Chapter Thirty-Three Isla
I was having a nightmare.
One of the worst of my life.
I’d been kidnapped outside the club.
When I woke up, I felt relieved to be in my bed. Thank God, it had all been just a bad dream. I pulled myself to sit up.
The moment my eyes scanned the room, my chest constricted. I hadn’t woken up from the nightmare. I was still in it.
At that moment, the door opened. I screamed at the sight of two men with rifles. “Please, don’t hurt me,” I begged.
When one of the men started inside, the other stopped him. “The boss said she wasn’t to be touched.”
The taller of the two merely smirked. “Who says he has to find out? Let me have a turn, and then you can have a go at her.”
“He won’t like it.”
“Fuck him and fuck you.”
“Yuri, you’re going to get yourself killed.”
The taller man named Yuri continued to advance into the room. I scrambled up the mattress until I banged against the headboard. “Please don’t do this.”
Yuri jerked me by the hair, causing me to scream. As he yanked my hair, he dragged me down the mattress. Then he got on top of me. “Stop! Help! No!” I screamed as I thrashed against him.
We tumbled off the bed and into the floor. His hand jerked the hem of my skirt. Suddenly, the weight lifted off of me, and Yuri flew against the wall. I buried my face in my hands as words were exchanged in Russian before a gun popped twice. I screamed and rolled into a fetal position.
A foot kicked my leg. “Look at me,” a voice commanded.
After swiping my eyes, I stared up at the man standing over me. “My apologies, Ms. Vaughn.”
He held his hand out to help me up. When I eyed it with disgust, he chuckled. “Not very grateful, are you?”
“You’re the man who had me kidnapped.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
He tsked at me. “Come now, Ms. Vaughn. A woman as smart as you should already know the answer to that.”
“Quinn,” I whispered.
With a nod, he replied, “Your boyfriend and his family have been making things very hard for me. First, they killed Carmine Lucero which fucked my son’s alliance and left him saddled with an Italian bitch for a wife. But that wasn’t enough for the Kavanaughs. They, or more importantly Quinn, had to fuck with another lucrative alliance.”
“But why take me?”
“Does the name Terrance Manning mean anything to you?”
A shudder ran through me. “He assaulted me at Alainn .”
“And then Quinn killed him in retaliation.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Guess who my lucrative alliance was?”
“Terrance.”
Mikita nodded. “So, you can see why I have very personal beef with Quinn.” Mikita tilted his head at me. “Do you know what Bravta calls your boyfriend?” At the shake of my head, he replied, “ Odinokiy volk so shramami . It means ‘scarred lone wolf’. He hasn’t had a woman to share his life with.” A wicked gleam flickered in his gray eyes. “But he’s not so alone anymore, is he?”
I swallowed my fear down. They were going to use me to draw Quinn out. “Are you going to hurt me?”
He ran the back of his hand over my cheek, causing me to shudder. “Not like you fear.”
Turning away from me, he surmised Yuri’s bleeding corpse. “In Jersey, for a long time the Irish, the Italians, and Bratva believed women shouldn’t pay for the sins of the men. But then the pact was broken. A beautiful young Russian woman–a mother of two small sons–was kidnapped. Although she wasn’t beaten or wounded, she was raped.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Repeatedly by many men.”
Fear choked off my ability to speak. Instead, I could only widen my eyes in horror.
“When the dispute between her family and the Italians ended, she was sent back to her family. While there were no physical scars on her body, the emotional ones crippled her. Even though her two sons were so happy to have her back, she was merely a shell of who she was before. A month after she was returned, she jumped off the roof of the family penthouse.”
My chest rose and fell. “She was your mother.”
“You are very astute.”
“I’m sorry. I lost my mother as well.”
He cocked a brow at me. “Did she plummet fifteen stories before slamming to the ground and pulverizing into bloody soup?”
My stomach rolled at his description, and I fought not to gag. As he stared expectantly at me, I gave a slight jerk of my head. “Car accident.”
“Don't try to empathize with me. We aren’t the same.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“The reason I told you that story was to explain why I, nor any of my men, would force themselves upon you. It isn’t about a weakness in me or them. It’s out of respect for her memory.”
Since I didn’t know what else to say, I merely nodded. “But there are other forms of torture besides rape, Ms. Vaughn.”
When he reached out for me, I flinched. He tsked at me. “I’m not so uncivilized that I would resort to beating you.”
Although I wanted to ask what he was going to do to me, I feared his answer too much. Anxious tremors already racked my body. Nausea rolled through my stomach that I feared I would vomit at any moment.
As he paced before me, Mikita paused to eye Yuri’s body again. “Did you know there are many means of torture that don’t require me to lay one finger on that beautiful body of yours?”
When I didn’t answer, he continued on. “In Russia, many of the prisons use psychological torture because it breaks men much quicker than physical torture.”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Deprivation is a big one. You can starve or dehydrate someone into submission. Or use extreme temperatures on them.” He chuckled. “For someone like me who grew up in Russia, it would take a hell of a lot to freeze me into submission.”
“But one of the worst is sleep deprivation.” He cocked his head at me. “I bet you experienced a little of that when your beautiful sister gave birth to her baby boy.”
