I couldn’t see anything but the blackness in front of me and could feel nothing but the warmth that continued to weigh down my muscles, my bones.
My head lolled to the side.
The man holding me cursed. “So, it has been confirmed?”
Confirmed?
“Thirteen minutes, one camera, this will be the best day of his life, fucking mafia royalty, being her first.”
My first?
My brain told me to panic.
It told me to fight.
Run.
But all I could do was inhale, exhale, measure my breaths as I was slowly handed over to someone else.
He had rough hands.
Hands that made me wonder about what sort of man would take a girl’s innocence without a second thought.
My heart dropped when I was suddenly picked up and carried somewhere. I couldn’t control my head as it fell back, exposing my neck.
“Beautiful.” The accented male voice whispered.
Maybe he would be kind.
Maybe he wouldn’t take what wasn’t his to take.
Maybe he would save me.
All the things I thought and prayed as my sluggish body tried to alert itself to what was about to happen, clearly my anxiety was pumping whatever drug they gave me through my system fast enough to start to clear my head.
I should have just asked one of the guys to take my virginity, one of my friends, though the only one who even tempted me was currently outside with Andrei allowing this horror to take place.
I would have given Breaker everything and several times almost did only to realize that my dad would murder him and I couldn’t have the death of my best friend on my conscience no matter how annoying he was or how he paraded girls in front of me like he wanted me to know he was getting it somewhere else.
Funny, how when you’re about to lose, you realize how precious that one thing was to you, you realize that you really did want to give it away to someone, but that that someone wasn’t a hero.
Never had been.
Breaker Campisi was as hard as the rest of them, with a steely glint in his eyes that told me I should have just listened to him because he knew more than anyone, how fast a person’s life could change.
I focused on Breaker’s bright green eyes when I was dropped onto a soft mattress. I imagined that he was touching me, not this Russian monster, whoever he was.
I imagined that he was dying with jealousy.
That he was seconds from breaking the door down.
And yet, no sound was heard beyond my own panicked breathing, and the man’s rustling as clothing was moved around.
Hands gripped my wrists as they pinned them at the top of the bed, and then he lowered his lips to my ear, causing a chill to erupt down my body as his heavy accent broke out in English. “I’m sorry it has to be like this.”
“No, you aren’t,” I rasped.
“You have no idea.” He said something in Russian and then pressed a small kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I have thirteen minutes with you. I’ll make it fast, but I don’t think I can make it painless.”
I could make out the smell of mint gum on his breath as I tried to focus on things that would calm me down, familiar things.
Most of the men I’d seen were old—except one.
This one, I imagined, because, despite my ability to reach for him, to feel the softness of his skin, I knew he was young.
And I knew he wasn’t going to stop.
Tears filled my eyes, one slid down my cheek past the blindfold. “Please, I’ll do anything. Just please.”
His body tensed over mine, and all he got out was an accented. “Sorry.”
“Don’t lie!” I snapped. “You’re not sorry. You’re going to take and take and take from an innocent woman while she lays numb and drugged. Does that make you feel bigger? Better? Like more of a man?”
The room spun behind my blindfold as the familiar scent of my favorite cologne hit me square in the face. How dare he smell good? How dare he ruin the Gucci that Breaker, King, and Asher all wore!
My stomach rolled.
I tried to jerk against him, but my body wouldn’t follow my brain’s instructions; my brain screamed, my body stayed asleep.
And I was trapped.
I let out a scream of frustration. “Just do it already! Fucking do it!”
He didn’t say anything.
“What? Now you can’t get it up?” I expected him to slap me, but he stayed still over me. “Afraid I won’t feel anything?”
“Stop.” His voice had a rough warning edge to it, but I already felt dead inside. “Stop.”
“No!” I roared. “So get on with it, fuck a helpless girl, go back to your little Russian friends who will, for the record, never defeat the Abandonato Dynasty, and tell them how you took a girl’s virginity without her permission, without her pleasure, with nothing but pain!”