“Who are you?” I demanded, desperate to take his ire from Gia. Thankfully, he looked away from my sister and down to me.
“I should introduce myself. Mikhail Kozlov. I am Pakhan for the family now,” he told me. His accent was quite strong, but his English was almost perfect.
“So you’re the one who plans to use me against my brother and my bio dad to get your way. Is that about right?” I questioned, trying hard not to allow my voice to falter in anyway, despite my head spinning and my stomach churning.
“Big mouth on your sister, da?” he said as he glanced to Gia.
“She’s not the smartest, but neither are you apparently,” I taunted. It worked as I wanted it to, when he turned his attention back to me and kicked me hard in the side. I doubled over in pain, but managed to hold in my cry.
I gave myself a moment to breathe through the agony, then looked up at him again defiantly. “Laying into me won’t improve the weakness of your plan,” I told him breathlessly.
“No? Do enlighten me,” he sneered as he crouched down low and grabbed a handful of my hair, wrenching my head up until I was almost nose to nose with him.
“No one will give a shit what happens to me. My bio Dad doesn’t even know I exist, and Rafe…he’ll never give up the legacy of his entire family for the sister he has been estranged from for over a decade. He barely even knows me. I’m a nobody. You can’t win here. You went to all of this trouble on the word of a child! All you’ll have to show for it are three dead bodies that mean nothing to anyone you want leverage over,” I bluffed.
“She’s lying! Rafe is obsessed with her! He won’t let anything happen to her!” Gia cried.
“What about Adamian?” Mikhail asked as he tossed me down by my hair, then rose to his full height.
“She’s his kid. As soon as we tell him she exists, he’s going to want to save her!”
“He doesn’t even know about her?!” Mikhail raged. “And De Santis? Is it true they were estranged?”
“He spent that entire decade searching for her. He’s completely besotted with her. It’s gross and weird. He’d do anything for her!” Gia ranted.
“This is the mastermind behind your plan?” I scoffed. “She’s sixteen. Did you know that? She’s still in high school. She has no place getting mixed up in all of this.”
Mikhail started to curse in Russian as he stormed away from me and went to talk to one of the armed guys across the room. I took the chance to check on my guys and gasped in relief to see Arran’s dark eyes locked right on me, glaring and telling me to keep my mouth shut, with every inch of his expression.
“Why do you have to fuck everything up?” Gia hissed as she walked over to me and bent down so we were eye level.
“I’m trying to get you out of here alive! Do you realise who you’re dealing with?” I hissed. “This isn’t a game! These guys will use you for what they need, then they’ll kill you. If you’re holding out for some big payment Mum told you you’d get, forget it. Just keep your mouth shut and stay out of the way, if you know what’s good for you!”
A hand on Gia’s shoulder shoved her back and she fell unceremoniously on her backside, off to the side. I hoped that she had actually heard my warning when she kept her mouth shut and just shuffled away from Mikhail, who now stood over me once again.
“You are a smart one,” he told me. “But you’re here now, so the plan goes ahead anyway. Maybe your father and brother will have a crisis of conscience when they see what we do to you. Maybe they will have mercy on you after all,” he shrugged like it mattered not either way, then he barked something in Russian and two of the armed men appeared before me.
I managed a quick look to the guys and tried to pour everything that I felt for each of them, into the momentary glance we shared before I was wrenched up between those men and dragged across the room. In one corner, past where the guys were tied up, a camera had been set up on a tripod and before it was a better lit area, where I was thrown down.
“Get your clothes off!” one of them barked at me. I looked up into a pair of dark eyes. His head was shaved and he was dressed all in black, a gun held in his hand at his side. His accent was local, not Russian.
“Fuck you!” I threw back as I pushed up to sitting and lifted my head defiantly.
“The blonde one. Point your gun at him and she’ll do whatever you say!” Gia announced, and when I looked at her, she was pointing at Cal.
After everything Gia had said and done to me in the time I had been there, I hadn’t once hated her, or even blamed her really, but in that moment, as she threatened the life of not only a manI cared deeply for, but also that of a man she was supposed to consider family, I hated her. I hated her so much I would have attacked her if I could get free, How could she do that to Cal?
Cal was shaking his head at me, as Arran roared with anger and fought like a wild animal to get free of his restraints. None of it mattered though, because as soon as one of the thugs pointed a gun right at Cal’s head, pressing it into his temple, I started to do as they had told me and shakily slipped off my camisole.
“Okay!” I cried. “I’ll do it! I’m d-doing it!”
Unfastening my jeans was harder. My hands were shaking, and slightly numb from the cold, and my pounding head was making it hard to concentrate properly, but I managed it, and slid them down my legs, crying out when I had to rip the denim from the deep cut in my calf.
I could hear Cal and Arran struggling and roaring through the gags they wore, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at them again.
“All of it!” The voice barked.
Tears poured down my cheeks as I undid my bra and slipped it off, then slid my underwear off too, laying it all in a pile at my side. Once I was naked, I pressed my knees to my chest and covered myself as much as I could, cowering and terrified for what I was already pretty sure came next.
