by Khloe Wren
I paused in my struggling to glare my hatred at her. “You left her body for him to find? Why?”
I was now naked in the cuffs, her man having stepped back to allow her to come up to the side of the table where I lay. She ran a nail down my cheek, scratching me with the sharpened point. I held in the wince at the streak of pain, refusing to let her see she’d hurt me in any way, and knowing worse was soon to come my way.
“So innocent. He didn’t tell you what he did? How he turned on the man who took him in as a teen and raised him as his own.”
My growl cut her off. “That’s not how he tells it.”
She laughed and I glimpsed her palm a moment before pain radiated across my face. Her backhand split my lip and filled my mouth with the taste of my own blood.
“I wouldn’t recommend interrupting me again. I have a little issue with my temper, especially since your boyfriend murdered my father.”
The glint in her eyes had me clenching my jaw. She was fucking insane, completely mentally unstable. This wasn’t going to end well. No matter how hard I fought, this was going to hurt. A lot. She stepped back from the table and waved a hand to her men. “Get her up against the wall, I’m going to go get the others. Playtime is here.”
I cringed away from the smirks her men wore as they flipped open the cuffs and pulled me from the table. I tried to lash out but I’d been tied down for so long, and was no doubt still recovering from my drug overdose, that my muscles refused to respond like they normally did. In moments, I was cuffed and chained to the wall beside Dr. Maestro, who stood staring blankly into space, as though he’d found a way to disconnect from his body.
Bile rose up my throat when one of the men ran his hand down my front, tweaking a nipple on his way.
“We’re gonna have so much fucking fun breaking you, baby. She won’t let you die easy, either. Nope, she’ll make you suffer so much more than she did that other little bitch, because he claimed you. We’re gonna have weeks, maybe even months of fucking all your pretty little holes. Make sure you’re well used and utterly ruined, then, maybe she’ll return you to him. Let him see what we’ve done to you.”
I swallowed down the bile. Steeled myself against what was about to happen. I knew this bastard was telling me the truth. My life was about to return to being hell, one worse than the one I’d survived already. Before her men could do more to me, a shout from outside the room drew their attention and they both ran for the door. As soon as they left, I tested the cuffs, twisting and turning to see if I could slip free somehow.
“It’s pointless. They never leave a way out.”
Dr. Maestro’s low voice had me pausing for only a second before I kept trying to break free.
“I can’t not try.”
He gave me a small nod but didn’t say anything else as I continued to twist and tug until my wrists burned from the cuffs rubbing against my flesh. Suddenly a loud burst of sounds from the hallway had me stilling.
“Was that—”
“Gunfire. Yes. Perhaps your man has indeed come for you.”
“Not just me, us. He was already coming to rescue you when I was taken.”
“Right.”
He didn’t sound like he believed me but I didn’t care right then. So long as Blade came through the door in the next few minutes, I didn’t care about a damn thing else.
The door snicked once more but what came through was the last thing I expected. Or wanted. A decidedly worse for wear looking Elita was thrust inside. Her clothing was ripped, one eye was bruised and swollen shut, and she had a cut on her cheek that looked like a fist wearing a ring had struck her. She stumbled on her now shoeless feet as she tried to maintain her balance with my uncle shoving her forward again with a gun to her back.
“No. Oh, fuck no.”
Ignoring Dr. Maestro’s glance at me, I shook my head as I continued to curse under my breath. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t be this unlucky. To go from one hell to another.
“Ah, finally, there you are, my sweet baby girl. You certainly have been hard to pin down.”
My whole body trembled violently at my uncle’s smooth Texan drawl. It was supposed to be Blade coming to my rescue, not him.
“How did you find me?”
“Your abduction made the news, my dear. Your neighbor saw you being snatched and called in the cavalry. From there it wasn’t hard to call in a few favors to find out where you were.”
“Favors?”
