Chapter Fifty
Sabrina
The hood was ripped from my head the moment we arrived.
For a second, the harsh light burned my eyes before the room slowly came into focus: damp concrete walls, a single steel door, no windows and one flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling.
A basement.
The men didn't say a word as they searched me.
They were thorough, stripping every weapon from my body with the smug confidence of men who believed they'd already won.
The knife strapped to my thigh disappeared first, followed by the blade hidden inside my boot.
One of them even found the lock pick sewn into the lining of my jacket.
When they were satisfied, they left.
The heavy door slammed shut behind them, the sound echoing through the room before silence settled over the concrete walls once more.
A lesser person might have panicked.
I simply listened.
The building had a rhythm. Water travelled through old pipes somewhere above me, while traffic drifted faintly through the ceiling, close enough to distinguish individual engines whenever the street outside fell quiet.
We hadn't been in the van long enough to reach an airfield, and I hadn't felt the pressure change that came with take-off.
I was still in New York.
Not that it made much difference.
I rose from the chair and wandered slowly around the room, my fingertips trailing across the rough concrete as I catalogued every detail.
The hinges sat on the outside of the door.
The chair I'd been sitting on wasn't bolted to the floor, and the light fitting hung lower than regulations would ever allow.
Two sets of footsteps lingered beyond the door. One guard shifted his weight every few seconds, while the other had a habit of pacing exactly seven steps before turning around.
Predictable.
I could leave whenever I wanted. It wouldn't even be difficult. A chair leg could fracture a skull, and one dead guard would give me a weapon.
I let the thought pass.
There was no point leaving.
Not yet.
Sergei Volkov believed he'd finally taken Sabrina Moretti. He thought I'd spend the next few hours begging for my life, terrified of what came next.
The corners of my mouth lifted into the faintest smile.
He'd waited years to find Morana.
It seemed unfair to deny him the introduction.
So I sat back down, folded one leg over the other and rested my hands in my lap as though I were waiting for an overdue appointment instead of a man who wanted me dead.
Minutes passed.
Voices drifted through the corridor outside, followed by the scrape of boots against concrete. A lock disengaged, heavy metal groaned on rusted hinges, and the door began to open.
The smile that had threatened to form disappeared before it ever reached my lips.
I let my shoulders slump and my breathing turn uneven.
Sliding backwards until my spine met the cold concrete wall, I wrapped my arms around my knees and curled into myself, making my body appear smaller than it was.
By the time footsteps crossed the threshold, every trace of Morana had been buried beneath the mask I'd spent years perfecting.
Fear was easy to fake. Most people thought it lived in your eyes. They were wrong. It lived in your breathing, in the way your shoulders trembled, in the hesitation before you spoke, and in the instinctive flinch whenever someone stepped too close.
I'd spent years perfecting it.
When the footsteps stopped in front of me, I lowered my gaze to the floor and let my fingers curl tighter around my sleeves, just enough to make them tremble.
“Please...” I whispered, my voice cracking exactly where it needed to. “Please don't hurt me.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then came a quiet laugh, the kind that belonged to a man who believed he held all the power.
Good.
Let him believe it.
The more convinced Sergei Volkov became that he was looking at a frightened mafia princess, the less prepared he'd be for what was waiting beneath her skin.
His footsteps came to a stop directly in front of me. For a long moment, he said nothing. I could feel his eyes on me, studying every tremor of my shoulders, every uneven breath, every carefully measured movement. Silence stretched between us until it became almost suffocating.
Then a gloved hand closed around my chin.
His grip was firm, forcing my head upwards until our eyes met. I let the contact linger for no more than a heartbeat before my gaze dropped back to the floor, my breathing catching as though I couldn't bear to look at him.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
“No.”
The single word echoed through the basement.
“When someone is speaking to you, you look them in the eye.”
I hesitated, letting the silence work in his favour before slowly lifting my head again. My hands remained clasped tightly in my lap, trembling just enough to satisfy him, while I forced uncertainty into my expression.
For the first time in years, I looked directly at Sergei Volkov.
Time had changed him. The silver threaded through his dark hair had spread, and the lines carved into his face were deeper than I remembered, but his eyes remained the same – cold, calculating and utterly devoid of remorse.
He smiled.
“You'll do.”
The words were spoken almost absently, as though he were inspecting a possession rather than a person. His gaze travelled across my face before settling on mine once more.
“You'll make an excellent bride.”
I let my eyes widen.
“I... I don't understand.”
“You will.”
His thumb brushed lightly across my jaw before he released me and took an unhurried step back.
“Your mother was always supposed to belong to the Volkov family.” His voice remained calm, though something darker slipped beneath the surface at the mention of her name. “Ivan intended for Bianca to become his wife.”
He smiled without warmth.
“Instead, she chose Rafael Moretti.”
Bitterness lingered in the words, old enough to have settled into something permanent.
“A mistake.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and regarded me with quiet satisfaction.
“History has a way of correcting itself.”
The room seemed smaller as he spoke.
“If Bianca Moretti would not become a Volkov...”
His gaze locked onto mine.
“...then her daughter will.”
I shook my head, letting panic flicker across my face.
“No...”
The whisper barely left my lips.
His smile widened, pleased by exactly the reaction he'd expected.
Perfect.
I studied him just as carefully.
His posture. The slight stiffness in his right shoulder. The habit of standing just outside arm's reach. The pistol resting beneath his jacket.
He believed he was reading me.
He never once considered that I was reading him.
And that would be the first of many mistakes.
***
Twenty-four hours.
That was how long I'd been here.
Sometime during the night, they'd decided a chair was no place for Sergei Volkov's future wife to sleep. Two guards dragged a narrow bed into the corner of the basement before leaving without another word.
One of them laughed.
“The boss wants his bride well rested before the wedding.”
The other nodded as though the outcome had already been decided.
Idiots.
The mattress was hardly an improvement. It was little more than a thin layer of fabric stretched over worn springs, but I welcomed the change all the same. From here, I had a better view of the room – and of the men stationed outside.
Every hour they changed shifts. Every six hours someone brought food, and whenever the door unlocked, one guard entered while the other remained outside with a lazy hand resting on his weapon.
Nothing ever changed.
Routine bred complacency.
And complacency got people killed.
I rested my forearms on my knees, my thumb drifting absentmindedly across the faded black ink on the inside of my wrist. My fingers brushed over the faded 13 inked into my skin before drifting to the necklace against my collarbone.
The colourful beads weren't perfectly lined up, and the elastic had been tied into a slightly crooked knot at the back. Nestled amongst them were two small white beads, one marked with a 1 and the other with a 3, carefully placed side by side to make thirteen.
Dario had made it himself.
“You always touch your thirteen.”
I'd promised him I'd never take it off.
I hadn't.
My thumb lingered over the tiny white beads.
It had only been a day since I'd last seen him – since I'd heard his laugh, felt his little arms wrap around me and seen that unwavering certainty in his eyes.
To most people, a single day meant nothing.
To Dario...
It was forever.
If I told him I was coming back, he believed me without question. Right now, he'd be listening for footsteps outside my bedroom, lifting his head every time a door opened, hoping this time it would be me.
The thought tightened something deep inside my chest.
One day was all I would allow.
I'd survived far worse than this. Dario had already spent too much of his life waiting for me. I wasn't going to make him do it again.
My hand closed around the necklace.
“Just one more day, little man,” I whispered into the empty room. “I'm coming home.”
Sergei Volkov believed he was counting down to a wedding.
He had no idea he was counting down to his own death.