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When I came to, I was trussed up and lying on my side on a stone floor, covered in cuts and bruises that stung in the damp cold. The dark was oppressive, terrifying. I screamed myself hoarse, begging for help.
A thin slice of light appeared as a door opened. I scrambled, trying to shove my bound body into a sitting position. A large man chuckled at my predicament and yanked me upright before slicing through the tape that bound my feet together.
“Who are you? Where am I? Let me go!” My pleas fell on deaf ears.
He unscrewed a bottle of water and held it above my lips. I lapped desperately at the cool liquid. He rose without saying anything and slammed the door shut with a clang. The pattern repeated itself. After a few days, I was a starving, disgusting mess, desperate for food, desperate to clean my own filth off of myself. When the man sliced open the duct tape holding my wrists together, I was ready to throw myself into his arms with gratitude. I was sixteen and so stupid.
He ruffled my hair affectionately, then crooked his finger. Thrilled at the opportunity to escape my cell, I followed. He led me into a white room with a shower head installed over a drain and told me to strip.
My eyes flicked to him with fear as I noted his heavy Russian accent.
“I won’t tell you again, girl. Time to get clean.”
Once again terrified, shivering in the cold fluorescent light of a room I’d recognized as a venue for torture, I dropped my soiled clothes on the floor and stepped into the freezing water. He handed me a bar of soap, the boredom in his eyes strangely reassuring.
“Don’t worry, little dove. I don’t fuck children,” he said.
As soon as I was clean, he handed me a towel, and then simple white garments. “What are you going to do with me?”
His smile was chilling. “Men will pay a lot to get their hands on a virgin Russo.” He cuffed my hands together after I dressed and led me down the hall, my hair dripping onto the fabric, making it translucent.
“I’m not a virgin,” I whispered, terrified he’d kill me for it, but more terrified of being found out later.
The man only grunted. “It’ll lower your price, but they’ll still pay for you.” He dragged me out onto a stage and locked my cuffs to a t-bar in the middle of it. The bright lights shined on my face, blinding me so I couldn’t identify anyone in the audience.
The price went up and up, and I realized what a twisted world my father lived in. These were his peers, the men he did business with, who were bidding on a sixteen-year-old girl. I was young and stupid, but not so stupid that I didn’t know what this meant for my future.
A hundred and fifty thousand dollars is what my non-virgin ass was worth, the right to fuck up a Russo good, to stick it to Antonio.
Shadowy figures dragged me off the stage, dropping a cloth bag over my face so quickly I couldn’t see the other girls up for sale that night. They threw me into the trunk of a car as I sobbed and begged for them to let me go, promising them anything, swearing my father would catch them and kill them, screaming with despair.
When the car spun out of control, I was sure I was dead. When we came to a crashing halt, I screamed for help, terrified I’d be left in the crumpled trunk to die. Gunshots sounded outside, and I shut the fuck up, as terrified I’d be murdered as I’d been of abandonment seconds before. I needn’t have worried. My father extracted justice from my captors.
The day the hospital released me, my father and the head of the Bratva met. Neither of them wanted a violent gang war on the streets of Yorkfield, but the Bravta couldn’t dissuade my father from justice for his daughter. He drove me home, dressed me in the same tactical gear his men wore when they were enforcing, and handed me a gun.
I followed him out to the back of our house, where a dozen men waited for my family’s retribution. The Russian who’d showered me and locked me on the stage met my eyes from where he knelt, Alexi’s gun to his head. His smile was slow. “Little dove, good to see you again.” Alexi cuffed him hard, but the man didn’t turn his eyes away from me. “Be careful who you trust.”
At the end of the line of kneeling men was the boy who’d betrayed me. He had pissed his pants in fear and tears streamed down his face. Papà handed me his own gun. “Justice, Ginevra. Never forget what we do to those who hurt our family.” One by one, his enforcers shot the men at their feet. When it was my turn, I hesitated. Papà embraced me from behind, holding my hands around the grip of the gun, but leaving my finger on the trigger. “You are a Russo, and we do not accept betrayal,” he said, his voice quiet and reassuring in my ear.
I nodded and squeezed, trying not to flinch as the boy’s brains sprayed all over me. That night, my father and hiscaposwelcomed me into the family. I was a Made Man at sixteen. I knew then that if I didn’t get out of there, surviving would chip away at my soul bit by bit until there wasn’t anything left.
“That kid was the illegitimate son of Yuri Semenov, who was, at the time, a junior enforcer,” I finished.
“No longer,” Rian said, grimacing. “He’s now the number two in the Bratva.”
Without saying a word, Liam picked up my plate, taking it to the microwave to reheat it. He needn’t have bothered. Telling the story had ruined my appetite.
I pushed back from the table. “I need to get a few hours of work in.”
Two hours later, Cormac walked into the office without knocking, setting a plate with a sandwich beside me. “Eat.”
I spun around in my chair, letting my knees knock into him. “Always have to be in charge,” I teased.
He nodded, treating the comment as if I were serious. “Yes, I do. I told you to eat.”
“I will.” I had to wrap up the plans for this animation contract before I logged off for the night.
He just stared at me until I picked up the sandwich and started nibbling at it. As I ate, he pushed a strand of hair out of my face.