Several men came in behind my uncle, the largest one grabbing Elita with a firm grip in her hair and shoving her against the wall, shackling her in her own cuffs before he turned to speak to me.
“Yes, favors. Lucky for your uncle, I’ve wanted to take over from the Sabella family for a long damn time. Antonio wouldn’t allow me to marry this one, so now we’ll take another path. I bet you’re regretting your decision to reject me so harshly now aren’t you, Elita? You could have been my queen. Now you’ll be my slut before I’ll allow you to join your father.”
My gaze and attention were torn from her when my uncle stepped up close to me, resting his warm palm over his mark on my hip.
“You still wear my mark. Good.”
What choice did I have? He’d fucking tattooed it into my skin. If I could have removed it, I would have long ago. When he leaned in and inhaled against my neck, I once more found myself swallowing down bile. Unable to hold them in any longer, tears streaked down my cheeks. With all my clothes stripped from me, all of Keys’ trackers were also gone. I doubted my uncle would let me take any of them from where they sat in the corner. That meant my life was now over. Done. My uncle would make sure I was hidden away so well no one would ever see me again. My lungs would draw in air, my heart would continue to beat, but my soul would soon be gone. I knew it as sure as I knew the sun would rise again in the morning.
“Boss, what do you want to do with this one?”
He leaned back to turn toward the conversation the other men were having. The man still holding Elita against the wall with her hair, looked over at Dr. Maestro, eying his state of undress and the bruises that marred his flesh before he shrugged.
“End his suffering, leave him here.”
“No!”
I called out before I could think it through. Every eye in the room turned to me. My uncle took my chin in his fingers so I was forced to look into his cold, hard eyes.
“Why would you have us spare his life?”
“He saved me. When Elita’s men took me, they drugged me and gave me an overdose. Dr. Maestro saved my life. Without him, you would have found my dead body today.”
Fury flared in his gaze and before I could catch my breath, he pushed away from me and strode over to where Elita hung from her own shackles. The other man stepped back to allow him access as he watched on with a curious expression.
My uncle’s voice was a cold whip. “Not only did you dare touch what is mine, you nearly killed her?”
Watching Elita shake with fear did bring me a spark of pleasure in my own mind-numbing fear. It was short lived, though. My uncle delivered a solid blow to her side, most likely breaking a rib or two before he grabbed her chin in a brutal grip, forcing her to focus on his face.
“I’m a firm believer in vengeance, Ms. Sabella. You had my Victoria stripped bare and no doubt were about to order all manner of things done to her. I can see from the doctor’s body that you’ve done the same to him. It’s time for you to get a taste of what you deal out, my dear.”
The other man cleared his throat. “That was not our deal, Jovan. You can take the doctor along with your girl, but Elita is mine to punish. You can stay and watch if you’d like, but it’ll be me in charge.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to close off my hearing. I did not want to witness her rape. No matter how much I hated her for what she’d done to me and Dr. Maestro, I didn’t want this for her. Didn’t want to hear it or see it.
I jerked when my uncle’s palm cupped my cheek. “Sweet bab
y girl, do you not want to witness her punishment?”
Still refusing to open my eyes, I shook my head no.
“Still so innocent. And what would you have me do with your fellow captive, hmm?”
“Free him. All he did was his job, treated a man Elita didn’t like at the hospital where he worked. Nothing more. She’s had him for weeks, tortured him. He didn’t deserve any of it. Yet he still chose to save my life. He’s earned his freedom, Uncle.”
With my eyes still closed I didn’t see him move but his warm breath heated my ear, making a shiver of revulsion go down my spine. “If you want him spared, you need to pay a price, baby girl. You will come with me willingly. No fighting, no escaping.”
More tears left my eyes as deep inside, my soul began to die, just as I knew it would. My uncle would never let me be free. Images of Blade flashed across the inside of my closed lids. Of his smile, of the way his face went lax when he came. The sensation of his hands on my body, loving me. Things I’d never experience again.
