Lobanov Bratva Ransom (Lobanov Bratva #1)

Chapter One

Emilia’s POV

I wasn’t watching the movie; I was simply staring at the television against the wall in my living room. It wasn’t about the movie.

In fact, The Notebook was one of my all-time favs.

I was tired.

Not tired of anything in particular, it was just…everything. It was a Wednesday, and that meant no class, no group study, no afternoon Frappuccino.

I had already tackled the laundry earlier in the day, hours before making the elaborate breakfast I’d only finished an hour ago. Looking over at the doorless kitchen, which was just a few feet away from the sitting room, I made a mental note to get eggs on my way back tomorrow.

As much as I liked holing up in my apartment for as long as I could, I wasn’t fond of movie binges, especially in the afternoons. It made me feel idle.

I would have gone home -well, to my parents’ actual house where I grew up - but my dad hadn’t been there for over a week.

He was out and about with his meetings and campaign strategy meetups, typical for the ever-ambitious Senator Romano.

Since I couldn’t exactly spend the whole day by Mom’s tombstone, I’d opted to remain at my cozy Upper West Side apartment.

Swift knocking on my door made my eyes shift from the television to the ceiling as I tried to think of who it could be. There was no point in going with the ‘who am I expecting?’ question… I wasn’t expecting anyone.

I rose to my feet, adjusting the neckline of my black sweater as I crossed the short hallway.

The knocking came again just before I turned the lock and opened the door.

It was Trey, my neighbor.

The bright sunlight that poured in from the half-open door was nothing compared to the brightness of his smile. As always.

“Hey, there,” he greeted with a playful jerk of his head.

Managing a smile, I looked up as I said, “Hi, Trey.”

“I was going out to get a drink… wanted to see if you’d like to come along.”

“Oh, um, I would have loved to, but…” I started to explain, looking up to meet his blue eyes before he cut in.

“Come on, we could get frappuccinos from The Shakers,” he pressed, winking at me. “You’re not late for a class.”

“No, the thing is, “I started, “I’m doing some tedious cleaning.” I wiped imaginary sweat off my forehead with the back of my palm, “I can’t leave it halfway, you know, it becomes even harder.”

I inwardly cheered at my performance.

“Aw,” he commented, his face visibly falling for a second before he lit up again, “Or, I could wait, then when you’re done…”

“I’d want nothing more than to collapse on the couch by then, I assure you,” I interrupted, sighing dramatically. “Maybe next time.”

He nodded, his smile still evident.

“Okay, Emilia.”

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“See you around.”

He turned around, and I shut the door, pursing my lips as I returned to my former position.

Trey was one of those persistent, nice guys who make you feel bad for turning them down.

For both our sakes, I wished he would just take a clue.

A relationship was the last thing I wanted; the last one stung badly enough.

I wasn’t in the never-love-again category; I just wasn’t wired with such an ability.

But love was something I preferred reading and watching until later, when I’d be ready and fully equipped to wade through those murky waters.

I pulled my knees closer to my chest and tried to focus on Ryan Gosling’s face on the screen, shutting out thoughts of love and nice guys.

***********

Although I wasn’t running late, I practically skipped out of my apartment and down the staircase.

“Morning, pretty lady,” Hans, the doorman, greeted cheerily as I entered the small, carpeted lobby.

He called me that every single day; I had long stopped trying to make him stop.

Hans was a middle-aged man who was as bubbly as a twenty-year-old. There was rarely, if ever, anyone who ever saw him frown or even sound angry, not even when delivery guys were being annoying.

“Morning, Hans,” I answered, approaching the glass double doors. “Bye!”

“Have a nice one!” he called back.

Even I didn’t know exactly why I felt the need to rush. All I knew was that, if someone asked me, I’d say it was just how I felt. There was this cloud of apprehension over me. It was as if something bad was waiting to happen.

Considering that being late for my Victorian Poetry class was the only bad thing I could think of, I was trying to beat it. The last thing I wanted to hear was Professor Singer’s unflattering talk about how strange and disgraceful it was for a final year undergrad to not have the right priorities.

As I marched across the road and walked towards the bus stop, a black car remained within my peripheral vision.

I stopped walking and turned partially to the side.

The black car was a sleek Mercedes－the caliber of cars that lined our compound in SoHo.

The type of car that my dad still nagged me about not wanting to drive to school.

He had never been able to understand my preference for being a regular NYU student over the Senator’s daughter status.

