Page 19 of Sin & Sapphire

I cracked open the door, peering out. No guards on my door, either. The lack of security confirmed what I already suspected—Tchérnov was an amateur. He’d grabbed me because the opportunity presented itself, not because he was an experienced trafficker or because he had an actual plan. Not that he’d treated me any better than a trafficker would have.

I sniffed angrily as I strode down the hallway, stopping to peer into a lounge where the remains of a party lay strewn across the furniture—jewelry, a tie, bondage gear, a wallet. I eased in, praying I wouldn’t find sleeping bodies on the floor, then shut the door behind me. On silent, bare feet, I rifled through the room, snagging jewelry left by women who’d turned their heads away when he hit me, watches and wallets from the men who’d groped me once Grégoire turned me into a whore.Oh fuck yes, a handbag!I shoved the baubles into the bag, then looked around, my mind turning angrily as I forced myself to stand up straight and stop trembling with fear. I’d have time for that later. Now I needed fury to drive me forward.

I grabbed a pillow and ripped it apart for fabric I could turn into a rag. I knew exactly how I was going to exact my revenge for Grégoire’s abuse.

Noise from the open galley caught my attention. I turned to find a lone cook eyeing me, my skirt too short, my face without makeup, ravaged by my ordeal.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” I snarled.

He shrugged and turned back to chopping vegetables. “Prep for breakfast,” he said. “What the fuck do you want?”

My heart stopped. What the fuckdidI want?

But he hadn’t called me on stealing the detritus strewn about the room, remnants from a wild party I was grateful to have missed.

“Get out of here,” I snarled. “Off the fucking boat.”

He didn’t move, and I raised an eyebrow, drawing on my years as a mafia princess to scare the shit out of him without a goddamned word. He set the knife down and stepped away from the counter with both of his hands up.

I dashed around the counter and snatched the knife up, brandishing it at him. He smiled and stepped away, as if he were allowing cute little ol’ me to be foolish. Without checking to see if he’d left, I opened the gas on the commercial grade six-burner stove, then swiped a stack of matches off the fridge.

I turned. “Time to go, asshole.”

He grinned at me, grabbed a ten-thousand-dollar bottle of whiskey from behind the bar, and jogged out. “Give ’em hell, sweetheart.”

Hopefully, the crew was off the boat and partying on shore. Fuck them anyway. They’d looked the other way and ignored my pleas for help too.

My heart thumped as I remembered my uncle Angelo. My handsome, strong, wealthy uncle, who’d shown up in Yorkfield like an avenging demon, determined to set my father straight. Fat lot of good that had done.

I’d show him. I’d show all of them. Fucking men who took away women’s power and made us use our bodies instead, then punished us for it.

My heart ached for a moment, for a man I’d left in Yorkfield. No, fuck him too. Fuck Luca Russo’s unwillingness to tell his family no, fuck his inability to admit that what we had was real, and fuck the entire goddamned Russo clan. Even Sofia, who I was sure hated me right along with the rest of her family.

Moving quickly, I grabbed the rag, along with a bottle of vodka from the bar. I stuffed half the towel into the neck of the bottle, then upended it, letting the vodka soak into it as the gas leaked out of the kitchen. I considered my angle, then scampered out of the galley and down the stairs. I paused on deck, then jogged across the gangway. The moment my feet were on the dock, I lit the scrap of fabric dangling from the bottle, then tossed it.

I watched the bottle arc through the air, slam into the deck, and roll. Worst case, I escaped anyway. Best case—oh shit. The boat exploded, knocking me off my feet and propelling me several feet backward.

Fuck yes.

With an exultant shout, I scrambled to my feet, my ears ringing as I brushed burning ash off my body.

I did it!

Screams filled my ears as the boat burned in the harbor. I didn’t wait around to see whether the explosion had destroyed Grégoire’s hundred-million-euro yacht or if there were any survivors. Instead, I hiked the handbag over my shoulder and fled, limping from the pain of my fall, triumphant despite my agony. Every part of my body ached, and my skin felt seared off, as if I’d been flayed alive, but I couldn’t stop. I had to escape. I had to hide.

Before I reached the edge of the marina to disappear into the city, a second, larger detonation shook the ground beneath me, knocking me to the ground again. I caught myself on my hands. The fire had reached the fuel tanks, the vapors fertile ground for an explosion.

Men in fire retardant clothing rushed toward the waterline, shouting, hauling hoses, a muffled cacophony of noise around me as screams filled the air.

Gripping the bag as if it were a lifeline, I joined the crowd on the docks that fled from the explosion in terror, pretending to be an insouciant partier, an American in the wrong place at the wrong time, stumbling over debris and each other as we ran, wrapped arms around each other’s waists, picked each other off the ground, and ran some more.

Despite the pain and terror, laughter bubbled out of me, wild and uncontrollable.

I was finally free.

9

LUCA

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