Chapter 1

Chapter 1

KATYA

I wake up chained to a brutal Mafia enforcer’s bed, my brain feeling like it’s filled with spiderwebs.

What’s worse, the Mafia enforcer in question is Scorpion Andriani, third in line to the Andriani crime family throne and one of the most powerful men in the Northeast.

Aside from my brother, that is. Misha has his hand in everything, his fist closed around the throats of almost everyone, and his boot down on all their necks. That’s how he came to be Pakhan.

That, and squeezing the life from the old Pakhan’s body with his bare hands.

Misha rules his new empire like a vengeful, despotic king.

I wonder what he’s going to do to when he finds out Andriani has taken his sister hostage. It isn’t going to be pretty, not that I care.

From behind the tape on my mouth, I tell Andriani that. I also tell him that I’m going to watch as Misha slits his throat and lets him bleed out. That I’ll enjoy every second.

But I tell him this in Russian, just in case he can decipher what I’m saying, even with the tape muffling my words.

There is a chance that Misha and his men won’t find me in time, and I don’t want to give the beautiful, tattooed demon staring me down a reason to hurt me before I’m rescued.

“Welcome back,” Andriani says. “Feel free to yell all you want. No one can hear you here.”

My throat is raw from all the hollering and screaming I’ve been doing ever since he kidnapped me what could have been hours or days ago now. But still, I tell him that after Misha slits his throat, I’ll help him to chop up his body and dispose of the pieces. We’ll take a boat out into the ocean, and I’ll use what’s left of him to chum the water.

Andriani gives me a faint smile, looming over me in the shadows, his ice-blue eyes lingering for a beat too long on my breasts. It’s cold in this hovel he’s brought me to. For a second, I wonder if he’s going to try something. I’m at his mercy, and I want to claw his eyes out.

“You don’t have to worry,” he says like he read my mind. “Feral Russian cats don’t make my dick hard.”

I call him a pig.

He just laughs like he finds my helplessness and this whole, fucked-up situation amusing. But then, he probably does.

“You’re going to be my guest for a little while,” he says conversationally. “You may want to quiet down so you can learn the ropes.”

I have no memory of how I got here and no idea where we are. Andriani gave me some iced tea to drink when he hauled me from the safe house where he first took me. One minute, I was in the back seat of a G-Wagon, and the next, I was waking up in a dank, dark hovel with cinder-block walls and a lone, bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, Andriani presiding over me like I’m a pagan sacrifice laid out for him.

He drugged me, the fucking bastard.

I glare at him and threaten to chop off his balls and feed them to my brother’s dogs if he so much as looks at me the wrong way. And then something else occurs to me.

Maybe I don’t need Misha. Maybe I can get away from Andriani on my own. I take stock of the situation. My wrists are bound, and I have a cuff and chain on my ankle, a matching metal link on the footboard of the bed. I could launch myself at him, maybe slam an elbow into his nose or knee him in the groin. But then what? There’s no escaping the chain on my ankle. Or is there? I’m not even sure if I care.

I flex my calf, giving my restraints a test.

Solid.

Fuck my life.

“Your chain will reach the bathroom, which is that way.” He points to an old wooden door behind him. “Pro tip—you need to hold down the handle when you flush or it won’t work, and I’m not about to come in here to unclog your toilet. So if you don’t want to be swimming in toilet water, you’ll follow the rules.”

Judging from the room we’re in, I’m not surprised the facilities in this shanty of his don’t work properly. Thank God I won’t be staying here long. Misha will come for me. He’ll find me.

Hehasto.

I tell Scorpion that my brother is as smart as he is deadly and that kidnapping Misha Sidorov’s sister and chaining her up in a shack isn’t going to end well for him.

“If you’re going to be nice, I’ll remove the tape from your mouth,” Andriani says.