I pace the room wearing the white dress my captor provided for me. I don’t need to see the price tag to know that it’s expensive. It feels different against my skin, like the designer wanted the wearer to feel caressed when she wore it. It’s not quite the vintage clothes I like to root around the thrift shops for. I’ve always loved the thought of wearing a dress that might once have been worn and discarded by Marilyn Monroe, or Vivienne Westwood, or Judy Garland. It’s like, wow, they don’t make clothes like this anymore.
But I have to admit that this feels good.
It’s just a shame it’s going to be wasted on an asshole I haven’t met yet because the loser sent a woman to do his dirty work.
I wander back into the bathroom and check out my reflection in the mirror. The fabric clings to my breasts and hips in a way that jeans and sweaters rarely do. So, my captor is a perv who wants to undress me with his eyes while he figures out how to dispose of me without spilling too much blood on the fancy carpet. Well, I’ve got news for him. I bleed plenty when I’m cut.
I go back to the bedroom and pace some more.
I should maybe think about what I’m going to say to the asshole when he finally shows his face, but it’s hard to concentrate when I’m stopping every few steps to listen for sounds of movement outside the door.
Instead, I recite in my head the names of the women I met in the refuge. Maria. Evangeline. Hope.
Hope was one of the worst cases we saw. Her husband broke both her legs when she tried to leave him and then buried her alive on a construction site. She was filthy when she was discovered by the emergency services and taken to the hospital where she spent months healing her broken bones. But that’s the thing with hospitals: they can fix broken bones, but they can’t fix broken spirits.
Despite her horrific background, Hope was the woman who embraced every other victim in the refuge. She was the one who encouraged them to never give up hope. To believe that there was always better to come.
I sit down on the bed, tears welling in my eyes at the memories. And immediately jump up again, afraid to crease the dress before the asshole villain of the story decides to show his face.
Where the hell is he?
What’s so important that he can’t even come here and introduce himself?
Or is he hiding because I know who he is?
Fuck! I start pacing again, my thoughts scurrying about inside my head and tossing out random names. Andy was American, I think. The spiky-haired witch could potentially be Russian or Eastern European, but it doesn’t automatically mean that the boss is Russian too. Is it someone my father knows? Or my brother Daniel. Or Mel.
Xander?
My breath hitches in my throat, while my heart is trying to run the 400-meter sprint faster than Gabby Thomas. No, Xander won’t be behind this, not if he wants Mel to stay in his life. My sister would skin him alive if anything happened to me.
Seamus then? I’ve deliberately ignored any correspondence regarding my marriage to Seamus which, I’ll hold my hands up now that I’m stuck in a basement without an escape route, was probably a silly move. But hey, I was just a gal enjoying her final moments of freedom before she walked into the execution chamber. Okay, I’m being melodramatic, but I’m not going to beat myself up over it.
So, maybe Seamus and this potentially Russian asshole are at war. Maybe he’s holding me captive until Seamus backs down. Or offers him a reward.
Would Seamus pay to get me back though? I stop pacing and replay our nonexistent relationship in my head. Which takes about thirty seconds give or take a second or two either way.
I should’ve told Mel about the arranged marriage.
It hits me like a shopping cart at full speed that my sister would’ve been my only ally in the whole marriage-to-the-Irish-mob thing, and I didn’t tell her because my father made me promise not to. But promises can be broken, right?
Mel would never have let this happen. She’d have fought father all the way to keep me out of the family business like we’d always talked about. Then, I wouldn’t have been on the plane, and I sure as shit wouldn’t be stuck in someone’s basement wearing a dress that looked like it belonged on a runway.
“What the fuck am I even doing?” I mutter under my breath.
I reach behind me, unzip the dress, and shrug it over my shoulders. “I’m not being dressed up like a doll for some crazy-eyed Russian fucker who can’t even be bothered to come and see me himself.”
I toss the dress onto the floor, pull on my jeans and hoodie, and flop backwards onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. He doesn’t get to tell me what to do. He might control the witch, but he doesn’t control me. No none does.
But the dress is burning a hole in my brain from its crumpled heap on the floor, so I sit forward, pick it up, and smooth out the creases. If he wants me to wear it, he can ask nicely. Still, I fold it neatly and leave it on the end of the bed because it’s what my mom would’ve done.
I lose all track of time. You don’t realize how badly you crave daylight until it is gone, and then it’s like your body is straining to get outside, to soak up the sunshine, and fill your lungs with fresh air.
I lie down and close my eyes. I sit up and stare at the stupid curtains hiding the stupid brick wall. I walk back and forth, back and forth, counting my steps in Serbian to keep up with learning the language widely used in Montenegro, and getting the numbers muddled inside my head. Then, on my hands and knees, I crawl around the floor trying to find something that I can use as a weapon against him if I don’t die of boredom before he gets here.
There’s nothing. I don’t know how many people the asshole keeps imprisoned down here, but he seems to have gone to great lengths to make sure they can’t hurt him. “Coward.” My father always said you can’t trust a coward.
