Cold-Blooded Captor (Andriani Brothers #3)

Chapter 1

KATYA

I wake up chained to a brutal Mafia enforcer’s bed, my brain feeling like it’s filled with spiderwebs.

What’s worse, the Mafia enforcer in question is Scorpion Andriani, third in line to the Andriani crime family throne and one of the most powerful men in the Northeast.

Aside from my brother, that is. Misha has his hand in everything, his fist closed around the throats of almost everyone, and his boot down on all their necks. That’s how he came to be Pakhan.

That, and squeezing the life from the old Pakhan’s body with his bare hands.

Misha rules his new empire like a vengeful, despotic king.

I wonder what he’s going to do to when he finds out Andriani has taken his sister hostage. It isn’t going to be pretty, not that I care.

From behind the tape on my mouth, I tell Andriani that. I also tell him that I’m going to watch as Misha slits his throat and lets him bleed out. That I’ll enjoy every second.

But I tell him this in Russian, just in case he can decipher what I’m saying, even with the tape muffling my words.

There is a chance that Misha and his men won’t find me in time, and I don’t want to give the beautiful, tattooed demon staring me down a reason to hurt me before I’m rescued.

“Welcome back,” Andriani says. “Feel free to yell all you want. No one can hear you here.”

My throat is raw from all the hollering and screaming I’ve been doing ever since he kidnapped me what could have been hours or days ago now.

But still, I tell him that after Misha slits his throat, I’ll help him to chop up his body and dispose of the pieces.

We’ll take a boat out into the ocean, and I’ll use what’s left of him to chum the water.

Andriani gives me a faint smile, looming over me in the shadows, his ice-blue eyes lingering for a beat too long on my breasts. It’s cold in this hovel he’s brought me to. For a second, I wonder if he’s going to try something. I’m at his mercy, and I want to claw his eyes out.

“You don’t have to worry,” he says like he read my mind. “Feral Russian cats don’t make my dick hard.”

I call him a pig.

He just laughs like he finds my helplessness and this whole, fucked-up situation amusing. But then, he probably does.

“You’re going to be my guest for a little while,” he says conversationally. “You may want to quiet down so you can learn the ropes.”

I have no memory of how I got here and no idea where we are.

Andriani gave me some iced tea to drink when he hauled me from the safe house where he first took me.

One minute, I was in the back seat of a G-Wagon, and the next, I was waking up in a dank, dark hovel with cinder-block walls and a lone, bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, Andriani presiding over me like I’m a pagan sacrifice laid out for him.

He drugged me, the fucking bastard.

I glare at him and threaten to chop off his balls and feed them to my brother’s dogs if he so much as looks at me the wrong way. And then something else occurs to me.

Maybe I don’t need Misha. Maybe I can get away from Andriani on my own.

I take stock of the situation. My wrists are bound, and I have a cuff and chain on my ankle, a matching metal link on the footboard of the bed.

I could launch myself at him, maybe slam an elbow into his nose or knee him in the groin.

But then what? There’s no escaping the chain on my ankle.

Or is there? I’m not even sure if I care.

I flex my calf, giving my restraints a test.

Solid.

Fuck my life.

“Your chain will reach the bathroom, which is that way.” He points to an old wooden door behind him.

“Pro tip—you need to hold down the handle when you flush or it won’t work, and I’m not about to come in here to unclog your toilet.

So if you don’t want to be swimming in toilet water, you’ll follow the rules. ”

Judging from the room we’re in, I’m not surprised the facilities in this shanty of his don’t work properly. Thank God I won’t be staying here long. Misha will come for me. He’ll find me.

He has to.

I tell Scorpion that my brother is as smart as he is deadly and that kidnapping Misha Sidorov’s sister and chaining her up in a shack isn’t going to end well for him.

“If you’re going to be nice, I’ll remove the tape from your mouth,” Andriani says.

This zasranets has no idea. Nice isn’t a part of my vocabulary.

It was mercilessly excised long ago by the world around me.

Death and destruction have a way of doing that to you, leaching your innocence and kindness, like blood being siphoned away, until one day, there’s just nothing left.

It’s the same ruthlessness that has served me so well as a ballerina.

“On the count of three.” He reaches for the edge of the tape. “One. Two.” As he rips the tape off my mouth, he says, “three.”

“Ouch,” I cry out, reasonably sure he’s pulled off my lips with that adhesive.

“Sorry,” he says, completely unapologetic. “You brought it on yourself with that mouth.”

