Chapter 40
SIERRA
I focus on the blood on my knuckles.
Not the bruises throbbing up and down my arms. Not the cold metal floor of the windowless van. Not the fact that I’m still wearing my wedding dress, the delicate lace now torn and filthy.
Just the blood. The satisfying crack of cartilage when my fist connected with that man’s nose in the kitchen of my parents’ house.
I did that. Me. Sierra Dixon, who cries at dog food commercials and apologizes to furniture when she bumps into it.
I broke a man’s nose, and I’m not even sorry.
“You’re making a mistake.” Harper’s voice is shrill, panicked, grating against my already frayed nerves. “I wasn’t supposed to be taken too!”
I don’t look at her. Can’t look at her. Because if I do, I might start screaming and never stop.
The van hits a pothole, and my shoulder slams into the wall hard enough to send pain radiating down to my fingertips. I swallow the gasp before it escapes, because I refuse to give these men anything. No reactions. No fear. Nothing they can use.
That’s what Matteo would say. Matteo, who’s probably standing at the altar right now in his tux, wondering where the hell I am. Matteo, who trusted me to show up. Matteo, who will come for me.
He’ll come. He has to come.
I cling to that thought like a lifeline.
“Sierra.” Harper’s voice cracks. “Si, please. Talk to me.”
Now I look at her.
She’s a mess, mascara streaking down her cheeks, hair falling out of the elegant updo she spent an hour on this morning. This morning, when she told me I looked beautiful. When she hugged me and said she was so happy for me.
“How could you?”
The words come out quiet, nothing like the hurricane raging inside me.
Harper flinches like I slapped her. “I didn’t have a choice. You have to understand, they said if I didn’t help them get to you, they’d kill Julian. They’d go to the hospital and finish what they started.”
Julian.
“Viktor came to me,” she continues, words tumbling out fast and desperate. “At the hospital, when you were all gone. He said all he wanted was you. Just you. And if I cooperated, he’d leave the rest of us alone. He promised, Si. He promised he wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”
“And you believed him.”
“I was scared!” Her voice breaks completely. “I love Julian more than anything in this world. More than my own life. I couldn’t let them hurt him again. I couldn’t.”
I understand that kind of love. The fierce, irrational, burn-the-world-down kind that makes you do stupid, desperate things. I felt it when I saw Julian in that hospital bed, tubes and wires everywhere, machines beeping out the rhythm of his fragile existence.
But understanding doesn’t make this hurt any less.
“I’m your family too.” My voice wavers despite my best efforts. “Julian’s sister. Your sister.”
Harper’s face crumples. “I know. God, I know. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The van slows, makes a sharp turn, and then stops.
My heart hammers against my ribs hard enough that I’m surprised everyone can’t hear it. This is it. Whatever Viktor has planned for me, it starts now.
The door slides open, letting in harsh fluorescent light that makes me squint.
Two men grab my arms and haul me out before my eyes can adjust, and my bare feet hit cold concrete.
I lost my shoes somewhere during the struggle at the house, and the chill seeps up through my soles as I blink rapidly, trying to get my bearings.
I immediately recognize where we are.
The Dixon Shipping logo painted on the wall. Pallets stacked on industrial shelves. A forklift parked in the corner. The faint smell of cardboard and diesel that I’ve known since I was a little girl visiting my dad at work.
This is one of my family’s warehouses. Why the hell are we here?
The men drag me forward, past a semi trailer with our company logo on the side, into a wide open space in the center of the warehouse. And Viktor is waiting for me.
He looks exactly like he did on our first date. Expensive suit, perfectly styled hair, charming smile.
“There she is.” His voice echoes off the concrete walls, warm and welcoming, like he’s greeting an old friend instead of a woman he had kidnapped on her wedding day. “My beautiful darling. I’m so glad you could make it.”
The men release me, and I rub at the fresh bruises on my arms, trying to keep my voice steady. “What do you want, Viktor?”
He tilts his head, studying me the way a cat studies a mouse it’s already caught. “Nice wedding dress. You look stunning, by the way. White suits you. Virginal. Pure.” His smile sharpens into something cruel. “We both know that’s not quite accurate anymore, don’t we?”
Don’t react. Don’t give him anything.
“What. Do. You. Want.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He spreads his hands, gesturing at the warehouse around us like he’s showing off a new home. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you, Sierra. From the moment I saw you behind that bar, mixing drinks and smiling at strangers like they were the most important people in the world.”
