17. Damian #2
She’s no assassin, no mafia princess, but in that moment, I see a ferocity in her that rivals even Valentina.
As she kicks and bites and fights despite the fact that she can’t possibly get free, I’ve never felt anything like the emotion that swells in my chest, straining muscle and bone as I look at the woman fighting to get free.
My wife is magnificent in her rage.
And I'm going to kill every single one of these bastards for putting their hands on her.
But I can’t save her if she’s already dead.
I’ll find a way out of this. I won’t let anything happen to you, Sienna . I want to say it out loud, but I know better. They need to think I’m surrendering, or I won’t ever get a chance to fix this.
I let my gun clatter to the ground. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. A feeling of helplessness washes over me, cold and clawing, and it feels like drowning. I see one of the men clap a rag over Sienna’s face, and as she goes limp, I lunge forward despite myself, seeing red.
"Smart man," someone says behind me. “But you’re not going anywhere but into a cage.”
Something hard connects with the back of my skull. And the last thing I see before darkness claims me is my wife, being dragged away, shoved into the back of a van.
Sienna .
—
I wake up on a hard floor that smells like piss and blood, concrete cold against my cheek. I push myself up, my head swimming as I do, and I see that I’m still wearing the same clothes, but my gun is gone. I can feel the weight of it missing instantly, and then it all comes back to me .
The ambush. The fight. Dropping my gun to keep them from shooting Sienna. Watching her be dragged away while I was helpless to stop it.
My head is pounding, and when I reach up to touch the back of my skull, my fingers come away sticky with dried blood.
There’s no one else in the cell with me.
“Sienna!” Her name spills from my mouth, a guttural cry, and I instantly hear footsteps echoing in the corridor outside of my cell.
Not a minute later, I see three guards led by a taller, broader, heavily muscled man—a man I recognize as Sal Envio, Russo’s enforcer.
He was in lockstep with Russo on the plans for the pornography ring and human trafficking, I know that much, which makes me hate him on principle before I even get to the part about taking Sienna and locking me up.
Now I want him dead. I want them all dead.
He grins at me, standing a good foot back from the bars of my cell. I shove myself up to my feet, ignoring the dizziness as I stumble forward and grab the bars, glaring at him through them.
"She's alive," he says, his voice oily with satisfaction. "For now."
"Where is she?" I'm gripping the bars so hard my knuckles are white. The words come out through clenched teeth, a warning as much as a question. “If you’ve fucking harmed a hair on her fucking head…”
He chuckles. "She’s fine. She’s somewhere safe. Being prepared for her new career."
The words hit me like physical blows. Rage floods through me, making me feel like I could break the bars with my bare hands. "What the fuck does that mean?"
Sal's smile is all teeth and no warmth. "It means she's going to make us a lot of money. Pretty little thing like that, especially with her… experience in the entertainment industry. We've got buyers lined up already."
Red fills my vision. Pure, undiluted rage that makes my hands shake and my heart race. They're going to sell her. They're going to use her body and then sell her to the highest bidder like she's a piece of meat. Just like they planned from the beginning.
"She's my wife," I snarl. “You don’t fucking touch her. You don’t let anyone else touch her. You?—”
"Your wife?" Sal laughs. "Please. We’ve looked into it.
A quick marriage late at night with a priest in need of money for his parish, overseeing it.
You got paperwork to try to keep her under Abramov's protection, that’s all.
But you're both here now, so that protection doesn't mean much, does it?
" He grins, leaning in closer. “Did you fuck her? I bet you fucked her. I would have.”
I want to rip his throat out with my bare hands.
I want to paint these walls with his blood and make him watch while I do it.
My teeth are gritted so hard it feels like they might crack, and all I need is for one of them to come close enough for me to do something about this.
My skin feels as if it’s crawling with the need for violence, to spill blood, to get to my fucking wife.
"Besides," he continues, that oily grin still on his face, "even if she was really your wife, what difference would it make? Dead men don't have wives."
Something cold and lethal settles in my chest. This little shit thinks he can threaten Sienna, thinks he can talk about using her like she's disposable. He has no idea what kind of monster he's just awakened. What kind of monster I’ve been all these years. He knows who I am; he should know my reputation, but clearly he doesn’t know fear.
And I’m going to find a way to teach it to him.
