“Why are you crying? Are you hurting? “ Knox asked. I was sitting on the balcony at 3am in the morning. I had been unable to sleep hence why I was awake.My hormones were running wild. Something very small was enough to hurt me a lot.“I just want ice cream, “ I said as I broke down and cried some more. I couldn’t understand why I was so emotional.The minute I reached the balcony I felt like crying because the ice cream was downstairs and I didn’t feel like going down to get it. It was a stupid reason to cry but I couldn’t stop myself.Neither could I help it.Knox was fighting the urge to laugh and I hated it. I felt like he was mocking me. It made me cry even more and harder. It was a weird sight to someone looking from afar.One would think he had hurt me in a very bad way.He reached for my hand so that he could soothe me and I rejected it. I went from sad to angry in minutes. I pushed him away, huffed, and crossed my arms against my chest.“I hate you! You are mocking your pregn
Veronika paced the grand bedroom she now occupied, her manicured nails tapping against her arm as she wrapped them around herself. The sheer opulence of Maxim’s home should have been enough to make her feel victorious, but instead, her stomach churned with rage. Livia.That girl was a thorn in her side, a pest that refused to be exterminated.“What does he see in her?” she muttered under her breath, her words dripping with venom.Polina, seated comfortably on the chaise lounge, smirked. “A plaything, nothing more.”Veronika turned sharply, her emerald eyes flashing. “Then why is she still here? Why does he let her breathe in his presence?”Polina scoffed, twirling a strand of her graying hair between her fingers. “Men like their distractions. But trust me, he will tire of her. She is nothing but a dirty little street rat Maxim took pity on. Where did he even find her?”Veronika clenched her jaw. “I don’t know. And that bothers me. I know every woman Maxim has ever touched, every mistr
There was an increasing number of female kidnappings around the area where I lived; downtown Chicago. That’s why I hugged my body to myself after my bar shift at 3 am and rushed home. I held a small pocket knife tightly in my hand inside my purse. I didn’t want to take a risk. As I was walking through the dark streets, I thought I heard footsteps behind me. I looked behind but I didn’t see anything. I had seen too many thriller movies not to guess what happened after a woman heard rustling nearby. I walked quickly, looking behind to ensure no one was following me. When I looked forward again, a man was walking toward me. I stopped and contemplated running back the way I came from. Luckily for me, the man wasn’t a threat to me. He walked past me as though he hadn’t seen me.I continued on my way home. This time, my guard was lowered because I assumed I was growing paranoid. I walked safely for the next two blocks until everything changed. It all happened in an instant. One minute
“She’s a virgin. Her hymen is intact.” The man said as he removed his two gloves from inside of me.“You couldn’t find anyone to fuck you in the U.S., Livia? I thought you would have found a husband and had kids by now. But look at you, working waitressing jobs in downtown Chicago. Are you fucking stupid? You could have had everything in Italy with a rich husband.”“I was just eighteen and the man was forty years older than me!” I screamed.The image of the man I was supposed to marry before I ran away from the family almost made me vomit. He had yellowing teeth, a pot belly, and was bald.He had a reputation for only dealing with younger girls. Once his young wives got older, he sold them to brothels. Who wanted to live that kind of life?“I don’t hear Allegra complaining. In the face of you running away, she took your place and she seems to be enjoying it too.” Carlo said as he laughed. “It was the first time a man in the Mafia was grateful to have a sister as a substitute bride.”I
I thought Carlo would sell me immediately, kill me, or ‘service me to his men’ like he promised as he beat me to a pulp. Instead, he locked me in a basement with no lights. I had to endure the cold concrete, the screams of men being tortured, and constant hunger. No matter how much I screamed and shouted, no one let me out of the cage. The bars were too strong for me to try and break. And even if I could free myself, it was too dark for me to see a thing. The fear that a snake or rat would come and bite me was constantly haunting me. But it wasn’t greater than the fear of Carlo sending his men to come and rape me.I became so anxious that I picked up the habit of scratching my left arm to the point that it became raw. I also bit my nails until there was nothing left to bite anymore. Only when I got tired of screaming for help did Carlo’s men bring me food and water. I regained strength and screamed for help and later received a beating. The cycle continued until I finally learned
Did Carlo sell me to the Bratva to make amends with Maxim? If so, I was in for a life of suffering. I was scared for my life. If the Bratva was anything like the Sicilian Mafia, I knew I would wish I were dead. Viktor, the man who bought me, and the other one who he spoke to, started walking while dragging me with them. I wanted to run away but I was in a foreign country and I didn’t want to get beaten. I wouldn’t get far anyway. I was tied up and blindfolded and who knew how many men were in the house? I had to bid my time and wait for the right moment. I was hesitant in my movements but the man who bought me was resilient. “You’re giving me a fucking hard time!” He yelled and slapped me across the face. He pulled my hair and shook me around a little. “Either be compliant or I’ll cut off your legs.” I nodded my head profusely in fear of what he would do. He had a temper. Suddenly, everything and everyone was quiet. There was tension in the air and I could sense the fe
