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“Fine. Fine! But you take the men I give you and go. Make a plan with them. I won’t have any part in making an attack on Igor Lasilov’s home.” He squirms on the floor, looking up at me, and I see the fear in his eyes.
It makes me wonder what kind of woman Bella’s mother must have been. She didn’t get her steel spine from her father, that’s for sure.
“Your daughter is twice the man you are.” I step off of his hand, and he sits up, cradling it to his chest. “Call however many of your men you can afford to spare. I expect seven, at the very least. Tell them to meet me at this address.” I toss a business card with the hotel’s name and address emblazoned on it at his feet. “I expect to see them there by this evening.”
And then I stalk out, without another word.
3
BELLA
Itry, very hard, not to let Igor see how afraid I am, on the drive to his estate. I sit up ramrod-straight on my side of the car, jean-clad legs pressed tightly together, my heart speeding up in my chest every time he moves. I’m terrified that he’ll try to touch me in some way, take advantage of me before we’ve even reached his house, his pronouncement that he might keep me for himself ringing in my ears over and over again.
I don’t know if I can think of a worse fate. And try as I might to cling to the hope that Gabriel will come and help me, it’s difficult to do so. Because deep down, I don’t know if he should.
Trying to help me will only put him in further danger—and, by association, his family. I can’t be responsible for that again.
I should never have taken the job when he offered it to me. I should have known that this would come back to haunt me, eventually. And I already regret whispering in his ear that I trusted him to save me if he could.
But I was scared. I still am. And as Igor’s black SUV pulls up in front of his large, old-world brick mansion and rolls to a stop, my heart beats painfully against my ribs.
I’m probably not going to die today. But as the door opens and I step out of the car, I can’t help noticing how the sunlight glints off of the shiny black surface. How green the trees are against the brown brick of Igor’s home. How ancient and stately it looks, in comparison to the penthouse I was told I’d live in with Pyotr.
The world narrows in, each of those details in sharp relief, because I know that when I walk through those doors into Igor’s home, there will be a before and an after to my life, as there has been in the past. And somehow, I have to survive this one, too.
I can’t do this again, I think, bile burning at the back of my throat as it tightens, my stomach swimming with nausea as I follow Igor up the stone path to his door, guards flanking me. There’s no escape, but truthfully, I’m not thinking of how to run. I know there’s no fleeing this. I’m thinking of what to do if the worst happens. I’m wondering if I’m brave enough to die, instead of living through something that will eventually kill me anyway.
“Follow me,” Igor says coldly, not looking behind. He has the confidence of a man who knows that he’ll be obeyed without question, and from what I can see, he is. There’s no faltering from his men. Whether that’s from respect or fear, I have no idea. I suspect it’s some combination of both.
I follow him too because I have no other choice.
His home is palatial, cold, and forbidding. Where Gabriel’s exuded warmth despite his obvious wealth, everything about Igor’s mansion feels as if every surface would chill me to the bone if I touched it. The entryway is marble, the staircase that we pass a gleaming, curved mahogany, the walls a cold white. It’s the only soft shape—everything else is sharp edges, whites, dark browns, and blacks, the floors hard and unforgiving. My sneakers slap against the marble, and I wrap my arms around myself, shivering. It reminds me far too much of the cold, unwelcoming interior of the mansion I grew up in. I ache to go back to Gabriel’s, to the living room with its soft couches and knitted blankets, the plush pillows and soft carpets beneath my feet.
I want to go home. The place I grew up in never felt like home, but in a very short time, Gabriel’s house has become that for me. And I miss it more than I ever thought I could.
I can’t think about that right now, or I’ll start to cry. And I refuse to show Igor any weakness. He can hurt me all he wants, I tell myself as he pushes open a door and gestures for me to walk inside, but I won’t cry.
I hope that’ll be true.
The room that I step into is small and dark. Igor flicks on a light, and golden warmth floods it, the first warmth I’ve seen in this house. I immediately realize I must be in his office. The back wall is curved, made up mostly of a large window that looks out onto the rolling green land beyond it, and it’s framed by two large mahogany floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. An equally large desk that reminds me of my father’s, complete with a leather chair behind it, sits squarely in front of the window. The walls are dark green, and the floor is equally dark wood. Two quilted leather chairs sit in front of the desk, on an expensive-looking patterned rug in deep greens and black.
“Sit.” Igor points to one chair, and circles around to the back of his desk. “Leave us,” he adds, gesturing to his men. “Close the door behind you.”
They move instantly to obey. It takes everything in me not to flinch when I hear the click of the door behind me, and I know that I’m alone with Igor in this room.
I sink down stiffly into one of the chairs, the cold leather pressing into the backs of my thighs. The chairs are hard and uncomfortable, as I had a feeling they would be. There’s nothing warm or inviting in this house; it reflects the man who lives here. Who owns it.
Who owns me, now. The thought chills me as thoroughly as my surroundings. Igor surveys me from the other side of the desk—an older man with neatly styled iron-grey hair and a thick, trimmed mustache and beard. He’s wearing a tailored dark suit, the shirt beneath black, as if he’s in mourning. Perhaps he is, although I refuse to think of him as a man with any feelings at all, a man who could grieve for his son.
If he truly felt grief for Pyotr, he wouldn’t so easily threaten to impose that same grief on another man.
“I refused to pay a dowry for you,” Igor says casually, as if he could hear my thoughts. “I had already paid Enzo D’Amelio one for Gia, you see. And then she was stolen from my son. Did they return the dowry? No. Did they take additional payment that day, in blood? Da.” His gaze is stony. “I heard that the don paid your father what would have been expected, from us. In order to get your father to agree to the marriage. So inadvertently, I still own you, da?” He studies me, his hands in his lap. “You are mine, Bella, to do with as I please. My son, I imagine, would have enjoyed you, if Don Morelli had not stepped in. And now, I have reclaimed what is mine.”
I stay silent, my lips pressed tightly together. I refuse to let him see any emotion, any fear. I won’t be able to stay this stoic forever, I’m sure. But I’ll maintain it for as long as I can. I’ll let him believe his words, his intentions, mean nothing to me. That he means nothing.
“I had planned to give you to my men, as a toy,” Igor continues casually, as if he’s discussing the weather with me. “A plaything for them to pass around. They are easily bored, so they would have tired of you, eventually. But they’re loyal, and I thought they deserved a reward, perhaps. An entertainment, for them to fight over.” He shrugs. It sounds as if he’s discussing a pack of dogs, not men. But from what I’ve heard about Bratva soldiers, there’s not much difference. Especially when it comes to women.
I sit there, still silent, my hands knotted together in my lap. I can feel a fine tremor starting to make its way through me, at the mention of what Igor had planned for me at the hands of his men. It brings back those memories in a flood—of the men in the hotel room after I was dragged from the wedding, of the leers and threats, the betting over whether they would get to have me or not, and if so, who would get to fuck me first. What they wanted from me, and how.
