Chapter 17
Sophie
My body decides to rise from the chair and get into bed as soon as the disgusting uncle looks away from me. Over the past few days, this bed has become a sanctuary for me. Or the closest thing, under the circumstances.
I tug the blanket up to my neck, opting to sit rather than lie down. The tension is so thick you can cut it with a knife.
I noticed it the last time, too. Something about their uncle irritates the shit out of Luka and Leon. And it makes them slightly more real. Slightly less terrifying.
“This is a waste of time. We need to threaten her for real, to push him out in the open.” Toma waves his hand at me, as if I’m a moth that needs to be swatted. Breath hitches in my throat.
“Ne sla?em se,” Luka responds in the foreign language, and even though I don’t know what he’s saying, I can tell he’s disagreeing, making my chest expand.
“This is only making us look weak. You should leave her to me. The Russians will think we’re amateurs.” The uncle turns to Leon, as if Luka is a child that can’t be reasoned with.
“She’s my prisoner!” A deep, loud roar bubbles out of Luka, almost shaking the walls of the dungeon.
His eyes are pitch black, filled with the fire I’ve seen a few times before.
His shoulders are tense under his shirt, making me remember how they looked without it.
Wide, hard, and covered in ink. The man is a mountain, and I wouldn’t want to be on the other side when his control eventually snaps.
“I’m just caring for the family business.” Toma tries to strike a threatening pose but being a head shorter and a foot narrower than his nephew, it’s a futile feat.
“Don’t fucking talk about the family business. Otac. Otac je zaslu?an za sve ?to imamo. Without him, there would be no Croatians in the mafia business. Don’t act like you had anything to do with that.”
Leon now sighs, but my head is reeling. Croatians. Makes sense. They’re Slavic, hence the language that is similar to Russian.
I pick my brain for every info I know about Croatia.
A small country next to Italy. They rely mostly on tourism, given they’re rich in beautiful landscapes and history.
Surprisingly good at sports, not that I follow them.
I’ve never heard of the Croatian mafia. I’ve heard of the Serbs, who are, if I’m correct, Croatia’s close neighbors.
But it would make sense, considering what Luka said.
They’re the first Croatian mafia family.
And they’ve worked with my dad. Who obviously betrayed them.
For Russians?
By the time my brainstorming session is done, I’ve skipped a sizeable chunk of their conversation.
“Do as you please, but I sure as hell won’t be just sitting on the sidelines,” Toma says in a snippy tone.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have tuned out. I chew on my bottom lip, punishing it for not pulling me into reality. Being imprisoned here, information is the only power I have. Only chance I have at escaping.
“Just stay away from my business and we’ll be fine.” Luka bares his teeth.
Uncle heads to the door. “I’ll be bringing some girls here next week. For a trial period.”
With that, he’s gone, followed by his guards. Leon starts after him, but Luka doesn’t, staring at the door they’ve just exited out of, as if he’s trying to shoot lasers out of his eyes.
The energy emanating from him is so strong, so unpleasant that discomfort builds inside of me, fighting to get out. Finally, it does, making me blurt out, “Lovely guy, isn’t he?”
Luka’s dark eyes flick to mine, and breath whooshes out of me as I await his reaction.
A beat. Two.
On the third beat of my traumatized heart, he bursts out laughing.
Full on belly laughing. My eyes widen, my arms unmoving.
I’m not fully sure what made me blurt this out to the mafia prince who kidnapped me.
Maybe my brain is atrophying from being in this room for so long.
Maybe the last threads of my mental health have snapped at last.
But somehow, instead of making him even angrier, I made him laugh.
His face transforms, the rough angles softening, wrinkles appearing at the corners of his mouth. The cold, black eyes are warm and younger than I ever saw them. Suddenly, he’s not a figure I would run from in the dark, but a guy I would sneak peeks at to catch more of his beauty.
I push these thoughts away. This is obviously a psychotic episode I’m having. A consequence of my mind and body being caged here with no fresh air or sun.
“You have no idea.” He shakes his head, but I do. Unfortunately, I know a thing or two about guys like him and how far they’ll go to show their power. Because that’s all they care about. Power. Status. Ego.
Luka sits in the chair Andre sat in previously and starts moving the chess pieces into starting position. “Come. Let’s play.”
He doesn’t look up, but I slip from the bed and join him at the table. He turns the board to me, so that I’m playing white.
I open my mouth to protest, but he stops me. “Play,” he says, and I do, starting with the London opening.
Playing white, I could checkmate him in ten moves or less. But my head’s not fully in it. I’m still distracted by the nasty uncle, and Luka’s soothing smile. It felt like the closest thing to normal since I was taken. Is this what the start of Stockholm syndrome feels like?
Two bad moves make my mate impossible in ten and improbable in fifteen. It also allows him to threaten my king.
His black button down doesn’t help, and neither does the sight of his forearms once he rolls up his sleeves.
“Check,” he says, eyeing me with suspicion.
I protect the king, trying to get my head in the game.
Three moves later, he’s leading by five points. I’m forced to play defensively, which is not my typical forte. I lose a bishop to his knight, and he carefully removes the piece from the board, setting it aside.
“What’s going on?” The low timbre of his voice breaks the silence.
For the first time since we started playing, I glance at his face, noticing the furrow of his brow. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve asked you to play so you could give me a run for my money, not so you could lose on purpose.”
“I’m not…” I sigh. “Losing on purpose.”
“No? Just like you haven’t lost on purpose when you played against my uncle that one time?” His chin lowers, his eyes evaluating me underneath the impossibly long lashes.
“My head’s just not in it.” My voice is quiet as I shrug. I don’t tell him his reaction moved me off my axis. I don’t tell him that the messed up chemical system of my brain has just become even more unbalanced.
He stares for a second, unblinking. “Well, that’s a shame. If I wanted to hang out with a pushover, I’d have stayed with the lovely ladies upstairs.”
My ears burn at his words, and it pisses me off. Who the hell is he to tell me how I should or shouldn’t act? I might be his captive, but he’s not my fucking owner.
The anger spreads from my stomach through my limbs, settling in my fists. I grip my remaining rook harder than needed, and move it across the board, the moves clear in my head. “Check.”
Even though my focus is on the board, I can see his lips turn up. He won’t be smiling when I kick his ass.
Seven moves later, I do just that. I reel from my victory, raising my gaze, only to see him smirking at me.
“Good game,” he says, putting his hand out for me to shake.
My hand snakes out, and he takes it, covering it with his large, tattooed one. The raised sleeve reveals an interlace pattern, one that wraps around his forearm. My eyes stick to it long enough for him to notice.
“It’s the Croatian pleter.” The r is rolled. “It’s a symbol of our culture dating back to the 9th century.”
My fingers itch to trace it, but that would be a silly idea. So I remove my hand from his, balling my fist to keep it from moving. The three-ribbon pattern is beautiful and hearing it dates so far back makes my nerdy heart beat faster.
He clears his throat, luckily breaking the moment. “Thanks for keeping me company. At least you kept me from choking Uncle Toma out.”
“I’ll make sure not to make the same mistake the next time,” I respond, making him laugh again.
His large frame exits the room, leaving me alone. I look around as if checking to see if someone is watching me, but before I can try to escape again, Andre returns with a polite nod of his chin.
They interrupted our chess game earlier, and even though I’m not really in the mood for another game, I have something else on my mind.
“Do you speak Croatian?” I do my best to bat my eyelashes.
I’m not trying to be flirty, more like innocent looking. And it works because he dips his head in confirmation. I sit down at the table, lifting the king piece.
“What is this piece called?” I ask him, excited to learn something new after being here so long.