“Then you should’ve tried not being a violent, stalking psychopath.”
His smile doesn’t falter. That’s what’s terrifying about Viktor, the absolute certainty in his eyes, the way nothing seems to touch him.
“I gave you everything,” he says, taking a step closer. “My attention. My affection. My protection. And how did you repay me? You ran. You hid. You let another man put his hands on what belongs to me.”
“I don’t belong to anyone.”
“No?” Another step. Close enough now that I can smell his cologne, the same expensive scent he wore when he first kissed me. When he first hit me. “Then why are you here, darling? In this warehouse, wearing a ruined wedding dress, with no one coming to save you?”
Matteo will come. He will.
Viktor reads my face and laughs, soft and almost gentle.
“Ah. You’re thinking about him. The enforcer.
Matteo Rossi.” He says the name like it’s poison.
“I’ll admit, that stung. Watching you parade around the city with him, posting your little engagement announcement, acting like you’d forgotten I existed. ”
“I was trying to.”
“But you can’t, can you?” He’s close now, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “I’m in your head, Sierra. I’ll always be in your head. You’ll never forget me. Every man you’re with, you’ll be comparing him to me.”
My hands are shaking, and I curl them into fists to hide it. He’s trying to get under my skin, and the worst part is that it’s working.
“Is that what this is about?” I force my voice to stay level. “You’re pissed that I moved on, so you kidnapped me? Trying to shoot me wasn’t enough? That’s pathetic, Viktor. Even for you.”
Something cold and sharp and dangerous flashes in his eyes for just a second.
Then the smile is back.
“Oh, darling. You misunderstand; this isn’t about jealousy.” He walks past me, toward the semi trailer parked inside the warehouse. “This is about teaching you a lesson. You picked him. Now you get to see what you’re truly worth.”
He grabs the handle and pulls, and the metal door screeches open.
The smell hits me first. Body odor and urine and something else, something metallic and wrong that makes my stomach clench. Then my eyes adjust to the darkness inside the trailer.
Girls.
Twenty of them, maybe more, huddled together in the shadows like frightened animals. They’re dirty and terrified, some of them barely women at all. Teenagers with hollow eyes and trembling hands. One of them, clutching the arm of an older girl like a lifeline, can’t be more than fifteen.
Her eyes meet mine across the distance between us. Empty. Hopeless. Like she’s already given up on anyone coming to save her.
My stomach lurches so hard that acid burns the back of my throat.
“What...” The word comes out strangled, barely audible. “What is this?”
“This is what I wanted your family to ship for me.” Viktor leans against the trailer door, casual as anything, like he’s not standing next to a container full of kidnapped girls.
“Not drugs. Drugs are easy. Any idiot can smuggle a few kilos of cocaine across the border. But people?” He gestures at the girls with a lazy wave of his hand.
“People require finesse. Infrastructure and connections. It’s where the real money is. ”
Human trafficking.
The words echo through my skull, hollow and horrifying. Viktor isn’t just a violent stalker. He’s not just a Bratva soldier. He’s a monster who steals women and girls and sells them like cattle.
And I let him into my life. I let him kiss me and touch me and tell me he cared about me. I believed him. I actually believed him.
“You’re a human trafficker.” My voice sounds distant, like it’s coming from somewhere outside my body.
“I’m a businessman,” Viktor corrects, sounding almost bored. “Supply and demand. These girls come from places where no one will miss them. And they go to men who pay very, very well for them.”
My stomach heaves. I press a hand to my mouth, fighting the urge to vomit.
“You’re fucking disgusting.” The words rip out of me, raw and furious, all my careful control shattering. “You’re a monster. You’re scum. You’re the worst piece of shit I’ve ever met, and I hope you burn in hell.”
Viktor’s smile finally fades. He stalks toward me, his movements sharp and predatory.
“You should watch your mouth, Sierra.” His voice drops into a register that makes every hair on my body stand up.
“You’re one of them now. And wherever you end up, I’m sure your new owner won’t appreciate that sharp tongue of yours.
” He pauses, tilting his head like he’s considering something unpleasant.
“Then again, some men pay extra for a woman who needs to be broken.”
Horror floods through me, cold and paralyzing. He means it. He actually means it. He’s going to sell me like he’s selling those girls.
“No.” I shake my head, backing away even though there’s nowhere to go. “No, you’re not going to—”