Page 52 of Lord of the Underworld

The thought makes me ill. I never wanted anyone to die for me. All because this loathsome piece of human garbage was upset that he couldn't beat up his wife anymore and sell off his daughters.

The brother is eyeing me with a frown while I'm mentally sorting through my crime family directory. Marco? "You should reason with your brother, Marco. Is this worth a fight you can't win with the Moscow Six Families?"

That's it. That's all my cards, out on the table. I'm not sure it's enough.

Marco doesn't seem quelled by my threats. He pinches my chin between his fingers, squeezing cruelly as I try to slap his hand away. "In our world you do not interfere with a man's family. Mafia, Bratva, mob, or syndicate. Do you think your mighty Bratva will defend you when they find out how many families you've dishonored?"

"Dishonored?" I half shriek the word. "Dishonor is a man beating up the mother of his children because his dick is so tiny that he has to do something to feel more like a man! Dishonor is a Don who'd sell off his own children for some pathetic alliance."

I wrench my chin loose, looking at Don Rossi. "You're weak, and everyone knows it. The other families laugh at men like you, so fragile that they have to beat on their own families. You're a gutless, dickless coward."

Rossi roars, his fist raised and ready to pummel me into the mud. "I'll fucking cut you into pieces, you -"

The hand he's raised to punch me disappears in an explosion of bone and blood.

A circle of black-suited figures materializes around us, guns trained on Rossi's men. The tallest one separates from the others and strides over to me, smoke still seeping from the barrel of his Smith & Wesson.

I know it's Vadim before he pulls down his balaclava, his glacier blue eyes staring into mine.

Another earth-shaking round of thunder and a searing crackle of lightning streaks across the field highlighting every inch of him like its high noon.

It feels like a bolt of lightning goes through my brain, too.

I remember this.

Water streaming down my face.

Icy blue eyes in a pale face. Hair like a raven's wing.

"It's you," I whisper. "You saved me again, didn't you?"

Chapter Twenty-Three

In which Oksana remembers.

Oksana…

Ten years old…

It was so cold.

Mother used to brag that I had strong Russian blood, that the cold never bothered me. But that was the sharp bite of winter in Moscow. This was never-ending, a frigid kiss that seeped into my bones, it made my skin clammy and covered in goosebumps.

The only time they'd let me out of this cell is when... I won't think about that.

Father always spent a lot of time telling Maks and Nikolay what to do if they were kidnapped, how to survive torture. It used to terrify me, standing outside his study and listening to him tell them about branding, and whipping, and cutting. He never bothered to say anything to me, though. I don't know if it was because I was a girl and not very important, or that he never thought about me at all.

The men who kidnapped me took me out the back door of my private school, the Royal Academy for Young Ladies, where security was so good. The administration always bragged about it, how good the security was there. How the children of the oligarchs and politicians would be safe there.

I was getting my coat when one of them dressed in a maintenance uniform slammed a hand over my mouth. A big man with scarred knuckles. He smelled horrible, like sweat and weed, and he crushed my ribs with his other arm, dragging me out of the school.

I kicked him, I bit his hand and tried to scream and he hit me. Hard enough to knock me out. When I woke up, I was in the back of a car with a bag over my head with two men talking in the front. I didn't know how long we drove. I didn't know how long I'd been unconscious. I tried so hard not to cry. But I finally broke and begged them to tell me why they took me. They ignored me until they got irritated with my questioning, and one of them slapped me. I didn't see it coming, of course.

Somehow that made it worse, because I couldn't brace for it, the way I did when Father hit me.

They took the bag off when they put me in my cell with a bucket, and a stained mattress. I know it's in the basement of a big house. There's a tiny, barred window outside my cell and I can see fancy gardens and a fountain. There are other people that come and go. I was in the last cell in the hall so no one passed by me. The guards were horrible. They'd hit my bars, making them clang, and laugh at me, telling me they're going to sell me to someone who likes little girls. I didn't know what they meant, but it didn't sound nice. It sounded scary.

Every day I would ask if my father had paid the ransom yet. That made them laugh harder.