60. Ana
60
ANA
The wedding dress that Boris bought me covered my chest and my upper back. He’d been careful not to slice into any part of me that would be visible as I walked down the aisle. The heavy brocade weighed on me, sweat leaving a stinging path down my skin as it dripped over my wounds.
He took my hand as I climbed into the SUV that would take me to the church for the ceremony, controlling to the end. Boris would follow me in a separate car, but I wouldn’t be out of his sight for a moment.
“Show me,” I growled. “Show me you’ve kept your end of the deal.”
“Or what?”
I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated him in that moment.
“Or you’ll have to kill me in public when I refuse to marry you at the altar,” I said simply. I had nothing left to lose. My skin was shredded. My dignity was gone. Last night, I’d begged him to kill me, to end the pain, only for him to laugh at me and tell me that I’d be enjoying his sadism for the rest of my life.
He shoved me into the car, careful not to muss my hair, less careful about slamming his hands against the bruises on my arms. “I’m a man of my word.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Boris cocked his head, staring at me with ice-blue eyes that penetrated my very soul.
No.
He couldn’t see my soul.
He couldn’t have it.
He’d never have it.
Whether today went to plan or not, I was my own woman. And I always would be.
Part of the deal Boris made with Angelo and Valentin was that they would meet their parents, ensuring they wouldn’t be in Yorkfield to interfere with our wedding.
And to my utter heartbreak, they’d each agreed with alacrity.
Luca, at least, I could count on to stand by his father’s side. He may have offered to marry me, but when push came to shove, he’d keep the peace.
Boris leaned his hip against the side of the car, looming over me menacingly, and showed me the video feed on his phone of an elegant Black woman, her hands in her lap, sitting on a shabby couch.
“Let her go,” Boris commanded.
“ Lève-toi ,” the invisible interlocutor commanded. Get up. The woman stood and held out her hands, her posture imperious, the command clear.
The man holding the phone laughed and said in French, “Your asshole son can deal with your hands.”
The door to the apartment opened, and he shoved the woman out, his gun pressed against the small of her back. I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel her calm presence through the line, as if the guard was beneath her.
The signal flickered as they descended inside the elevator, only to return when they arrived in the lobby of the building. The man marched her outside and continued to film in the blinding sunlight.
Valentin—my love—his face stricken, dashed to his mother and fell to his knees in front of her, hastily attacking the bindings on her wrist with a knife before wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his face into her stomach.
I couldn’t hear what they said, but she caressed his head, and longing streaked through me. I’d never run my fingers over his curls again, never feel the stroke of his five o’clock shadow against my thighs. Never hear him praise me for being a good girl.
My stomach hollowed out as he stood and led his mother away from the building.
His eyes caught on the bodyguard filming, and he bent down to whisper in his mother’s ear before dashing back to shove the man against the wall, grabbing the phone out of his hands.
“Let her go, Tchérnov,” he snarled, and I whimpered, missing him more than life itself. When he realized it was my face on the screen, his face softened. “Ana?”
Boris turned the phone away from my face, raising it to his. “She’s fulfilling her end of the bargain.”
“Ana, you don’t have to do this,” Valentin said.
I wanted him. I missed him. I needed him.
And I would never have him again.
No matter how today ended.
Boris ended the call before I could respond and called Angelo, who was embracing Nonno. The two men were bloody and beaten but standing.
“I am a man of my word,” Boris said.
“Why does he look like he just fought in a war?” I whispered.
Boris’s gaze cut to mine, amused and cruel. “I said I’d free his father. I didn’t say I’d make it easy.”
“I want to speak to her,” Angelo growled. Boris turned the phone to me.
Blood poured from a wound on his forehead, and my fingers itched to soothe the furrow in his brow as he took me in, the veil I hadn’t lowered yet, and the high cut of the dress that hid the wounds Boris had inflicted over the last week.
“Don’t do this, angel,” Angelo said. “Fight him. Fucking run. Fucking stay with me.” His voice broke on the last plea.
“ Bellissima Ana,” my grandfather murmured. “Coraggiosa Ana.” Beautiful Ana. Brave Ana.
“My love,” Angelo said simply, and I couldn’t hold the tears in any longer. They slipped down my cheek, and my chin trembled as I struggled to control myself.
“Thank you,” Nonno said, simply. The man had been beaten within an inch of his life. He couldn’t stand without draping his arm over Angelo’s shoulder, and I held on to that, knowing I’d made the right decision, he wouldn’t have survived any longer in captivity.
Not that I expected to either.
“I’m going to save you, Ana,” Angelo rasped, dragging his fingers over the screen over the phone.
I lifted my chin and grabbed the handkerchief in Boris’s pocket to gently pad at my face, wiping the evidence of my misery away. “Don’t,” I said softly. When he didn’t agree, I continued, “Who did you swear an oath to, Angelo?”
“Ana, I love you, don’t ask me to do this.”
I’d thought my heart couldn’t break anymore, that I’d already shattered it into a million pieces and ground them into dust beneath my heel, but Angelo was doing it here.
I’d have killed for those words.
Done anything to hear them a week ago.
“Please,” he begged.
“You will not save me,” I told him. “You’re going to save my empire.”
“No,” he protested. “I don’t want the fucking empire. I want you .”
“That’s an order,” I said softly. The only one I’d ever given him. The only one I’d ever dared.
“Angel, my love—” Boris cut off the call.
I steeled my shoulders and held out my hand imperiously. “I’ll fix my makeup in the car.”
His lips tilted up into a smile before he pulled my bag out of the trunk and rifled through it, handing me the small makeup bag.
“Turn around,” he ordered. I did, exposing my bare neck to him. He unbuttoned the high collar of my dress and sliced open my skin. I winced but didn’t make a sound. A moment later, he dropped a small chip on the ground and crushed it beneath his heel before applying a bandage to the back of my neck and buttoning up my collar again.
“I’ll see you at the church.” He lifted the train of my dress into the car beside me and closed the door.
I spent the ride clenching and unclenching my fists, praying that Enzo had kept his word and put everything into place, wishing I’d performed more penance as a child, as a young woman, at any point in my life prior to this point where I was putting my future in God’s hands without a second thought.
Hah.
Second thoughts. Third thoughts. Fourth thoughts. It didn’t fucking matter. I’d put this in motion a week ago before handing myself over to Boris. The only way out was forward, and alive or dead, I’d be free at the end of this.
As we pulled into the church, my eyes searched the sidewalk, looking for the familiar faces of my father’s men.
Enzo stood in front in a suit, looking like the debonair guest he pretended to be. I held two fingers up to the window as the gates to the church opened. He nodded imperceptibly and melted back into the crowd. The car started again. I clutched my seatbelt, wishing all the training in the world had prepared me for this.
It had.
My father had beat me stupid as a child. He’d ripped out my piercings. He’d degraded and derided me. And then he’d turned around and made me desperate for the faintest note of praise. Taught me how to keep my cool no matter what was going on around me. Explained how the mafia world worked, then pimped me out to the worst of it so he could seal the deal.
I pulled my veil over my face and steeled my spine.
I’d already been through hell and back.
I would survive today.
And then I would thrive.