Page 72 of A Sinner's Virtue
“Because if anything happens to you—anything else—Zoe’s not going to get past that. So get in the fucking car if you want to help me get my daughter and wife back.”
I still. “They have Izzy?”
“No, she fucking went to them willingly,” he growls before shoving past me. He climbs into the front of the car.
I look to Vin and shrug as I walk over and gingerly manoeuvre myself into the back. “Why would they want your wife?”
“Why do fuckwits want anything? Money, power, revenge. Take your pick. It doesn’t matter. They won’t be breathing long enough to get any of it,” Mikhail snarls as the car takes off.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Something splashes across my face, forcing my eyes open. It takes a lot of effort to get my vision to focus. Everything is blurry. My hand comes up and rubs over my face, wiping the water away.
“Good. You’re up. About fucking time,” a gravelly voice calls out.
My head pounds. It feels like a thousand jackhammers are going off inside it. Tiny little men just hammering away. Doing their best to torture me. And then, like a lightning bolt, an image flashes in my mind.
Marcel. He was on the ground. There was so much blood. He wasn’t moving. And Ivan. He was…
Tears prick my eyes as the harsh voice yells at me again. “Get up.”
I don’t move. I can’t. All I can think about is Marcel. He’s gone. Because of me. I can’t… My chest heaves as my lungs struggle to fill with air.
“What the fuck? Get the fuck up now, before I make you.”
I don’t care anymore. About what he says or what is happening to me. There is nothing they can do to me that matters. If Marcel is gone, then I want to go with him. Let this guy end me. I don’t know what he wants and I don’t care. I just want it to end.
I knew I was pushing my luck by getting involved with Marcel. Falling for him. Santo was right. Love is a one-way street that leads you right to heartbreak. My chest hurts. It hurts so bad. I thought I knew pain. I thought I’d seen the worst of the worst. I was wrong.
Losing Marcel, seeing him die because of me. There is nothing that could possibly happen that’s worse than that. Which is why when this guy, whoever he is, starts yelling commands at me, I choose to ignore him.
I’ve been here before. My compliance is irrelevant. I know that he’s going to do whatever he wants with me no matter how much I beg or try to get my way out of this situation. You can’t reason with a monster. And this monster… he killed Marcel.
He. Killed. Marcel.
My eyes squeeze shut as a sudden bout of anger builds within me. A small ember at first, an ember that’s very quickly ignited into a flame, and the burning heats something else in me. A rage so feral I can feel my entire body shaking.
“I’m going to kill you,” I hiss at the guy.
“Yeah? You and what army? Look around. There’s no one here to save you,” he says. “Yet. But that’s going to change.”
He holds up a phone and snaps a photo of me. “What are you doing?”
“Just giving someone a little incentive.” He smirks.
“Who?”
The guy doesn’t bother answering me before he presses a few buttons on the phone and then brings it to his ear. “Isabella Valentino-Petrov. You’re a hard woman to get a hold of.” He winks at me, pulling the phone away from his ear so I can hear Izzy yelling threats through the speaker.
“No, Izzy, don’t! Stay away!” My scream earns me a slap across the face, knocking me backwards. My head hits the wall. “No. Leave her alone.” I push myself up to my feet and charge forward.
The guy’s hand wraps around my throat, and he slams my body back against the wall again. “You hear that, Isabella? That’s the sound of your little friend here dying. Come alone, and if I were you, I’d hurry.”
“Why?” I gasp, falling to the floor when he releases his hold on my throat. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why? That’s a good question. You know, I don’t plan on keeping you alive longer than necessary,” he says, and that’s when I notice his thick Bronx accent.
“I don’t care,” I tell him honestly. “Leave Izzy alone. Just kill me.”
