54. Ana
54
ANA
I slipped out of Luca’s arms, brushing my lips against his forehead. He turned in the bed, his arms brushing over the warm sheets, reaching out for me in his sleep. Angelo and Valentin had gone to the meeting with the local bratva, and Luca and I had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, exhausted and worried about the future.
Standing there in the light of the rising sun, staring down at his deep brown curls and his peaceful expression, I finally admitted the truth to myself.
I loved these men too fiercely to allow them to break my heart, to grind me into dust like my father had my mother, to watch them grow weary of me and eventually leave me.
Wanting to keep me safe and wanting to love me weren’t the same.
I might be good for fucking, and even be the object of their obsession, but time after time, I’d proven that the only thing I was good for was my pussy.
I could save them, and the thing I hated most about myself would do it.
When I slipped out the door, I was delighted to find a Costa soldier instead of one of the men Angelo had hired. “Johnny,” I said, smiling at his familiar face. “How’s the baby?”
He grinned. “Took her first steps last week.”
My heart warmed. This—this was what I’d always done for my father, what I’d never been able to communicate the importance of. If we didn’t take care of our people, none of this fucking mattered.
“Can I see a picture?”
Johnny got out his phone, and we cooed over the little girl.
“Such a proud papa,” I teased him, elbowing him gently in the side.
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed readily, slipping his phone back into his pocket and eyeing me warily.
“I need to talk to Enzo,” I said.
“Without Angelo?”
My eyes narrowed. “He’s meeting Nikolai Berezin right now about his kidnapped father. Do you want me to interrupt that just so I can make plans for mass tomorrow?”
“You can’t call?”
I shook my head. Not with them tracking my SIM. “Let me do my job,” I murmured. “Let me support them like I was raised to do.”
He bought it and made the call. I slipped back into the apartment to wait, just as much to ease Johnny’s suspicions as because I needed a moment to say goodbye, even if only in my heart.
A quiet knock sounded at the door. I palmed the door open, and Enzo waited for me there.
When I slipped out, he raised an eyebrow. I pushed my shoulders back, grateful for the wardrobe Angelo had bought me, utterly aware that I didn’t even own my fucking phone—Luca paid that fucking bill.
“What do you want, princess?”
His casual use of Valentin’s nickname cut me to the quick. “You may call me Miss Costa,” I corrected. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Miss Costa?” Johnny asked, worry in his gaze as he fingered his gun, out of nerves, not threateningly.
I smiled brightly. “My men know where I am. No need to keep secrets.” The GPS tracker in my neck gave truth to my words.
Enzo made a call in rapid Italian as we entered the elevator. Bodyguards would meet us downstairs.
Before I climbed into his SUV, I yanked his face down to mine by the collar. “I know you collaborated with our enemies. If you fuck this up, I’ll kill you myself.”
He straightened, then nodded.
“You’re going to help me fix this.”
Enzo raised an eyebrow. “And how the fuck do you intend to do that?”
I explained my plan.
“And after, what?”
I lifted my chin. “Boris will be dead. And I’ll be free.”
His teeth flashed in a blinding smile. “If free means dead, sure.”
“Are you going to help me, or do you want me to explain to Angelo and Valentin that you’ve been collaborating with Tchérnov this whole time?”
Enzo’s annoyance turned to grudging respect. “You’re a Costa to your goddamned bones, aren’t you? Manipulative bitch.”
He meant it as a compliment, and he wasn’t wrong, so I didn’t correct him.
“Yeah, I’ll help,” he continued. “Especially if it’ll keep the family out of the hands of a scumbag like Tchérnov.”
I didn’t remind him that he’d been working with Tchérnov.
Enzo hopped into the front seat, my personal bodyguard now that I’d been welcomed back into the Costa fold. I never should have left. These people, their blood, their tears, their businesses, the money they paid us for protection, that gave me every privilege I’d grown up with, every piano lesson, every piece of jewelry I’d pawned for a tattoo.
For the first time, the responsibility weighed on me. I couldn’t pretend that I was fighting against it anymore, that my father’s cruelty meant I didn’t owe anyone a damn thing. I owed them everything.
And I would fix this if it killed me.
I suspected it would.
We rode the elevator in silence, while I seized upon every moment of my training as a child to keep my face calm and pleasant. I was a fucking princess. Tchérnov wanted both a wife and revenge, and that meant he needed to keep me alive.
For now.
My bodyguard, soon to be my jailor, opened the door of the penthouse suite for me, gesturing for me to enter. All these fucking mafiosos were the same. Luxury after luxury after luxury, with nary a thought to the cost.
Not that I was any better. No. Not that I had been any better, until Tchérnov’s son raped me, and I had to learn to live on scraps to survive.
And I had. For three weeks.
I might be a spoiled princess, but I’d blown up this asshole’s yacht and lived to tell the tale.