"If you touch her," I say, my voice deadly quiet, "if you let anyone else touch her, I will burn your entire family to the ground. And if you don’t have one, I’ll settle for skinning you alive. A man can live through that a longer time than you’d expect.”
Sal chuckles, without a speck of fear in his eyes. That only incenses me more. "Big words for a man in a cage."
"You think this cage will hold me?" I lean closer to the bars, letting him see the promise of violence in my eyes. "You think concrete and steel can keep me away from my wife?"
For the first time, uncertainty flickers across his face .
"When I get out of here—and I will get out—I'm going to find everyone who looked at her wrong. Everyone who put their hands on her. And I'm going to make them all scream before I kill them. I’m going to keep count of how many pieces I can take off of every one of you before you die. I’ll start with the feet and work my way up.
I can think of a hundred creative ways to torture every fucking one of you before I finish you off. "
"You're not getting out," Sal snaps, but the oily grin has faded, and there's less conviction in his voice now.
"Konstantin Abramov is going to come for me. And when he does, your boss's little empire is going to crumble. There won't be enough left of the Russo family to fill a shoebox."
I can see a little more of that hesitation, now.
He’s not as secure in his boss’s plan as he’s pretending, and I don’t fucking blame him.
Everyone in Miami knows Konstantin's reputation. Everyone knows what happens to people who cross the Abramov Bratva. Sal should be fucking scared, but he shouldn’t be as scared of Konstantin as he should be of me.
"Unless," I continue, pressing what advantage I have, "you let her go. Right now. Walk away from this while you still can."
"It's too late for that." Sal takes another step back, further away from the bars. "The old man's made his decision. She's ours now."
"Then you're all dead men."
He tries to regain his composure, straightening his shoulders. "We'll see about that. In the meantime, enjoy your last few hours, Kutnezsov. Tomorrow, you're going to watch your 'wife' service a room full of men before we put a bullet in your head."
The words detonate in my brain like a bomb. I thought I knew rage before, but it’s as if something takes over me, some otherworldly fury that has me slamming my shoulder into the cell door with enough force to rattle the entire frame. I see Sal’s eyes widen.
“Sienna!” I roar her name, throwing myself against the door again. “ Sienna!”
"Shut him up," Sal snaps to one of the men behind him.
The guard comes forward, a heavy baton in his hand, but I'm past caring about pain. When he gets close enough, I grab him through the bars and slam his head into the metal with a wet crunch. He drops like a stone, blood pooling around his skull.
“She’s my wife !” I snarl, hands smeared with blood, as I shake the bloody bars of the cage. “Give me the fucking keys and let us both go, or I swear by every god anyone has ever believed in, fucking hell will rain down on the Russos. If she’s been harmed, I swear?—”
“Someone do something about this fucking animal!” Sal snarls, turning to call for backup. “Get the fuck in here! All of you! Get this man under control.”
“For an enforcer, you sure are slow to get your hands dirty,” I sneer. “Afraid to get too close, Sal? Afraid I’ll bleed on your Italian leather shoes? Fucking piece of shit.”
Sal doesn’t flinch or budge. He smiles viciously. “You’ll find out what we’re capable of soon enough, Kutnezsov. Guards!”
More guards arrive, staying well out of my reach this time. One of them has a taser, shoved through the bars before I can get back fast enough, and the electricity sends me to my knees, my muscles seizing uncontrollably.
“He’s dead,” another says, kneeling down to look at the guard I dropped.
“Get that corpse out of here,” Sal snaps.
“And put a heavy guard on him. I want him watched around the clock until we drag him out of here. No excuses. And no one else gets close to him. I don’t care if he’s hungry, if he’s thirsty, if he has to piss or shit.
No one takes him out of the cage, and no one goes near him. ”
It takes a long time for me to stop twitching from the electrical shock, crumpled on the floor with that feeling of helplessness pouring through me again, like water in a glass box. I’m caged, unarmed, too far from Sienna to help her. But it won’t be that way forever.
I’ll find a way. My mind feels clear as crystal, and I’ve never been more determined.
They have Sienna. They're planning to hurt her in ways that make my blood run cold. And I'm stuck in this fucking cage like a rabid animal.
But I meant what I told Sal. This cage won't hold me. Not when my wife needs me.
Not when I swore I’d protect her.
—