On my back on the floor, I slide my head under the bed and try to unscrew the legs, but it’s not that kind of bed. I feel the underside of the frame, but it’s solid. In the bathroom, I try to break the pipe leading from the toilet cistern to the ceiling, but without something heavy to use, it’s impossible.
I wash my hands again. Stare at my face in the mirror again. Unfold the white dress, and fold it back up again.
I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to wear me down by keeping me waiting. He thinks that he can come in here and find me a quivering mess who will beg for her life.
“Think again, asshole.”
I eventually fall asleep and dream of smashing the unknown asshole’s face with the pipe from his own toilet cistern while yelling at the top of my lungs, “No one puts baby Gianna in a corner!”
“Wakey, wakey.”
I’m roused from slumber by something cold and hard tracing my sore jawline. Suddenly alert, I scramble back against the headboard, clutching the comforter to my chin to find the wicked witch of the west grinning at me with her dagger in her hand.
Fuck! That’s the second time she’s gotten into the room without me hearing her. What is wrong with me?
“Where’s the pakhan?” My gaze slides to the door as if I might find him standing there watching me in my sleep. Which would be even more psychotic than the crazy woman with a teardrop tattooed underneath her eye.
“He’s waiting for you.”
He is?
“Well, tell him he can wait a bit longer. I’m not a morning person, especially when I’m woken up at knifepoint.”
Is that a hint of a smile on her lips?
It vanishes almost immediately, and before I can react, she grips my wrist in her iron fist and drags me off the bed and onto my feet. The dagger is back. I can feel the tip drawing blood from my neck just below my jawline.
“This is what knifepoint feels like.” Her breath is warm on my cheek. “But be warned, I am not a morning person either and I’ve not had any caffeine yet today.”
I hold her gaze. My brother Daniel made me promise when I was a little kid never to look away first. We would have staring competitions until our eyes watered, and I always won, so I’m confident that the witch will tire of this game before I do.
Besides, she just told me that it’s morning, and that her boss is ready for me. “I need to use the restroom first. I’d hate to disappoint him at our first meeting.”
Her eyes drift to the white dress still folded neatly on the end of the bed, and I mentally fist-punch the air. Yay! She looked away first. Gianna one, witch zero.
“Get dressed.”
“I was dressed, but I took it off when your boss stood me up. I don’t normally give a guy a second chance, so he should think himself lucky that—”
I don’t get to finish the sentence. She slaps my cheek with her hand, and man, does it sting. Hot tears prickle behind my eyes, and I force myself not to blink. I refuse to give her the satisfaction.
“You have one minute. If you are not dressed, I will drag you up the stairs naked, and then we will see what Pakhan thinks of his latest asset.”
She releases me and stands by the door watching me closely while I step out of my clothes and into the white dress. My brain cells are reeling. While I would love to plot my revenge against the witch for daring to touch me, this will have to wait.
She called me an asset.
So, what, her boss thinks that he can keep me here indefinitely like some kind of plaything or a new car? My father will have something to say about that. I try to console myself that my family will rescue me any time now, but I’ve already spent at least one night in this basement, and here I am dressing for breakfast with the enemy because someone needs her morning coffee.
“Ready.” I stand facing her while her eyes roam me up and down.
“Follow me.”
She turns on her Doc Marten heels and opens the door. I don’t need to be told twice. I follow her out of the room and into a dingy corridor where the ceiling lights give off a sickly yellow glow. We pass several other doors that, thankfully, remain firmly closed. All I need now is to peer inside one of the boss’s dungeon rooms and find him getting his ass spanked by a dominatrix with a paddle.
Through a door at the end of the corridor, and we climb a spiral staircase. The air gets warmer the higher we climb, and I swear that I can already taste the sweet smell of wet grass and sunshine even though there’s still no sign of a window. Then another corridor. This one has plush ivory carpets on the floor—who in their right mind has ivory carpets? —and creamy, silk-covered walls. No kids in this house, that’s for sure.
There are no pictures on the walls. Nothing that will give me a hint about who my captor really is. Then, the witch enters a room and stands aside, waiting for me to follow her. I guess this is it.
Deep breath.
I find myself in an enormous dining room. A huge, polished table is in the center of the room, but my eyes are instinctively drawn to the floor-to-ceiling windows draped in sheer voile and the daylight streaming through them. Like a dehydrated nomad in the desert, I stare at the rays of sunshine and fill my lungs with air, and that shot of vitamin D is better than caffeine any day.
Someone clears their throat, and I’m jolted back to the moment.
A man in an expensive dark suit is seated at the far end of the dining table. His jet-black hair is slicked back highlighting angular cheekbones, a strong jawline, and amber eyes. He wears a platinum wristwatch, and I’d bet every cent in my bank account that his shoes are so shiny I could see my reflection in them. Everything about him screams money loud and clear, and I’ve grown up around wealth. But this…
He looks me up and down, his eyes finally settling on mine. “Kind of you to join us, Gianna.”
Us?
I notice the other woman sitting at the table and do a double take. She could almost pass for the witch, only she’s softer, her face framed by fat, round curls, and no visible tattoos. A man stands in the far corner of the room, hands behind his back, eyes hidden by black wraparound shades. Very intimidating.
