how quickly everything has changed. Every part of me is aching for Salvatore. I miss him, and I’m terrified that something has happened to him, terrified for him and for myself, and sick with longing to go back to this morning, when we were happier than we’ve ever been.
“Of course we do.” Pyotr smiles at me, his hand caressing my knee until I feel sick all over again. “We can still have everything we once talked about, Gia. All those conversations in the library and the garden, you remember those, don’t you?” He squeezes my knee, his fingers curling underneath it to pull my leg out from underneath me, his broad palm skimming down my calf. I try to pull free of his touch, but his hand tightens, his eyes narrowing. “You do remember, don’t you?”
There’s no point in lying. I nod silently.
“Good.” His smile returns. “Not marriage, of course. I can’t give you that any longer. Your godfather ruined you for that, so you can thank him. Unless, of course, you want to try to convince me that he’s left you a virgin this whole time?”
I shake my head quickly. It’s hard to believe that once, that was what I hoped for. Now, I don’t want there to be a shred of doubt in Pyotr’s mind that Salvatore has had me in every way he can think of. I don’t want Pyotr to keep touching me, or to try to test the veracity of it if I were to try to say otherwise.
Pyotr shudders. “That’s what I thought. I could see his sick lust for you from a mile off,” he adds, as if he’s sharing a secret with me. “He tried to call off our wedding, and then when he failed at that, he ruined it. I’m sorry for that, Gia. I can’t marry you now—you’re ruined, and I can’t have a bride who isn’t a virgin.” His hand slides up my knee, towards my inner thigh, and I go rigid, my heart beating frantically. “But you can still be my mistress.”
He says it as if I should be grateful for the offer, as if he’s giving me something, instead of it being a threat. It makes me feel sick all over again, seeing for the first time clearly how narcissistic he is, how cruel, how right Salvatore was about everything. That this man would steal me back, drug me, hurt me, chain me to a bed—and then offer me a place as his mistress as if he were doing me a fucking favor.
“No, thank you,” I manage to choke out. “I want to go home. Whatever there was between us, Pyotr—you’re right, it can’t happen now. Not after I’ve been married to someone else.”
The smile vanishes from his face. His hand grips my thigh, hard enough to hurt, and I bite my lip to keep from crying out. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. “I wanted to give you the chance to accept of your own free will,” he grinds out between his teeth, all good humor gone from his face and voice. “To prove that you loved me, Gia. But I see now you were as much of a liar as your godfather.”
No, I want to shout. You want me to give in because it makes you feel powerful. He wants me to cry and beg, to promise him that I wanted him all along, to choose him even though he’s chained me to a bed in order to get me to do so, because it makes him feel good to do it this way. To prove that I can’t be stolen from him.
But everything that matters has been stolen, and given to someone else. And he’ll never get it back from me.
“Where’s Bella?” I ask, fear stabbing through me at the thought of my cousin. “What happened to her?”
“She’s being kept in another room. I’ll likely still marry her. She’s useful, and I can blackmail her father that way.” Pyotr shrugs. “But I don’t care for her. It’s you I wanted, Gia.” His hand rubs over my thigh again, and I fight back another rush of nausea. “I’ll let you sleep a little longer, and then come back. Maybe the next time you wake up, you’ll have had a change of heart.”