“Ana Maria Costa. Twenty-six years old. Master’s degree in Quantitative Finance. Slut to Angelo Costa and Valentin Rochefort. And possibly Luca Russo, if the rumors are true. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Like the villain in a movie, Boris Tchérnov sat in an armchair in the corner of the room, his face hidden by shadow.
“I’m here to offer myself in marriage in exchange for the release of Fatimata Rochefort and Enrico Costa.”
I let the words sink to the floor like deflated balloons, flat and dour. Silence was a weapon when men liked to talk.
Boris leaned forward in his seat, revealing his face. I’d never met him face to face, but I could see the resemblance to his son. He was handsome—stunning blue eyes the color of a summer sky, tan skin, silver hair, a close-cropped beard that faded into tattoos on his neck, and a scar that ran down the left side of his face, from above his eyebrow down through his lip.
The scar did nothing to detract from his ice-cold beauty.
“Not beating around the bush, are you?”
I gestured to him. “You could have said hello, asked me how I was. Instead, you asked me why I was here. So I told you.”
Tchérnov cocked his head like a cat weighing whether he was ready to pounce on his prey. I suppressed a fearful shiver but couldn’t stop the goosebumps from spreading down my arms. He was nothing like his son, and I was a fool for underestimating him.
Grégoire was an abusive idiot. Boris was dangerous. Shit shit shit shit shit. Had I made the biggest mistake of my life?
When his lips turned up with amusement, relief rushed through me. “Ivan,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Tea for Miss Costa, vodka for me.”
One of the men who’d escorted me in turned on a kettle and puttered around in the kitchen, pulling accoutrements out of cabinets. The domesticity of the scene rendered me silent.
“Your life for theirs, is that right?” he asked, his accent not quite Russian, not quite French.
“My hand in marriage for their lives,” I corrected.
His cruel smile sent another shiver racing up my spine. “The mouse has come to negotiate with the lion and thinks she can set the terms?”
“You won’t have access to the Costa empire if I’m dead.”
“I won’t have access to it anyway. It belongs to Angelo.”
“It belongs to me , and then my future husband.”
Boris’s laugh was unkind, his mockery cutting at each and every one of my insecurities. “Sure, princess.”
Regret cut through me, that I’d never hear Valentin use that endearment toward me again. I steeled my spine. “My name is Ana.”
Boris tilted his lips down in a frown, then laughed quietly. “ Bon , Ana, you think you can bring me your father’s empire?”
Would they follow him, even if marriage to me gave him the legal right to my inheritance? No. Did it matter? Also no. “Yes.”
He looked me up and down, from my kitten heels to my knees, to my hips and stomach, to my chest, to my face—assessing me, not sexualizing me, to my shock and surprise.
“Angelo Costa murdered my son,” he said, his voice no less dangerous for his softness.
“Your son raped me,” I snarled.
“I don’t think so,” Boris said. “But I do want access to the Costa logistics network. We’ll marry in a week, and then I’ll release my captives.”
“I will not walk down that aisle until I have proof they’re free,” I said.
“You’re alone, in my apartment, with no backup. You are not in a position to negotiate.”
“I have nothing left to lose,” I said softly. “Those are my terms.”
“An obedient wife in exchange for the lives of two strangers?”
I nodded, terror and determination mingling in my gut. “And the cost of your yacht,” I reminded him.
He hummed. “Over a hundred million euros, in exchange for your servitude for the rest of your life.”
“You’ve already blown up several of Valentin’s warehouses and burned down my family home,” I said, tilting my chin up. “I think that should cut several years off the deal.”
“No,” Boris said. “I have no illusions that I’ll outlive you, a viper I’m bringing into my nest. But I’ll enjoy having someone to whip when I’m bored.”
I closed my eyes to hold back the hot tears that threatened. Not that it mattered. Boris would do what he wanted with me, and in return, Angelo’s father and Valentin’s mother would go free.
“You’ll free them before I marry you,” I repeated, refusing to give him the gift of my sorrow.
“Agreed. And don’t look so heartbroken. I like hurting women, not fucking them. I won’t stick my dick in you except what’s necessary for an heir. Grégoire might have, but I don’t enjoy sloppy seconds.”
Right. I knew fucking him was part of the deal. He needed a wife. He needed the Costa territories to connect his trafficking operation to the States and to give him a foothold he didn’t need to fight Nikolai for.
How did I not know he was a sadist?
I stood and offered my hand. He did the same, towering over me, his menacing presence terrifying as his fingers wrapped around my own, reminding me how helpless I was.
“One week,” he said. “Do you need anything from your apartment?”
“No,” I answered firmly. I would bring nothing to this relationship. “Enzo Accardi will make any arrangements I need.”
He ran his thumb over the back of my hand, not releasing me. I fought not to yank my hand back as fear crawled through my veins. “Did they chip you?”
“Yes.”
His answering smile weakened my knees with its promise of violence. “Excellent.”