4. Becca

4

BECCA

I bucked and flung out my arms, wrestling as soon as the door closed behind us. This tall man guided me out of the throngs of people trying to get near that scene, but in the mix of confusion and the adrenaline rush of witnessing something so taboo, I was too flustered to think straight.

To realize this huge, strong man that staff member called Ivan was leading me further from the safety of others.

No one saw him steer me into this dark room. I was too hurried to understand where he was guiding me to resist or even react.

One moment, I was watching a man do wicked, naughty things to that woman, and now?—

“Let me go!” My roar of a protest fell on his deaf ears, muffled into an incoherent blur of noise as he tightened the fabric around my head and cut off my scream.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I couldn’t breathe fast enough through this panic overwhelming me to a dizzy state of almost passing out. All my senses felt fried as I tried to slow the blur of anxiety and terror to something I could manage and fight my way through.

His strong arms locked in a manacle around me as he lifted me. Effortlessly. Carelessly, even. Up and away, he carried me with my mouth silenced behind a gag, my hands tied together. Still, I kicked and flung my legs the best I could to break free. In this darkness, I wouldn’t know where to go, but if he lost his steely grip on me, I’d run. I would sprint away as fast as I could.

Because I’d had it.

This was bullshit .

A lifetime of men controlling me had me rabidly enraged, furious behind the stark horror and panic of what was happening.

Another man. Another asshole trying to decide my fate and take charge of me.

I was sick of it, so damn tired of being pushed around and used, moved as someone else saw fit. Doing what someone else deemed necessary. Years of repressed anger and frustration boiled to the surface, but with the uptick of ire, I couldn’t breathe fast enough.

Dizzy and nauseated as Ivan hauled me through the darkness, I swallowed back the bile and willed my stomach to settle. If I puked while gagged, I’d choke. I could die. I could disappear, and that was not a possibility to leave Emily with. My baby needed me. I needed her , and this fucking asshole had another thing coming if he thought he could take me out of this nasty, depraved place and have his way with me.

Faint illumination broke through the darkness from the runner lines near the floor, and with the bobbing motion of being roughly carried away, I was more disoriented to the point I wanted to whimper.

No. I resisted the sound. I would be damned if I'd let this guy hear me vulnerable or scared.

Once more, for good measure, I bucked and squirmed to get free.

Nothing.

He had me in his hold, and he wasn’t letting up at all.

What is he going to do? Force me into some weird scene and rape me in front of all those people in the club?

The second I entered the secretive building, I knew something was off. Never could I have anticipated that this was a sex club, but once I entered that bigger room and saw that it was, I wondered if I’d been set up.

Steven had asked me to get an envelope at a place like this. Did he arrange this? What is going on!

Worries and questions bombarded me as Ivan carried me through another door. When he dropped me into the backseat of a car, fear struck through my heart.

He was kidnapping me. While I was glad he wasn’t going to subject me to something filthy and forbidden in the club against my will, I didn’t like this outcome any better.

Why me?

Why?

I always knew my dad was crooked and that he wouldn’t hesitate to use me for his corrupt plans.

Before him, Dom used me just the same, counting on me to be a connection to Steven for whatever illegal ideas they wanted to enact.

Now Ivan.

Kidnapped straight out of a sex club and rashly driven to an underground parking area.

Why me ?

During the short ride, I let my fear and fury keep me alert. Ivan didn’t drive for long. He spoke not a single word. Once he parked, he was quick to pull me out of the car. I didn’t fight this time, biding my time and waiting for an opportune moment to strike out.

Seeing thugs and other criminal lackeys standing around warned me that I was outnumbered. I had to wait for a better moment to fight and run.

Upstairs, in what looked like an apartment, Ivan gave me a chance to rail and resist his handling.

He shoved me into a room, and I fell against a bed.

A bed. No different from what I saw at the sex club.

Maybe he did intend to have his way with me, just away from any spectators.

As I took a full look at him, registering how much taller he was now that it was just the two of us in the full light of the room, I shivered at how dark his eyes were. They burned with malice. With impatience. Yet, a sliver of intrigue glimmered there too as he watched me catch my breath and stagger to my feet.

Lifting his muscled hand, he showed how his tattoos showed beneath his collar and the end of his sleeve. Another hasty glance over his rugged face highlighted all the scars.

He was a hard man. Lived a hard life. And I didn’t want any part of it.

He pushed my shoulder, rocking me back to the bed until I sat. Before more terror could fill me at the idea that he would rape me or worse, he flicked a knife open and brought it to my face.

I slammed my eyes shut, thinking of Emily. Keeping the image of my precious baby in mind, I tensed and braced for a lethal slice.

My life was over.

I’d never see her again.

Never watch her grow up.

Or maybe I would.

Ivan only pushed the blade down to remove the gag over my mouth. As the fabric fell, freeing the scraped skin there that was abused from the abrasion of the binding, I sucked in deeper inhales. Blinking my eyes open when I heard his step backward, retreating from me as he shoved his hands in his pockets, I tried to understand what was going on.

“Did you like what that man was doing to that woman at the club?” he asked, his voice gritty with lust and curiosity.

