Page 1 of Relentless Sinner

Chapter One

Gabriella

The chill from the dungeon bleeds into my body and I shiver from deep within.

The cold is unbearable, insufferable, and overpowering, like death, where there is no warmth to ever feel again.

I hug my knees to my chest, trying to get warm. But it’s hard. My wrists ache where they’re bound, the chains biting into my skin like razor sharp teeth. I stopped trying to pull against them days ago when I realized there was no point.

Days?

It could be a week now that I’ve been here. I don’t know.

When my captors took me they knocked me out. I have no idea how long I was unconscious, but when I came to I woke up here. In this dark dungeon with my ankle chained to the wall like an animal. It felt like waking in a nightmare.

I look around me. It’s so dark I can barely make out the rusted bars across from me. And that’s only because of the small, dim light at the end of the corridor.

It’s not daylight. I can tell from the amber color. It’s more like a passage light. And it’s always on.

I wish I knew where I was. Wheretheybrought me.

Am I still in New York?

Or did they take me somewhere else?

The only thing I’m certain of right now is that my life has gone to hell and I’m in the biggest trouble imaginable. That mocking stench of death wrapping around my lungs like tar taunts me like a heckler at a show, letting me know there’s nothing I can do.

It’s funny that I was trying to escape my father’s clutches and ended up being captured by men who are even worse than him. What a sick joke.

I was trying to run away from the life my father was forcing me into. A life my sister was supposed to have.

Shewas supposed to get married to the Russian mafia boss. Not me.

Tears pull at the backs of my eyes when I think of Natasha. I can’t blame her for this.Thispart wasmyfault. I had no plan when I ran. And no one to help me.

She also fled because she needed to. Because she was pregnant.

Dad would have gotten rid of the baby and he would probably have punished her further by making her watch his men kill Alessandro, the man she loves.

He wouldn’t have cared about all the years Alessandro served him as one of his best guards. My father would have slaughtered him just because he could. Just to make an example out of him. That is the way of La Cosa Nostra.

As one of the most revered dons in the Italian Mafia my father would have lived up to his name. The name Salvatore De Costa has always been synonymous with death.

I’ve seen him in action. Which was why it was foolish of me to run.

Natasha had Alessandro to take care of her and keep her safe. He would have made sure she didn’t end up in a situation like this.

Now that I’ve landed myself in the deepest corner of hell, I’m sure there’s no way out. The men who took me are my father’s enemies.

I heard them talking about selling me. They think they’ll get a lot of money for me because of whose daughter I am.

From the way things look I’ll just become another girl who disappeared into the flesh trade.

I rest my forehead on my knees and close my eyes, trying to force that stench and the echo of rats out of my mind.

I’m so fucking scared I can barely breathe. I know I can be stronger than this and I’m not the kind of girl who falls on her face, accepting defeat, but I’m terrified.

In all my twenty-four years the only other time I’ve felt this powerless and frightened was when Mom was killed—murdered.

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