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I get up and try to move against the sea of bodies that slowly disperses. Ana is dragged into the car, her panicked eyes locked on mine as a guard shuts the door, and the car pulls off.
“Fuck!” I swear. I turn and run with the crowd. I need to put distance between me and the guards. If I’m not free, no one will know where to start looking for her. I won’t be able to save her.
I run down the street, cop cars screeching by with sirens blaring. I hurry to my car and climb in.
I look at my phone for a moment and realize I don’t know who to call. I don’t dare call her father. He’ll kill me before he even looks for her. I can’t call Dominic; he’ll probably kill me too.
I swallow and sigh.
I select Alessandro’s name and hit dial.
“Luigi? What’s wrong?”
“Alessandro, you know how you told me to stay away from Ana?” I say, trying to keep calm.
“Luigi, tell me you didn’t do something stupid?”
“She’s been taken by Mateo Catalan, and I need help to get her back.”
Alessandro remains so quiet that for a moment, I think the line has gone dead, but he soon says, “Get your ass here, right now.”
Chapter 23 - Anastasia
The minute my hand is ripped from Luigi’s, my fight-or-flight instincts kick in. I struggle against the guard trying to yank me toward the open car door.
Toward Mateo Catalan.
I hear Luigi calling me, I inhale and scream his name, hoping he can hear me over the crowd. I look up and see Luigi fighting his way through the crowd toward me.
Our eyes meet, and I feel myself being yanked back again as bullets fly. I try to claw my way out of the guard's grasp, and when they pull me into the car, I grip the edges to try to pull myself out again.
I feel like my nails are being pulled off as I’m ripped off the metal and shoved across from Mateo. The guard enters and immediately tries to restrain me while the car starts moving. I launch myself at Mateo, who is laughing.
He says something in Spanish, and the guard throws back his arm and punches me in the face. I fall back, dazed and holding my face.
“You should relax, little princess,” Mateo says as he lights a cigar, “you aren’t going anywhere.”
I glare at him, but I’m still swaying slightly.
“I would like to know one thing, though.” He leans forward. “Why is Ivan Volkov’s daughter so hellbent on getting close to my family? You are just a Bratva Princess, not some solider of war.”
I clear my throat and spit in his face. I then issue a line of Russian swear words, and although he might not know what they mean, he definitely understands what I’m doing.
I’m surprised when he laughs while he wipes my spit off with a handkerchief.
“Look,” he says, pulling an unimpressed face, “you can tell, or you can not tell me, but either way, your freedom is now over.”
He sits back, smirking as he draws on his cigar. “You have been sold off to who should have been your rightful owner, to begin with. Your new owner will get you out of the country and take you to a place not even Ivan Volkov can find.”
I snort, “You underestimate my father.”
“Really? I shot Mila Volkov years ago, and the man has never retaliated. Have you never wondered why? I’ll tell you.” He smirks. “Your father is not as scary as you think. He’s not as scary as anyone thinks. He treats this as a game, and he plays by the rules. We don’t have rules where I come from.”
I sit in silence when the guard suddenly takes out a bag and shoves it over my head. He then grabs my hands and ties them tightly together. The ties feel thin, and they’re cutting into my wrists. I am guessing it’s cable ties.
The fact I can’t see but we’re moving makes me feel a little carsick, and I think of Luigi. The panic on his face. He was outgunned. This isn’t his fault. We didn’t know it would go this way.
Maybe we did.
