Page 66 of Used By the Bratva

Carlo’s thumb brushes closer to my inner thigh. “Your father came after me, you know. At least that's what he intended to do until one of my men told him that Pavel Orlov was the one who hurt Ursula.”

“Why?” I ask in a brittle voice as my eyes fill with tears. This story is getting worse and worse.

Pavel didn’t have to die. Leon didn’t have to lose his brother, and I didn’t have to live a life without knowing my family. Carlo orchestrated this whole thing.

He played an internal game of chess with everyone around him.

“You should have seen how furious your husband was when he learned that Antonio had killed his brother.” Carlo laughs, shakes his head, and pats my leg. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”

“Leon will kill you if he finds me. I’ll tell him the truth about what you've done, and then he’ll kill you.”

Carlo smirks and stands up. He looks at me with a gaze that makes my stomach churn. “I'd like to see him try that, but before he comes, I think you and I are going to have some fun.”

I take a shuddering breath, scrabbling back against the wall. “No.”

“Oh yes.” The door to the room opens, and a man brings in a tray of food with a glass bottle of water on it. “Now you will eat your lunch like a good girl. I need you full of energy when the fun begins. I like a little bit of a fight with my women.”

My stomach sinks to my feet; the floor slips away as the man places the tray of food at my feet. I’m not naïve enough to believe that the food isn’t drugged. I’m fairly sure it is. He's said he likes it when his women fight him, but that begs the question of what he'll do before he attacks me.

Carlo could drug me and torture me until he decides to ruin me the way he ruined my mother. He is the reason she is dead. His gaze is predatory as the other man leaves the room. Carlo waits until the door opens again, and a single chair is placed inside.

He takes the chair and sits down on the other side of the room; his arms crossed in front of his chest as he watches me.

I look at the food, wondering how long I can stall before he forces me to eat.

Carlo sighs. “This would all be much easier for you if you would just do what you’re supposed to do, Natalie. I don’t want to hurt you. If you’re lucky, you might take the place Ursula should have had in my life. You could be the woman I come home to every night.”

The thought of coming home to a man like him every day makes me sick. I want to throw the tray of food at him and scream that he’ll never have me.

The bastard is the reason for the war between my family and Leon’s. He thought he was smart enough to cover his tracks, and for fifteen years, he was. He hurt my husband, and he hurt my family.

Carlo Mancini will die one way or another.

I just hope he dies before he gets to me first.

‘Promise me you'll never stop fighting.’

Chapter 25 - Leon

Denis is sitting next to me in the car, his fingers flying over the keys of his laptop as he traces Carlo’s phone call.

Even if he can only get a semi-accurate location of where the bastard is, that’s better than nothing. I’ll find Carlo, and then I’ll rip his head off. He’ll know exactly what'll happen if he thinks he can touch and take what’s mine.

“How much longer until you have an exact location?” I snap and take a turn that's too sharp, throwing the car slightly to one side before it straightens up again.

He does not work fast enough. The landscape blurs past us as I drive, but there’s still no definite location on Carlo. Walking into this blindly is the last thing I want to do, but right now, it looks like it's the only option we might have.

Denis grabs the laptop before it goes flying off his lap. “It should only take another minute or two. Just keep driving.”

I press harder on the gas pedal, leave the city behind me and drive into the countryside. Vineyards line both sides of the road. The houses are set back on the land and are hidden by fruit trees that grow next to the vineyards.

If Carlo’s hideout is anything like these houses, it will be easy to surprise him.

I want to keep the upper hand with this attack. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into, but I’m sure he has no intention of letting Natalie or me go alive. He’ll want to kill as many of my men as possible, and I don't want to let that happen.

My knuckles turn white on the steering wheel as I take a winding road and approach the location Denis has programmed into the navigation map.

“I’m in his messages now,” Denis says as he scrolls. Words appear and disappear on his screen before he finally stops and leans forward to program a new address into the navigation system.

---