Page 126 of Violent Pawn

60

NERO

Despite everything I said, I don’t head for Padre’s, knowing very well Anastasia and the others are coming back to the villa later tonight. If they arrive sooner than anticipated, they’ll catch me here.

But I need it. Padre won’t have any stocked, and despite the reception party and open bar easily able to provide, what’s coming next doesn’t need to be witnessed by Zeno and the others. My fall from grace won’t be televised for them.

Alone, I enter the villa, bypassing the two dogs who run at me. Evidence of the girls’ morning remains as I stroll through the space. The lipstick hastily thrown onto the centre foyer’s table. The packaging of something or the other. A towel draped over the banister, which…do I want to know?

Bypassing the kitchen because it doesn’t have what I need, I head straight for Zeno’s office, which he has a bad habit of leaving unlocked. Inside, I yank open every desk drawer, checking beneath it, the shelving, and even behind the curtains.

He’s so fucking moralistic that he doesn’t even have one bottle of something strong enough? Nothing to kill the rage burning my veins as I once again walked away from the best thing to ever happen to me.

What else was I supposed to do? Anastasia’s silence was loud.

I drop onto Zeno’s chair, head in my hands as a headache thunders through me at the same time the crash of rain hits the window. Fitting. Poetic justice at its finest. The storm masks the sound of my agony.

My soul tears into pieces, undoing everything Anastasia Petrov forced me to once feel for her.

61

ANASTASIA

I’m no stranger to hangovers, but this one might be the worst.

Luckily, my memory isn’t so fucked that I'm not aware that the headache and pain in the side of my head and the tender arms from my rough fall to the ground aren’t of my own creation but whoever thought it wise to jump me.

Whoever they are has a death wish and better be ready to pay what they’ve reaped.

Without shifting, I perform a mental rundown of my body. My ass is numb against something flat, likely a chair—probably having been on it for a few hours at minimum. Rope is taut around my wrists, and the tenderness in my arms continues, given how they’re bent behind me. My ankles remain freed, which means whoever captured me underestimates my abilities, while also overcompensating because the amount of rope around my wrists is plain stupid. There’s too much, leaving gaps in their ties.

Gaps I can use to undo the rope after determining if my wrists are in view of anyone who could alert to my escape.

I’m still dressed the same, the familiar tightness of the bodice annoyingly pinching into my stomach from how they’ve slumped me over, but I can’t move to adjust and announce my consciousness yet. My feet are bare, however, heels probably kicked off during the kidnapping.

“When’s she going to wake up?” The Italian accent reassures me I’m still in the country and not dragged elsewhere.

“Soon.”

They’re so sure of that, though not wrong. Cocky to make assumptions, which may mean easy to manipulate.

Piercing cold penetrates my clothes, staining my body as water is abruptly splashed onto me. My feigned sleep ceases in a series of hard coughs as I blink through the drops and open my eyes to a figure standing before me, gripping a now-empty bucket.

Fucking asshole.

“There. Awake.” He turns back to his partner and tosses the bucket off to the side. I follow it, taking in the setting.

Crates are stacked in a far corner, a garage-style door on the opposite end. Dim lights and cobwebs seem to be the unfortunate chosen décor. It’s a warehouse, and nothing I haven’t been inside plenty of times before.

Three figures stand shoulder to shoulder, like some messed-up crime scene. Two in cargo pants—one shirtless and one not—and one in a suit. He seems the most irritated by my presence, sneering down at me. Something about him is familiar, but I can’t quite place it. A wedding guest I refused to dance with?

I’ve handled worse than three men, and with no one behind me, I start tugging at the ropes. My skin burns at the roughness as I maneuver one finger through the largest loop.

The middle guy, the one Bucket Man spoke to, approaches by a single step—which tells me all I need to know about his guts. “Welcome to Rome, Signorina Petrov. Though, from what we’ve heard, you’re quite familiar with our land.”

“And?” The word grates up my throat, burning with dehydration. “While I’d love to skip over the boring questions, I literally have no idea who you people are or what you want, so I do have to ask.”

My finger slides through the largest hold, managing to undo one layer of many around my wrists.