I yank away as much as I can. “And I’m ignoring you. We both have hobbies.”
That gets me another strike with the cane. Fast and hard, right to the ribs this time. Pain bursts white behind my eyes and the whole place blurs at the edges.
“Enough,” Anton says quietly, and Nikolai stops mid-swing. Just like that, the attack dog heels.
Anton stands and smooths the front of his jacket. Walks toward me with the unhurried gait of a man who has never once been afraid in a room he controls.
He crouches in front of my chair. His eyes are pale gray, almost colorless, and there’s nothing behind them. No rage,no satisfaction. Just the calm appraisal of a man deciding how something is going to go.
“I have to admit.” His voice is mild, unfeeling. “I’ve been wondering about you.”
I glare back at him through the blood in my eye. “Lucky me.”
He continues as if I haven’t spoken. “The son of Lorenzo Andretti, arrogant enough to believe he could climb into my daughter’s bed and put his hands on what belongs to me.”
“She’s not yours,” I snarl.
His eyes sharpen, pale and cold as winter glass.
“Wrong. I still decide her future.”
A vicious heat tears through me. I jerk against the ropes with no regard for the sting in my wrists.
“Your little rebellion changed nothing,” he says. “At most, it forced me to accelerate a timetable that was already in motion. The Colombians are coming. They will take her exactly as planned.” He wrinkles his nose, faintly, like the words themselves stink. “They will not know that she is no longer… untouched.”
The warehouse seems to narrow around his words.
“You’re not getting away with this,” I grit out.
“I will.” He stands with a sigh. “But first, I’m going to bring Natalia here.” He says it the way someone would sayI’m going to order lunch.“She’ll watch you die. Slowly. And then she’ll understand, once and for all, what happens when she forgets who she belongs to.” He smooths a hand over his jacket. “Afterthat, she’ll go where I send her, and your father can bury what’s left.”
The image hits all at once. Natalia in this room, seeing me tied to a chair, bloodied and half-conscious, horror all over her face while he makes her watch.
Anton watches my face as the realization crashes through me. He sees it. The dread. The rage. The helplessness. And for the first time all night, he smiles.
I lunge so hard the chair jerks across the concrete. “You sick bastard!”
He glances down at his phone, frowning faintly, then lifts his eyes back to me.
“This is becoming tedious,” he says, blandly.
He steps back and gives the smallest nod.
Nikolai smiles like he’s been handed a gift.
“Gladly.”
He comes at me fast, no more talk now, just fists and the blunt enthusiasm of a man who enjoys hurting what can’t hit back. The first punch snaps my head sideways.
The next punch lands, but my mind is already slipping somewhere he can’t reach. To Natalia. Her face. Her voice. The way she looks at me like there might still be something in me worth saving. If this is it, I’m taking that with me.
I taste blood.
I force myself upright anyway.
That only seems to encourage him.
Pain smears the edges of the room. By the time it settles, Anton is looking at his phone again.
