Page 8 of The Bratva King's Auctioned Bride

The man spoke in English but with an Italian accent. Why would any Italian want me—Oh God, was this about the art scam? It hadn’t even taken place yet, but Nat had already bilked several rich collectors on the first round. Maybe they’d figured it out and were coming to collect. Was Nat all right?

“Where is my niece?” I screamed through the bag, kicking the back of their seats with all my strength.

The car had barely started, and the driver slammed on the brakes, sending me flying into the foot well. A second later, I was hauled out and dumped into the trunk.

“We tried to be nice,” one of them said, slamming me into total darkness.

The car started moving again, and I tried to be calm, kicking everything I could, but with a purpose now. I hoped to knock out a taillight and attract a traffic cop who might hear me. Thankfully, my hands were cuffed in front of me, and I was able to get the bag off my head and breathe at least a little easier. How did I end up here? It all happened so fast that I barely recalled anything in the moments before I was grabbed. My phone—I was taking out my phone. How I would have loved to still have it in my hands, but it was long gone now.

I’d seen plenty of people get stuffed into trunks before, and I’d never felt all that sorry for them since there was always a reason for them to be there.

But there was no reason I could think of for me to be bumping along in the dark and rapidly increasing heat, barely able to breathe again. I had to stop kicking to keep from getting overheated in the oven of that cramped trunk, and I had to stay calm so I could make the people who took me see reason.

It had to be because of the art scam since nobody who might have beef with my brothers knew I was there. Damn it, I should have been on the phone to Aleks while that damn Russian sleazebag was in the gallery. Thinking that Nat might be in a similar situation finally got me to gather my wits and center myself for what came when the trunk opened again. I wouldn’t be any help to her if I were falling apart with fear.

It was impossible to gauge how long they drove before the car finally stopped. I braced myself and squeezed my eyes shut against the sun's blinding glare when the trunk popped open.

One of the men muttered what I assumed was a curse in Italian and mashed my head into the grimy carpet. The other one yanked the bag over my head again, so I never got a single glimpse of my surroundings. I was drenched in sweat and gasping for breath by the time they dragged me inside somewhere. The blast of air conditioning was a welcome relief at first, but soon, I was shivering from the cold.

They spoke in Italian, much too fast for my rudimentary skills, and someone called across from them that they better not have made any marks. That would have been reassuring, except it wasn’t. There wasn’t a single trace of care in the new voice. One of my captors pulled the bag off my head, maybe to prove I hadn’t been hit in the face. The place was dim, and my eyes adjusted quickly.

It was some kind of bar, maybe a small nightclub, since there were gambling tables along one wall and a raised stage. Other than the two men who still had me in their iron grips and the shadowy guy across the room, the place was deserted.

“Where’s Nat?” I demanded, with all the false bravado of someone who wasn’t cuffed and flanked by men twice my size.

“I don’t know who he is,” the third man said, stepping out from behind the dark bar.

He was old, with a nasty sneer pasted on his face, grizzled hair that was in need of a trim falling across his wrinkled brow. He looked like someone out of a book to scare children, but the fact that he had mistaken Nat for a man told me he didn’t know who she was, and I relaxed a bit.

She was safe for now. I just had to get out of this, whatever this was.

The old man came closer, looking me up and down, leering in a way that made my skin crawl. His watery blue eyes felt like they left slime trails as they passed over me, and his smile had me trying to step back. The two brutes shoved me closer to him, then slunk back a few paces.

“Yes, you’ll fetch a very fine price,” the old man said.

What the actual hell did that mean? I didn’t want to know and concentrated on my surroundings, looking for a way to escape. There was nothing. The two brutes had retreated to guard the only door I could see, and if there was another exit somewhere, I was positive more men guarded it. Not a window in sight as the old man wrapped his bony hand around my arm and dragged me down a hallway.

He was firm for appearing so frail, and my only attempt at yanking away from him was met with a hard squeeze of my wrist where the cuff was still cutting into my skin. I yelped in pain and followed, trying to process what I knew so far, which was next to nothing.

He opened a door and shoved me through, slamming it behind me. The click of the lock destroyed what was left of my shattered nerves, and I threw myself against the door, poundingon it with my bound hands. A trickle of blood dripped down my wrist to my elbow, but the pain was secondary to my rage.

“You’re wasting your time,” a quiet voice said from behind me.

I whipped around to see a young, fearful woman sitting beside a rack of clothes. Not really clothes, not any I would wear, anyway. Mere scraps of cheap fabric, I wouldn’t have even called it lingerie.

“I have a key,” she said, voice so small I had to strain to hear her.

She motioned me over, and after a long look at the door, I sighed and went closer, holding out the cuffs. True to her word, she unlocked them, and I carefully dabbed at the scratches with the tissue she handed me.

“Who are you?” I asked, not about to trust her easily.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m just here to help you get your outfit on.”

I scoffed at the tawdry array of clothes I wouldn’t have worn on a dare on Halloween. “Not happening.”

“It’s better if you just pick something. If you refuse, they’ll just make you go on stage naked.”

Was she fucking kidding? It didn’t look like it. Panic was rising, fast. I raced to the door and pounded on it again. “I’ll kill this girl if you don’t let me out,” I screamed. She might have very well been a victim in all this, too, but I meant every word.

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