“I’m hungry,” I say, pleasantly surprised by how steady my voice sounds. “I thought a place like this would probably offer a decent breakfast.”
Beside me, I sense the witch flexing her fingers. My captor catches her eye and gives a barely perceptible shake of his head.
“Sit,” he orders in his rich baritone voice.
I could sit as far away from him as possible, but instead, I take the seat closest to him, his expensive cologne wafting my way, his eyes following my every move. So, I give him something to watch. I reach for a slice of toast from a silver rack and shove half of it into my mouth.
“You really should provide a kettle and some coffee sachets in the rooms.” I make sure to speak with my mouth full. “Maybe some biscuits, you know, to satisfy the guests between meals.”
The dark-haired woman sitting across the table from me flinches. What? Have they never heard anyone talk back to their boss before?
I swallow hard. My mouth is dry as driftwood, and I fill my cup with steaming coffee. Holding the cup to my nose, I breath in the aroma and study my captor from beneath lowered lashes.
There is something immediately striking about him. I mean, he’s classically handsome, obviously tall and definitely broad-shouldered, but with those amber eyes… I can’t look away. My pulse races away with a mind of its own, and I swallow a mouthful of coffee that is so hot it scalds my tongue, but I need the distraction.
He studies me coolly, giving nothing away. “I will remember that for future guests.”
“Do you make a habit of drugging women on airplanes and locking them up in your basement? There must be a name for that kind of fetish, but I can’t think of it off the top of my head.” That’s it, just keep talking, Gi, I tell myself. He’ll be sure to let me go when I start to get on his nerves.
His plate is empty, I notice.
“What’s the matter, not hungry?” I help myself to another slice of toast and load it up with crispy bacon and maple syrup. I can’t remember the last thing I ate and I’m suddenly ravenous. Being held prisoner will do that to you.
Somewhere behind me, the witch must be baring her fanged teeth because he motions for her to be still.
“Are you going to tell me your name, or did I sleep through the introductions?” I ask.
His eyes flash. I mean, they literally flash, and a shiver of something—fear, excitement, a warning to myself to rein it in—travels down my spine. I honestly never knew flashing eyes was a thing until this moment and I’m stunned into silence, which doesn’t happen often.
“Leonid Ivanov.”
Another shiver passes through me, and my fork stops midway to my mouth. Leonid Ivanov. Even the way he says his own name is like a kiss of sunshine on a summer day.
Until I remind myself that this asshole had me drugged on an airplane, and fuck knows how I even got here. Did he not read the memo that you can’t just go around doing that to innocent people?
“Why am I here?” My voice cracks like it thinks I should probably stop with the runaway dialogue right about now.
“Because I want you here.”
“When can I go home?”
“When I say you can.”
O-kay, so that’s how he wants to play it.
“My fiancé won’t let you get away with this.”
“Your fiancé?” He arches an eyebrow and continues to pour his honey-coated voice all over me.
“Seamus Mulligan.” I pause. “Oh, wait, did no one tell you about him? Yeah, he heads up the Irish mafia in Chicago. He won’t let you keep me here against my will…” My voice trails off when I see the bemused gleam in his eyes.
“You think that your fiancé can take on my entire organization?” He sits back and sips his black coffee, but those amber eyes hold on to mine.
“Seamus and my family. Oh, and let’s not forget Xander, my brother-in-law.”
“Oh, I intend to do exactly that once I have taken Xander Amory down.”
“I…” I shake my head.
I need to hold it together, keep up the bravado, not show him that I’m afraid because he will have already won. But now, I’m not only afraid for me, I’m afraid for Mel and Lucian and the rest of my family.
His eyes grow cold suddenly, and I shudder as if the sun just went behind a cloud. “What’s the matter?” he asks, mimicking my earlier question. “Run out of steam so quickly? I must say, I had higher hopes for you.”
I push my chair backwards, breakfast and coffee threatening to come back up. “I’m done here.”
“Sit down.” His voice slices through the air in the room, laced with something toxic instead of the honey I imagined before.
I turn around to face the witch who is already marching towards me. “I want to go back to my room.” I see it in her eyes, the rising mountain of a man behind me as he stands up and towers over me.
I turn around slowly, clenching my fists, and willing myself to stay strong. I’ve already rattled him; now, all I have to do is keep up the momentum, and he’ll be begging my dad to take me back.
“I said sit down.” His top lip curls into a snarl worthy of a Rottweiler, and my insides turn to mush that has nothing to do with fear, and everything to do with his narrowed eyes locked onto mine.
I straighten myself to my full five feet and four inches and tilt my head towards the ceiling to peer up at him. “And I said that I’m done here.”
A tic appears in his temple. “You are done when I say you are done.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do. You have no idea what my family is capable of.”
His mouth twists into a sinister smile and he laughs out loud. I don’t hear anyone else laughing. “I have every idea what your family is capable of, but they will have to find you first.”
“They will.” I stand on tiptoes and still barely reach his shoulders. “They will find you, and they will make you pay for this.”
And yep, I’m so forceful that he turns around, walks back to his seat, and ladles a heap of scrambled eggs onto his plate.