The moment I saw her, I knew she was innocent—untouched. Her innocence was like a beacon calling out to me, begging me to corrupt her and break her until the only air she wanted to breathe was mine. I didn’t understand it at all. The moment I looked into her eyes, I knew she was mine. She had the palest blue eyes I had ever seen. You could get lost in them. They were laced with innocence, fear, and deep down, a fire so wild I wasn’t sure I could tame. I knew how to read people. It had been my job to learn the inner workings of the human mind to get into my target’s mind. It’s what made me a dangerous man. I worked as an assassin for my old Pakhan until I staged a coup with Mikhail and Nikita and took over as the Pakhan. A lot of men were against the sale of flesh because they had families of their own. They supported me until I took over fully and stopped it completely. I wasn’t stupid; I knew people still practiced it in secret. I was just glad it was a taboo. Viktor knew
For three days, I remained cuffed to the bed. I waited for the Pakhan to come in and show what kind of a monster he truly was, but he never did.I was in a bedroom that was much bigger than my apartment back in Chicago. It had a king-sized bed, a walk-in closet, a fully equipped bathroom, and a locked balcony.It was the best place I had lived in for a while.I was fed, taken for bathroom breaks, and I had a television to entertain me. It was bigger than anything I had ever seen, but all the channels were in Russian. What they didn’t know was that I could understand Russian very well.One of the few things I could thank Father for.What did they want with me? It was like being in that cage back again—never knowing what was going to happen next. In those three days, I never saw the Pakhan or his mouthpiece.I thought he only pretended to have morals and secretly bought women to play with. Otherwise, why keep me?A part of me really wished he was the monster I thought him to be. If he w
Veronika paced the grand bedroom she now occupied, her manicured nails tapping against her arm as she wrapped them around herself. The sheer opulence of Maxim’s home should have been enough to make her feel victorious, but instead, her stomach churned with rage. Livia.That girl was a thorn in her side, a pest that refused to be exterminated.“What does he see in her?” she muttered under her breath, her words dripping with venom.Polina, seated comfortably on the chaise lounge, smirked. “A plaything, nothing more.”Veronika turned sharply, her emerald eyes flashing. “Then why is she still here? Why does he let her breathe in his presence?”Polina scoffed, twirling a strand of her graying hair between her fingers. “Men like their distractions. But trust me, he will tire of her. She is nothing but a dirty little street rat Maxim took pity on. Where did he even find her?”Veronika clenched her jaw. “I don’t know. And that bothers me. I know every woman Maxim has ever touched, every mistr
“Why are you crying? Are you hurting? “ Knox asked. I was sitting on the balcony at 3am in the morning. I had been unable to sleep hence why I was awake.My hormones were running wild. Something very small was enough to hurt me a lot.“I just want ice cream, “ I said as I broke down and cried some more. I couldn’t understand why I was so emotional.The minute I reached the balcony I felt like crying because the ice cream was downstairs and I didn’t feel like going down to get it. It was a stupid reason to cry but I couldn’t stop myself.Neither could I help it.Knox was fighting the urge to laugh and I hated it. I felt like he was mocking me. It made me cry even more and harder. It was a weird sight to someone looking from afar.One would think he had hurt me in a very bad way.He reached for my hand so that he could soothe me and I rejected it. I went from sad to angry in minutes. I pushed him away, huffed, and crossed my arms against my chest.“I hate you! You are mocking your pregn
The moment my phone buzzed in my pocket, I almost ignored it. Business in Europe was taking longer than expected, and I was in no mood for another disruption. But when I saw Mikhail’s name flashing on the screen, a gut instinct told me to answer.I pressed the phone to my ear. “Mikhail?”“You should’ve never let Veronika near Livia,” he said without preamble. His voice was tight, edged with something I rarely heard from him—anger.My grip on the phone tightened. “What the hell happened?”“I think she’s been physically abusing her. Things aren’t how you left them, Maxim. That woman—she’s destroying Livia. You need to get back here. Now.”Something in my chest twisted, dark and violent. I pushed back my chair, standing abruptly. “Tell me everything.”Mikhail didn’t sugarcoat it. He told me about Livia’s bruises, about the way she flinched when people came near her, about how Veronika humiliated and tormented her at every turn. He told me about the stolen phone, the desperate call to Mir