I nodded to my uncle. No matter what I said or did from here on out, my life was over. I might as well try to save Dr. Maestro if I could.
“Open your eyes and look at me when you give me your word. I’ll not have you lie to me.”
I blinked open my eyes and nearly gagged at the sight that greeted me. The other man was standing back with his arms crossed as he instructed his goons, who were tearing at Elita’s clothing, pawing her body as they did. Seeing her being prepared had me flashing back to my own rapes at my uncle’s hand and a whimper left my throat before I could call it back. Fingers on my chin tilted my face away from the sight and forced my gaze to meet my uncle’s. The excitement lighting his eyes made me want to throw up all over again. He was possibly even more insane than Elita.
“Give me your word, Victoria.”
I hated my name, but was glad he didn’t contaminate my new name by saying it. I would hold on to Blade’s voice whispering Veronica in his deep baritone for the rest of my days, untainted by my uncle’s voice saying the same name.
“If you spare Dr. Maestro’s life, I will come with you willingly and not attempt to escape.”
His smile was a cold thing, like how I imagined a snake would grin at its next meal.
“Good, baby. Although, we’ll not leave him here. I doubt you want him to be left to be their plaything once they get through with Elita. We’ll take him with us and once I have you safely sequestered back where you belong, we’ll set him free.”
It was the best I could do for the man. I had no clue if my uncle would honor his words, because I sure as fuck didn’t intend to honor mine. If I got even half a chance to run from him, I would, promise be damned.
Elita Sabella
After that fucker, Jovan, left with my captives, I could do nothing but hang from my own fucking shackles as I waited for what Makar Smirnov was going to do to me next. He’d already had his men strip me naked, tearing and cutting my clothes from me as I tried to pull free from the cuffs I knew would never give. Thick leather bands enclosed my wrists and ankles that were connected by short chains to rings embedded into the stone wall behind me. I’d held enough prisoners in this room to know there was no escaping. But, ironically, just like my victims, I fought against them anyway.
With a wave of his hand, his men had stepped away from me once I was naked and now he stood staring at me. I kept my chin up and my gaze hard. I refused to allow him to see he affected me at all, even though he always had. My father had been irate at the very thought of a Russian family being involved with the family business and had quickly forbid me from any contact with Makar soon after his arrival in L.A.
It wasn’t until much later that I’d learned about all of Makar’s attempts to have my father betroth me to him. As though this was the eighteenth century or something, and I was my father’s property to give away at his pleasure. I’d never had any intention of taking a man permanently. Never had any desire to reproduce.
As Makar set about calmly removing his jacket and cufflinks, then started in on slowly rolling up his sleeves, my mind swirled with questions and recriminations. How had this happened? My father had taught me well. As he’d trained me to do, I’d groomed my closest guards carefully to be one-hundred percent loyal to me. They’d witnessed the price if they weren’t. I’d been a harsh boss, but they were rewarded richly for their service to me. When I’d sent Nicolas to follow Blade and report back, I’d thought I’d hit the jackpot when the stupid bastard had taken on a girlfriend. He should have just headed to Mexico and hidden under a rock for the next ten years. That’s what I would have done in his position. In my excitement of finding such a big weakness, I hadn’t done due diligence on researching her past. I had no fucking clue that his little Veronica Jones was really the missing Victoria Jovan, niece and apparently plaything to the mayor of Greenswood, Allen Jovan, who was best friends with none other than the man who’d been desperate to make me his for the past decade.
I’d heard about Jovan years ago, when his niece first went missing. He’d called in favors back then too, but no one had been able to find any information on where the girl had disappeared to. I’d had no clue that she’d stayed hidden all this time.
“Elita, malysh, at last, you’re all mine.”
I growled when he stepped up and pressed his hard body against mine, pinning me against the wall so I couldn’t move at all.
“Now, now. Don’t be like that.” He reached up and wrapped his palm around my breast, squeezing it hard enough to make my eyes water before he gave my nipple a hard tug.