I had long chalked it up to his being hyper-ambitious and me, on the other hand, being…

me. I was grateful enough that he didn’t stop me from moving out to my apartment or living on my own terms.

The pedestrian traffic whipping past me brought me back to the present, and I resumed walking as I casually looked sideways to get a full look at the car.

It was moving slowly and, unlike most of those in our garage, the windows weren’t tinted.

Not that I couldn’t see the two suited-up men sitting at the front through the windscreen.

The uneasy feeling didn’t quite subside, but I couldn’t see any sign of danger, either.

Okay, maybe I was alarmed when I noticed the lingering presence of the black car.

But, seeing how the guys in the car looked every bit of executive staff at an accounting firm and weren’t even looking in my direction, I had nothing to fear there.

So I walked on and didn’t look back until I got on the subway.

I was on campus with 28 minutes to spare, and I enjoyed a cup of coffee at a cafe close by before heading for the lecture hall. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the idea of getting into the hall after Professor Singer; fellow classmates passed me in the hallway in groups of three or more.

I had barely taken a seat in the fourth row from the front when I heard, “Hey, Emilia!”

I didn’t need to look around to know it was Ruby. Her ever-jovial voice was unmistakable.

“Ruby,” I greeted with a small smile as I looked backwards. “How’s it going?”

“You really didn’t show up for the party yesterday,” she half-accused, faking hurt.

“I had to head home, I told you,” I pointed out. “I’ll be at the next one.”

“You said so the last three times, babes,” she disclosed, chuckling. “Anyway, I understand. Don’t mind me.”

“Bless you for that,” I whispered, earning a short laugh from her. “Viola isn’t here yet?”

She was about to answer when Collins appeared beside her.

“Yo! Party pooper,” he teased, sitting beside Ruby and lazily throwing his left arm around her.

“C’mon,” she remarked.

“Just kidding,” he told her before turning to face me again. “Howdy?”

“Good,” I answered, shrugging.

I knew practically everyone taking this course with me, but the trio that comprised Ruby, Collins, and Viola was the only sort of meet-and-greet relationship I had.

Ruby and Viola took a classical literature course with me last session, and Collins was an English Lit student like me.

However, our little ‘friendship’ didn’t get the chance to go beyond the university premises.

Or, better put, they had come to terms with my refusal to visit their homes.

The four of us used to sit together in Professor Singer’s class; it didn’t last longer than three weeks.

The reason was nothing more than the fact that they always chose their whispered chatter and inside jokes over the lecture.

I was always shushing them with a polite smile and, sometimes, the professor would kindly interfere.

Eventually, to my obvious pleasure, they decided to sit a few more rows back.

While I didn’t support or fully understand it, the fact remained that the class was the type where the back rows filled up before the front ones－that was how much people enjoyed it.

“Still on for group study with Hannah and the rest after 2661?” he inquired.

“Sure.”

His eyes, which moved to the front of the class, made me turn my head instinctively.

Professor Singer ambled towards the wide platform at the center of the class and dropped her brown leather briefcase on it. Silence filled the room as she brought out a book and looked up to face the class, her green eyes alive behind her tortoiseshell-framed glasses.

The professor had a signature austere look that was neither smile nor frown. But it was always safer never to smile or laugh when it was directed at you.

“Hello, everyone. Today, we’ll be moving on from our exploration of the tension between scientific discoveries and traditional religious beliefs as seen in the works of Tennyson, to” she lifted her right forefinger, her elbows still on the wooden platform.

“I have received the interesting analyses of the cited works in my email. I’ve been going through them, and feedback will follow in a few days.

Well, those that weren’t discarded for coming in after Monday, you already know. ”

A low rumble of laughter spread for a minute.

Then her attention was on the book in her hands, a loud-enough signal for everyone to be silent.

“We’ll be going into the intersection of realism and romanticism.”

I nodded, my interest blooming. Everything else－the eerie feeling that nagged me since I woke up, my slight worry about not hearing from my dad in about a week－diminished, and the new topic was the only thing on my mind.

I loved literature and the world of words, but anything with the remotest connection to romanticism and the romantics piqued my interest.

I can’t help it. I’m a hopeless romantic.

“We’ll explore both poetic movements in isolation before looking at them in comparison,” she started, and I opened my leatherback journal, pen in hand.

Professor Singer lectured away, and my pen didn’t stop moving until after three pages. She paused, and I looked up.

“It seems only natural to see a need to explore the intersection of realists with the romanticism movement, doesn’t it? Thoughts?”