At the mention of Brooke and Henry, bile rocketed from my stomach, and I turned my head and retched on the floor. Mikita merely chuckled. “I see I’ve hit a nerve.”
Before I could reach up to swipe my mouth, Mikita produced a handkerchief from his pocket. He slid the silky material across my mouth. “Right now you’re experiencing a strong form of psychological torture. Threats.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Please don’t hurt them.”
Mikita returned his handkerchief to his pocket. “Do you know how much money I could get on the human trafficking market for your sister?”
Sobs tore through my chest at the thoughts of Brooke being raped and abused. “Please.”
“She would make me millions.”
Once again, I croaked, “Please.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Of course, she’s not pure, and most men don’t want pussy that’s been through childbirth. She’ll probably get beaten a lot when buyers find that out.”
Menace flashed in his eyes. “But it’s not just about her, is it? There’s that sweet, innocent baby boy.”
A violent shudder rocketed through me. Pinching my eyes shut, I shook my head. “Enough.”
“Although I don’t condone kiddie fuckers in my organization, there is a lucrative market of them. Can you imagine that for your nephew? Being passed from buyer to buyer, his innocence stripped from him.”
My eyes snapped open. “Shut your fucking mouth!” I screamed.
“I’m afraid that most of the babies on the market don’t live very long. Someone always ends up taking things too far, and they’re very fragile.”
Unable to stand it any longer, I lunged out of my chair. I leapt at Mikita, punching and slapping him. Instead of deflecting me, he merely laughed. I stepped back from him, my fist clenched at my sides. “Take me instead.”
Mikita eyed me curiously. When he continued staring at me, I smacked my chest. “I said take me instead.”
He remained impassively staring at me. Grabbing the lapels of his suit, I shouted, “Kill me . Fuck me . Beat me. I don’t care what you do to me. Just don’t touch them.”
To my utter shock, Mikita began clapping. “I’m truly in awe of how quickly you broke. Your love for your sister and nephew is truly admirable.”
Unable to control my anger, I spat, “Fuck you.”
Mikita chuckled. “Such fire for a little thing.”
“Are you going to hurt them?”
“That depends on you, Ms. Vaughn.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’m sure you think I kidnapped you to try to draw Quinn out to have some epic showdown. But that wasn’t my intention.”
When a malicious thought entered my mind, I stumbled back over to the chair and sat down. “You’re going to make me kill him,” I choked out.
Mikita’s eyes widened. “While it’s an intriguing idea and one I wish I’d thought of, that is not my intention.”
A relieved breath whooshed out of me. I thanked God for small mercies that I wouldn’t be expected to choose my family over Quinn.
“I don’t want Quinn dead.”
I furrowed my brows. “You don’t?”
“No. I want him alive, so he can suffer.”
Fear once again twisted in my chest. “What do you plan to do to him?”
“Actually, it’s what you’re going to do to him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re going to leave him.”
“What?”
Mikita grinned. “The lone wolf has a mate. To make him suffer, I need to remove the mate. I’ll be honest that I did think of killing you at first. But then I realized that was too easy. While you worried I would make you physically kill Quinn, you’re going to emotionally kill him.”
“No, no, no,” I moaned.
“Yes, Ms. Vaughn, you’re going to leave him. You’re going to tell him you can’t be with someone who endangers the ones you love, yourself included. I don’t really care what you say as long as you deliver the blow.”
“Please, don’t make me do this!”
“You’ll do good to remember I’m sparing your life, Ms. Vaughn. If I kill you now, nothing will stop me from taking your sister and nephew.”
His words had the same effect as if he was slapping me across the face. In some ways, I wished he would’ve just beat me. At least the pain would have an outlet then. I could bleed and break. It was now all contained in my mind.
My chest was constricted in a vise so tight I couldn’t breathe. I wanted so much to weep to get rid of the agony, but I couldn’t. I just jerked and shook all over. The last time I’d felt this way was when I came back into consciousness in the ER and a nurse with tears in her eyes told me my parents were dead.
I don’t know how long I sat in torment, staring ahead and trembling uncontrollably. A voice broke through the torture. “Do we have a deal, Ms. Vaughn?”
“If I promise this, you won’t hurt me or my family.”
“You have my word.”
“This will be the only revenge you seek against the Kavanaughs or Caterina’s brothers?”
“I’m afraid this deal relates only to Quinn and me. Whatever retaliation they seek, I’ll have to deal with.” He pursed his lips. “Unless you can convince Quinn not to.”
“If it means you won’t hurt any of them, I will. I swear it.”
“You’re a remarkable woman, Ms. Vaughn. I hate that we had to meet under these circumstances.”
I didn’t respond. Instead I kept staring at the wall in front of me. The next thing I knew Mikita jerked my arm. “What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Just giving you a nice sedative, so you’ll sleep through the drop off.”
“You’re letting me go?”
“Since you’re willing to cooperate, there’s no need for you to stay any longer.” He tilted his head at me. “Unless you would like to join me for dinner?”
I furiously shook my head back and forth. “No,” I gritted out.
He smiled maniacally at me. “Pity. You’d make an intriguing mistress for me.”
I bit down on my lip to keep from spitting in his face. “Just take me home, please.”
At the prick on my arm, I winced. Then the world around me grew as dark as my emotions.