Of all things. Of all fucking things he could have asked me. I was suspended between utter fear and hot rage, stunned that he’d… that he’d mock me.

I gritted my teeth and lunged at him. “Let me go!”

He didn’t break a sweat restraining me and setting me back on the bed. He waited until I sat up from the slump I fell into with my hands tied behind my back.

My chest heaving, my breath coming too shallow and fast as I fumed at him, I stared so hard that I prayed he’d see how angry I was.

A smirk. That was all he gave me. Not even breaking a sweat from handling me and forcing me to be submissive again.

“Did you?”

“No.” I huffed, blowing my hair from my face. “What’s it to you?” I sassed back. I wasn’t going to assume he cared, that my reply mattered. He was in charge here. Not me.

“I noticed how intrigued you were.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Intrigued? I wasn’t intrigued. I was appalled. Shocked.”

He arched one brow. “And aroused?”

“Fuck you!”

He sighed, not losing that dangerous aura but showing some modicum of patience.

“You’re crazy. My reactions to that man and woman in that…”

“Scene. It’s called a scene.”

“I don’t care what it’s called. My opinions about that stuff don’t matter. Let me go!”

He simply stared at me, almost as though he was content to wait me out and let me burn through this anger.

“You’re crazy.”

Still no reaction.

“I swear to God,” I muttered hotly, fighting with my hands to see if I could slip through. “I swear, no man is ever going to control me again. I swear it.”

“Who controls you?”

I glowered at him, wiggling my wrists to get out of this impossibly tight rope.

“Murphy?”

I went still, locking my arms.

“Steven Murphy,” he clarified.

“Did he set you up to steal me out of that club? Huh? Did you set me up to go there?”

“I arranged for you to come to me,” he admitted smugly. “But there is no way your father would ever work with the Valkov Bratva.”

I was sure that name should have meant something to me, but I never involved myself with the names of the criminals my father was supposed to take down.

“How close are you to your father?”

I bit back a bitter bark of laughter, scowling as I looked away and scanned the meager contents of this room. “Not at all.”

“You’re not close with your father.”

“Steven and I have never been close.”

“But you seemed to think he’d set you up to go to that club.”

I clenched my teeth, hating that I couldn’t escape. “Because he asked me to go to a place like that and pick up something for him.” I’d dropped off something tonight, through an ordered delivery with my job. Still, it bore enough similarities that I thought of Steven’s last call to me.

“He asked me to help him. And I said no. I want nothing to do with places like that. With sex clubs and thugs and criminals like you. I’ve never agreed to do anything with Steven.”

“Never.”

I growled. The longer he stared at me with that cool authority, I was reminded that he was the boss here. Not me.

“What else has he asked you to do?”

“Favors. He never gave details, and I always shot him down before he’d tell me anything.”

“You’re his accomplice?” he asked.

“ No .” Once more, I fought the bindings on my wrists. “I have never worked with him, for him.”

My answers didn’t satisfy him. For a long time that I lost track of, Ivan peppered me with more questions about Steven. Relentlessly. Like a dog after a bone, he posed the same questions over and over as though he was waiting for me to slip.

Exhausted from fighting and the frustration of being captured because of my father, I hung my head and groaned. “Steven is secretive. I have never trusted him, and I don’t ever plan to. He’s a sperm donor, nothing more.”

“What about the Rossini Family?”

I held my breath, staying rigid and still. Why would he ask that?

“Have you heard of the Rossinis, Becca?”

His tone changed from the direct, firm interrogative style like he was a journalist holding an interview. He asked me with mild amusement, and I knew he’d noticed my flinch at that name.

Shit.

“Becca…”

“No.” I lifted my face defiantly, staring at him and hoping I could lie well enough that he wouldn’t doubt my replies.

Of course, I’d heard of them. Dom Rossini was Emily’s father, but I was too scared to reveal that fact.

He stared down at me. The silence of his careful study unnerved me, and I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was caught in the crossfire somehow. That I was wedged in some kind of a twisted game between Mafia lords.

“You don’t know anything about the Rossini Family?”

Pressing my lips together tighter, I vowed to shut the hell up and give nothing else away. All he’d get from me was the silent treatment. Nothing more, nothing less.

Still, he waited, crossing his arms and eyeing me so intensely, like he counted on me to break under his glare.

“Nothing to add?”

I bit the inside of my lower lip to remain as still as possible, keeping my gaze unwavering and locked on his.

You won’t break me.

He smirked, taunting me to wonder what could make him lose that rein on this stare-down.

“I’ll get my answers one way or the other.”

Die trying, asshole.

“After all, every hostage has their purpose.”

Turning to leave, he let me consider his parting words.

Hostage?

My heart raced even faster as the implications of his intentions sank in.

With all those questions about Steven. The thoughts that my father was hiding and being more secretive than ever, worrying about his “cover” so much that he’d asked me to handle a favor for him.

He had to be staying down low for a reason, and Ivan wanted to hold me captive to lure him out.

A pawn. I was taken to be a pawn, but the joke was on him.

Steven didn’t care about me. Only himself.

The man who fathered me didn’t care whether I lived or died.

I stared at the door, zoning out as worry flooded me all over again, and I wondered when Ivan would realize the same thing—how dispensable I really was.