“Such a pity you and your father chose this path for us, malysh. I spoke the truth earlier. I would have made you my queen. We could have ruled this city together. But instead your father disrespected me, told me I wasn’t good enough for his precious Elita.” He leaned in and bit at my jaw, hard. I clenched my teeth so the whimper didn’t leave me. “You didn’t think I was good enough either, did you?”
I couldn’t help but respond. “Don’t take it so personally, Makar, I didn’t want any man.”
He laughed darkly. “Looked like you wanted and had that doctor a number of times, so don’t bullshit me. Since I’m clearly not good enough for you, let’s see if I’m bad enough, da?”
When he turned to his men and instructed them to go get his ropes, fear like I’d never known had my limbs trembling against my will.
He stroked his knuckles down my cheek while he waited for his men to return.
“Such soft skin. But that’s the only soft part of you, da? I had plans for us. Children, big house… but you never would have wanted any of that, would you? You truly are as stone-cold as your father told me you were. You would make a terrible leader. You need some compassion, some level of care for those who come under the umbrella of your protection. You have none for anyone other than yourself. Let’s see if we can teach you a little humility to take into your next life, da?”
He pressed a soft kiss to my cheek before turning to take the bundle of rope from his man. My heartbeat thundered in my ears as, in silence, he shifted my ankle cuff to be locked to a higher ring, then he tied my knee to my elbow, which left my pussy wide open for him. His gaze lit up and his two men standing behind him took their cocks out and started stroking themselves as Makar pulled his belt free. But he didn’t undo his fly next, like I expected. No, it was worse. He folded that thick leather in two and raised it high before swinging it down against my inner thigh.
My world became a blur of pain and humiliation. I had no idea how long Makar and his men kept at me but when they finally had enough, they left me hanging in my own dungeon. Makar’s parting words, telling me to enjoy dying a slow, painful death and I could say hello to my father in hell when I finally joined him, rang in my ears as I screamed into the now empty room.
Slowly, my mind managed to push through the pain and thoughts began to swirl again. Not that it did me any good. I was still chained in my own unescapable cuffs, only now I didn’t have the
energy to even attempt to fight free of them. My entire body ached, inside and out. I’d be impressed, if I hadn’t been the recipient of the abuse. Rage heated my blood. Anger at myself, Makar, Blade and my father twisted inside me until my body vibrated with it.
The one goal that had motivated me since my father’s death would go unattained. I would die in this room, from either whatever internal injuries I had sustained, or dehydration and starvation, while his murderer was still free. At least I could die knowing that Blade would never find his precious Veronica. Jovan would lock that girl away so well, she wouldn’t even see daylight, let alone other people. That would have to be enough. Knowing that Blade would suffer the rest of his life not having any idea what his woman was suffering through. Being unable to save her.
I would go unsaved too. All my men who knew about this location were here when Makar and Allen stormed my walls and were all now slaughtered. The only others who knew this property existed were my brother and mother, but neither of them would be coming any time soon. No, those worthless, spineless pussies had run as soon as we’d gotten word of father’s death. They’d seen their freedom and fled, while I’d seen a need to avenge his death and track down his murderer. My father had figured out early on that his son would never be a made man, but he’d seen it in me. Seen that I was more than capable, and even though I was a girl, he’d groomed me to one day take over for him.
And what a fine job I’d done of that.
“Fuck!”
I cursed loudly, the sound echoing around the room. I’d been the head of the family for less than a month and I’d fucked up and got myself brutalized and left for dead. Makar telling me I would never have made a good leader had me growling again. If I somehow managed to get free from here, Makar Smirnov and Allen Jovan both would pay dearly for what they’d done here today.
“Whoa.” A large man wearing a leather vest skidded to a halt in the doorway, taking in my bloody and battered body for a silent minute before he turned and called down the hallway. “Found her!”