Gary lifted his hand from the second row.

“Go on,” the professor prompted.

“It does,” he answered, nodding emphatically.

Shut up and sit down, dude.

After about four more similar answers, the professor declared, “Of course, it does not.”

She dropped the book and looked up again, her expression almost annoyed.

“The very core of romanticism is a feeling that many would argue is nothing more than a glorified sentiment. Realism, on the other hand, is real-life. Nothing gets more real than these depictions; they are everyday truths.” Her eyes perused the hall for a moment before she continued, “So, if someone was talking about contrasting both poetic styles or movements, it only makes sense. Now, what is not ordinarily expected is looking at similarities, points of intersection between both of them.”

A wave of murmurs filled the hall again for a few seconds before she cleared her throat and picked up her book.

“The first instance of realism and romanticism seeming to…”

The lecture went on for another 80 minutes or so until it was time to call it a day.

Ruby was beside me the second the professor left the hall. I hadn’t even closed my notebook yet.

“I’ve still not been able to get the text compilation.

Seems the bookshop doesn’t carry it for now, and borrowing from the library is a shit chance, you know,” she explained, a persuasive smile crossing her glossy lips, “Would you please lend me yours? I’d give it back after the weekend, I promise. ”

“What you should promise me is that you won’t take it out of your room,” I pointed out. “At all.”

“Promise,” she affirmed, “Thank you!”

“Yeah,” I breathed, handing the small textbook to her.

The rest of the day passed unceremoniously.

I could almost summon the smell of my cup of frappuccino as I walked towards the subway outside NYU.

It was already past 6 pm, so I whipped up a simple dinner plan: my frappuccino and a small pizza at the diner next to my favorite cafe down the block from my apartment.

I made a left turn. That was when I saw it.

The black car.

I felt a chill; the unease I felt earlier in the day washed over me in torrents.

I slowed my steps and, with all the slow-motion caution I could muster, turned to the left.

The car’s movement was almost invisible; it was impossibly slow.

The car is shadowing me. Has been since morning.

So, why?

Another black Mercedes-Benz SUV overtook, its front tire almost climbing the concrete sidewalk I stood on.

They are probably just rich undergrads here to pick their girlfriends up or something.

Maybe I’m just catastrophizing.

People don’t just ambush people in daylight on campus, right?

If alarms sounded in my ear before, they were now blaring at the sight of both vehicles’ doors opening.

Okay, time to run!

I turned away from the car and, just as I took a step, I felt a harsh grip on my arm.

Scratch that, my two arms.

“What? Leave me alone!”

I tried pivoting in alarm, but couldn’t move much. Two tall men in suits held each of my arms as another similarly dressed man stepped out of the car.

Everything happened so fast, I couldn’t blame any passerby for not noticing or coming to my aid.

A white handkerchief came over my mouth, the tight knot behind it digging into my skin. The men dragged me into the back seat of the second car, and one of them sat beside me.

I looked around the car, not sure if I was looking for something that could aid my escape or a sign that pointed at whoever these people were.

The man in the front seat turned partially towards the back, and I saw that he was bald. He looked every bit like a bouncer-and not the posh types that stood outside lavish hotels. His gaze didn’t last longer than a second before he turned to the driver and lifted a brow toward the road.

The buildings passed in a blur as the car soundlessly sped off ahead of the first one.

If I were to guess, I would have said maybe some criminal group found out that I was Senator Romano’s daughter and decided to get some ransom by kidnapping me.

It wasn’t a secret who my father was- my three acquaintances knew.

Some of my neighbors also knew. They also knew I liked my private life and would rather not ‘share’ the information.

But any of them might have spilled the beans in an exhilarated state at a bar- a bar where a gangster or criminal informant was chilling.

“Lawrence,” the bald guy called. “Send Romano the note: The debt is collected. Your daughter belongs to Viktor Lobanov now.”

My eyes enlarged as realization slapped me in the face.

My dad?

“Right away,” the guy beside me answered, bringing out his phone from his pocket.

I wasn’t kidnapped by chance.

I was wrong.

This guy just mentioned something about my dad and a debt. Kidnappers don’t talk debt, they talk ransom.

What could my dad ever owe criminals?

Fine, they looked like corporate men. But a bank wouldn’t kidnap over a loan, would they?

They had to be some kind of corporate criminals.

And that led me to a question too dreadful to even answer.

What does this mean for me?

God, he said, I belonged to someone?

What the hell does that mean?

Where does my life go from here?

Is this how I die?