Her life is in my hands now. And I know exactly what I plan to do with it.
Sofia
Iwake up in a bed.
The first thought that goes through my head as my eyes blink open is that I feel more comfortable than I would have expected to be. The pillows and duvet feel soft, and the room smells like lavender.
My body, on the other hand, aches throughout every inch.
I try to sit up, pushing myself back against the pillows, and that’s when I come fully to my senses as I realize that my hands are bound above my head, tied to the headboard.
Oh my god. Oh my fucking god, I’ve been kidnapped—
I scream, the sound filling the room as I shriek at the top of my lungs, twisting this way and that as I try to loosen the binding on my hands. As I twist to my right, I see a man sitting in a wing chair near the window, his face slightly amused as he watches me struggle.
“There is no point,” he says in a thickly accented voice when I stop screaming for a moment, breathless with shock. “You can scream all you like. Viktor owns this hotel and everyone inside of it. All you will accomplish by screaming is damaging what I’m sure is a lovely voice. And then your sale price will be much lower. You won’t like that.”
Sale price?My heart pounds in my chest, so hard that it hurts. I glance down at myself, fear licking down my spine and turning my blood to ice, but I’m still dressed.
The man smirks. “No one has touched you,malyutka. You’re far too valuable for that.”
There’s a hint of disappointment in his voice, and it sends another shiver through me. “What do you mean,sale price? Who is selling me? Where?”
“You are the property of Viktor Andreyev now.Our boss, theAvtoritet.As far as where or to who—” the man shrugs. “Whoever offers the highest price,malyutka.Maybe a sheik. Maybe some businessman. Who knows?”
“Stop fucking calling me that,” I hiss, jerking at the binding on my wrists again. “I’m not your fuckingmalyutka, whatever the fuck that means.”
The man stands up suddenly, crossing the room to the bed. I try to flinch away, but he grabs my chin in his hand, not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to hurt.
“You’ll learn to keep that pretty mouth shut until it’s needed,” he growls, his fingers digging into my cheek. “Or else you’ll learn to regret it. The kind of men who buy girls from the Bratva don’t tolerate insolence.”
I’ve never known fear like this. I can feel my heart stuttering in my chest, my entire body going cold. It’s suffocating. But I still manage to yank my head back, mustering every bit of moisture left in my dry mouth to spit in the man’s face.
“They can go fuck themselves, too,” I hiss.
He recoils. I brace myself for the slap that I know is coming, but before he can hit me against his better judgement, the door opens.
The man immediately stiffens, retreating backwards. “Mikhail. She spit at me—”
“Sit down.” The man who walks in—Mikhail?—is the one from the club. The man with the eagle tattoo, the one who kidnapped me. The fear is momentarily replaced by anger as I jerk forward, struggling again as I glare at him.
“You fucking kidnapped me! Do you know who I am?”
I’ve never in my life considered using that line. I don’t even know if it means anything anymore. But in these, the most terrifying moments of my life, all I can think is that if there’s even a possibility that invoking my father’s name might save me, I have to try.
But Mikhail only smiles. It curls patronizingly across his face, as if he’s looking at someone very stupid. “Of course I know who you are, Sofia Ferretti. That’s why you’re here.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. “I—”
All of the hope I’d momentarily felt floods out of me, leaving me feeling weak and deflated. That was all I had, my only card to play.
“Is it the money?” I try that tactic again. “Because if it is, you can have it. I don’t even want it.”
“We know.” Mikhail comes to stand closer to the bed, looking down at me. I’ve never felt so helpless and vulnerable in my life. “This isn’t about the money, Sofia.”
“Then what?”
“You’re bait,” he says simply. “You always have been. It just wasn’t the right time to dangle you out in front of the man that we know will come for you. But now we have what we need.”