“You expected me to be grateful you took me hostage? What was I supposed to do, Andriani, throw you a tea party?”

“I don’t like tea, so no.”

“Funny for a psychotic kidnapper.”

He cocks his head at me. “Mouthy for a helpless captive chained to my bed.”

I struggle to sit up, my abs and whole body still weak from whatever he knocked me out with. “My brother is going to kill you for this.”

At least, I hope he is.

Andriani smirks, showing off a full set of dimples, and damn. He’s the kind of man who’s almost too gorgeous to be real. The kind it hurts just to look at.

A nightmare in a designer suit.

“Not if I kill him first,” he tells me cheerfully. “If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll let you watch while I do it.”

I’m finally sitting, and the fury in me is waking up too. Gathering my strength, I launch myself at him, kicking and elbowing and pounding on him with my bound hands as hard as I can.

“Go to hell, Andriani,” I snarl.

But he just laughs, my blows bouncing off his chiseled body like they’re nothing. “I already have a one-way ticket there, and I have a feeling you’ll be coming with me.”

“You won’t have to wait for Misha to kill you. I’ll do it first,” I hiss, trying to land a blow to his throat.

But I’m still shaky and drained. And he’s too strong. I’m a mouse while he’s a bear, ready to swat me down with a meaty paw. I know this, but the need to escape is boiling inside me, making me reckless.

In a blink, he has me pinned to the bed as he straddles me. My arms are captured by one of his hands, and the other is on my throat. He squeezes just enough to let me know he means business.

“Don’t do that again,” he growls.

I have nothing left to lose. Now or never. This fucker could kill me. He could rape me. He could do anything he wants to me, and there’s no one here to save me.

No one but me.

So I spit in his face. It lands on his razor-sharp cheekbone, rolling down toward his chiseled jaw.

He stills. There’s danger in stillness. In silence.

I’ve learned that the hard way. I know better.

But I’m beyond caring. Now that Misha is Pakhan, there may not be a place for me in this world anyway.

Andriani’s eyes go dark, like the ocean at night, deep and fathomless. “That was stupid.”

In my shaky Russian, I tell him he’s going to be gutted like a pig and I’ll watch him bleed out. Maybe I’ll drink his blood to celebrate.

Andriani shakes his head, his fingertips pressing into my skin. “English, Sidorova.”

“Go fuck yourself, Andriani,” I enunciate perfectly.

I would spit again, but my mouth is bone-dry and I don’t think I have anything left. I’d give everything I have to knee him in the dick right now, but the way he’s on top of me makes it impossible.

The first time I met Scorpion Andriani, he scared the shit out of me. The second time, he kidnapped me. If we ever meet again and I’m not in chains, the third time is going to be a charm. My charm. And I’m going to repay the favor.

I don’t know why my other brother Dmitri suffered this prick for so long. But then, Dmitri has a way of collecting people and things he thinks will be useful. I guess somehow Andriani was one of those.

“That wasn’t very nice, hellcat.” Andriani tsks like I’m a little kid who just talked out of turn in class. “What’s the saying? Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?”

He releases his hold on my throat and grabs my shirt. For a split second, I think he’s going to tear it off, and I tense, ready for whatever he’s going to do to me. But then he lifts the soft cotton to his face and uses it to wipe the spit from his cheek.

Without another word, he rolls off me and walks out the door.

I stare at it, hearing the lock turn.

I’m alone. It’s quiet and damp, and the room smells faintly of mildew. I see a spider on the wall in the corner, slowly inching its way to the ceiling. I have no idea what game Andriani is playing with me or what’s going to happen next.

All I do know for certain is that he’s a crazy bastard, and I’m not going to make it out of this hellhole without spilled blood.

Whether it’s his or mine is anyone’s guess.

Katya

Judging from the lone window on the opposite end of the room, it’s dark outside this hovel, and I’m cold, thirsty, and hungry.

It’s also quiet.

So quiet that I’m not sure if Andriani left me here alone. Maybe that’s his intention. He’s going to let me starve to death here. Die chained to a bed. Then he’ll take a picture of my body and send it to Misha to show him how I suffered a slow, agonizing death.

I don’t know what time it is or where I am.

All I do know is that I’m trapped and at the mercy of a madman.

I’ve been torn from the precious world I’ve worked so hard to build for myself, where I stupidly imagined I was insulated from the life of crime my brothers have chosen.

Torn from my co-workers, from my responsibilities, from my work as a ballerina, which has been the sole driving force in my life.