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“I don’t want to cry,” I whisper, sitting back up slowly. “I want to get out of here. I want this to be over.”
“I know.” Ana sits down again, scooting the chair forward so that she can reach for my hands, holding them in hers as she looks at me. “I lost my father when I was a child too,” she says quietly. “I was eight. My mother left Russia after that and brought me here. But I learned very young to fear the Bratva. If they have plans for you, Sofia, you can’t escape them. The man who leads them, Viktor, is terrifying. His name is known all throughout Russia. They call himUssuri, the bear. If he has set his sights on you for some reason, whatever that is, you should do whatever you can to escape him. Anything is better than ending up in the hands of the Bratva.”
“Even marrying Luca?” My voice cracks. I can feel my world narrowing, the walls closing in around me.
“If what he told me was true, then they took you in order to get to him. Because they knew that he would come for you. You were bait.”
You’ve always been bait.Mikhail’s voice fills my head, and I shudder. “I don’t understand. He doesn’t care about me. I don’t believe that he cares that much about an old promise, either—”
“I don’t know,” Ana admits. “But he called me, Sofia. He asked me to come here and ‘talk some sense into you’—his words, not mine. I don’t think he would do that if he doesn’t care. If he doesn’t have some reason to want you safe.”
“He cares about his territory,” I say bitterly, looking away. “His position. Somehow I threaten that, if the Russians have me.”
“If the Bratva take you, your fate will be worse than death,” Ana says bluntly. She squeezes my hands gently, and I turn to face her again. Her expression is more serious than I’ve ever seen it, and it sends a chill down my spine. “I would say that I don’t want to frighten you, Sofia, but I do. You’re safer then, because youshouldbe frightened. If they get their hands on you again, once Viktor has used you to get to Luca and has taken the territory that he wants, he’ll sell you. If you’re still in good condition by then, and you’re lucky, he’ll sell you to someone rich and powerful. Someone who hopefully will treat you like any other valuable possession. If you fight enough to make him angry, and wind up damaged, or injured, or even just anger him to the point of wanting to punish you—”
“What?” My voice drops, so low that I can barely hear it. The look in Ana’s eyes makes me shiver, despite the warmth of the kitchen.
“I don’t really know. There’s stories, awful ones. Hunting parties, women sold to brothels, given to groups of his soldiers for sport. Worse things than that. Sofia—it doesn’t matter, because youcannotlet them take you again. And if you try to leave here—”
“What?” I look at her sharply. “What do you know?”
“Ask Luca what happens if he can’t convince you to marry him,” she says simply. “Sofia, I know this isn’t what you wanted. And it hurts me to have to tell you this, because I love you. You’re my dearest friend, and all I want in the world is to tell you to refuse him, to run away, that I’ll take you back home and everything can go back to normal.”
She swallows hard, tears glittering in her eyes, and a long moment of silence stretches out between us. “But I can’t.Youcan’t. Nothing is going back to the way it was before.”
I stare at her for a long moment, not wanting to speak the next words on the tip of my tongue.
“What are you saying?”
Ana squeezes my hands tightly in hers.
“Sofia, you have to marry him.”
Luca
Two things became apparent to me last night.
First, Sofia wasn’t going to be convinced of the gravity of the situation merely by my explaining it to her.
And second, I needed to put some distance between her and myself. I hadn’t expected for her to have the effect on me that she does, but that doesn’t mean that I have to allow it to control me, or my actions. The more space that there is between Sofia Ferretti and I, the better.
Once the Bratva threat is contained,I tell myself,I’ll arrange for her to have her own apartment in one of the other buildings that I own.Something luxurious and spacious, with plenty of security and amenities, so that she has no reason to complain, but far enough away from me that I can return her to the place in my life that she was meant to occupy—a line item on a budget. A contractual agreement that I’m forced to honor.
I’ll pay for anything she wants,I reason, tapping my fingers against my desk. I don’t deny that this situation is difficult, that she’s undergone more grief and trauma than anyone should have to, and that it’s unfair that she’s been thrust into this out of no fault of her own. If she wants shopping trips, vacations, a beach house in the Hamptons—anything she wants, once this threat is over.
As long as I can keep her out of my mind, and most importantly, out of my heart.
The last thought makes me grimace. It’s ridiculous to think that my heart could be in danger fromanywoman, let alone little orphan Annie sitting in my kitchen. I glance over at the security feed with a heavy sigh, wondering how much longer its going to take Anastasia Ivanova to convince Sofia to come around.
But before last night, you didn’t think you’d want her at all.The thought intrudes uncomfortably, and I do my best to shrug it off, switching away from the video feed. Anastasia will convince her of the foolishness of fighting this, the jeweler will come by the apartment with a choice of rings, and within a week the entire matter will be settled. I’ll satisfy myself with one good, long, hard fuck, and then Sofia can be neatly shelved away with the other fires that I’ve put out over the course of my time as underboss.
Calling Anastasia really was a stroke of genius on my part. I’d known that she was Sofia’s roommate, of course—I pay for the apartment, so the fact that Sofia made the odd choice to rent out a room despite the place being paid for was noted, along with anything else that needed to be monitored. The fact that her roommate turned out to be a Russian ballerina with family ties to the Bratva was a concern—and I recalled Don Rossi briefly discussing whether or not Anastasia Ivanova was one of those potential loose ends that might need to be neatly tied off.
I’d had that discussion, and my part in convincing Rossi that Anastasia had no intimate knowledge of her father’s dealings, ready in case the girl needed any push to come to the apartment and urge her best friend to come to her senses. But in the end, Anastasia hadn’t needed any encouragement or threats. Just the mention of the Bratva and a brief explanation of what had transpired the night before to and with Sofia had been enough to bring her running.
At leastshehad enough sense to be terrified of them.
Now all that’s left is for her to convince Sofia that it’s in her own best interest to marry me, without further argument.