I may have promised myself that I wouldn’t break but I was slowly unraveling. I hated to admit that Veronika was slowly winning the one-sided war she had unleashed on me. Every day in Maxim’s house and in a foreign country and continent chipped away at me, breaking me down piece by piece.I barely slept. My body ached from exhaustion, and the bruises decorating my skin were fresh reminders that I was at the mercy of monsters. Polina and Veronika were the devil’s incarnate. They hurt me as a source of entertainment. And everyday, they grew old with the new tricks and came up with new ones. They got more cruel and creative with their means. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold on. I needed to get out of there. I didn’t know when Maxim would come back and even if he did, I wasn’t sure he would defend me. I couldn’t wait for some knight in shining armor to come and save me. I already knew that he wouldn’t. But I knew one thing—I had to get my hands on a phone.I didn’t know how
I didn’t know it was possible for things to get worse than they already were but they did. I thought I only had to worry about Veronika when she came around for events. I should have known the universe was working against me. I used to be free–a girl with a purpose. Life was so good in Chicago even though I barely had enough to eat. At least I knew my purpose on Earth was to dismantle the Cosa Nostra.Now, I was just a maid with no contact with the outside world. No, worse than a maid—I was a punching bag.Veronika had moved in a week ago, sweeping into Maxim’s house like a queen reclaiming her throne. First, she came with a suitcase the day Maxim left. However, the next day, she came with trunks of designer clothes, an army of beauty products, and a sneer permanently etched on her lips whenever she looked at me.She made me carry all those items by myself from the foyer to her room which was on the third floor of the West wing of the mansion. I wasn’t naïve. I knew my place in this
I pretended it didn’t bother me that Livia said she hated me. Her words played over and over again in my brain. The way she had me wrapped around her little finger was something very shocking.I didn’t understand why I had such strong feelings for her when I had just met her. I used to think that feelings were overrated but I was starting to understand why people died for love.She must have done something to me to make me this obsessed. I especially hated that she told me to let her go. Did she not feel the connection she and I had? How could I let her go after that?That was damn near impossible. I knew I couldn’t live without her. Even before getting to know her, I knew I would love everything about her. No one could tell me otherwise. The next morning, she avoided me like the plague. She barely looked at me or acknowledged my presence. She acted indifferent and it killed. The worst part was that I had all that power and yet, I couldn’t make her like me.I wanted to force her to t
I rushed to my room, unable to be at the party any longer. I knew I would get in trouble but at the moment, I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away.I was wet and I’d just found out that Maxim had a fiancé. I didn’t know what I expected from a man in the mafia, let alone a Pakhan. He could have any woman he wanted—of course, he wanted them all.I didn’t understand why I was so hurt by what I had discovered. I should have expected it. I’d been fooled one too many times by the men in the mafia to have had such high expectations.I thought he really liked me but he was just using me as a substitute for his gorgeous fiancee. She was the one he wanted and he was using me to make her jealous.It suddenly made sense why he wanted to take me to the party. He was hoping she would show up and see us together and she did. In the end, he got what he wanted.I rushed to the bathroom and closed the door. I stared at my reflection in the mirror and wiped my makeup angrily. I wasn’t as gorgeous as V
I hated Vadim with everything I had. If it wasn’t for what he had over Nikita, he would have been dead. He was the kind of a man to stab you in the back and then wonder why you retaliated.When Nikita was a rookie assassin, he accidentally killed the wife of a Columbian Don. She was caught in the crossfire of a shoot out and it just so happened to be a bullet from Nikita’s gun that ended her life. Considering we have been getting product from them for years, we naturally hid the culprit and blamed it on someone else.The bad news was that Vadim got ahold of the tape and held it over our head. None of us knew how he got this tape, how he knew Nikita killed the Columbian queen or who he had shown the video to. He said that as long as he got a high-ranking position in the Bratva, everything would be kept secret.For three years, he kept his word. I didn’t trust him, though. I monitored everything he did. His mistake was thinking he was invincible. If he knew the information I had colle
After about thirty minutes, my hair was in a neat but messy bun. I stood in front of the full-length mirror and admired what I saw. Everything reminded me of what I gave up when I left home five years before. I hated to admit it, but I missed a life of luxury. Alfonso may have been a toxic parent but he always gave us whatever we wanted. It didn’t matter what it took. He would kill anyone if it meant his little children, also known as his trusted servants did whatever he asked. In exchange, we had to worship the group that he walked and unconditionally obey his every order.And he never failed to remind us that we wouldn’t survive in the real world without him. I proved him wrong for a while before he finally caught me and sold me off to his enemy. I wondered if he knew Carlos sold me to the Bratva. Had it all been a part of an elaborate plan to make my death nice and slow without having to do it himself?My train of thought was cut short when I caught something in the reflection