Page 1 of Crazed

Prologue

Katiya Nikitin

Each second thatpasses is a gift. I'm on borrowed time and fully aware there are multiple bullets ready to end my life. Normally, I don't worry about the decisions I've made. At this moment, I'm regretting everything, but it's not due to the extra danger surrounding me.

If only I'd chosen a different path.

I tried.

Really, I did.

Not until it was too late though.

I didn't know he would tear my heart to pieces.

Once I realized I was in too deep, I attempted to get out. Yet nothing I said could persuade the powerful men in charge to give me another assignment.

Staying in my role was like diving off a boat and never coming up for air. For the first time in my life, I had something—someone—beautiful, loving, and real. It gave me hope for the future. But I was naive. And once I realized how stuck I was, it was as if the cold depths of the ocean swallowed me whole.

Now, I don't know how I'm ever going to do what they're demanding of me.

Four sets of beady eyes glare at me, assessing every word and movement I make. They all attempt to determine if I'm lying or telling the truth. The voice in my head screams they aren't buying a word I say, but I force myself to play it cool and not ramble.

Every breath I take becomes more difficult. The pain in my chest I can't seem to get rid of intensifies. Blood boils hotter in my veins, on the verge of making me break out into a full-out sweat. I struggle not to shift on my feet while maintaining my composure.

Leo Abruzzo steps closer. He's the youngest brother of Jacopo, who runs the Abruzzo dynasty. It's the first time in months I've seen Leo. I can't say I missed him.

After my father died, Ludis Petrov, heir to the Russian mafia, claimed me as his own. Ludis said my father worked for him. I had no knowledge of it. All I saw was how hard my father worked in his woodworking business. Yet, Ludis declared there was an unpaid debt. I had no money, so he informed me that he now owned me. I was fifteen at the time and had no way to fight when his men arrived to take me. And the first night in Ludis's house, he showed no mercy, taking my virginity.

I didn't want to be with him. When he ordered me to sleep in his bed, my stomach flipped. The maid told me not to fight him, claiming it would be easier to get through it if I didn't resist. Then she showed me the knife scars on her stomach and legs. It was from when she tried to fight him off.

Her disfigured body etched itself in my mind. So I took her advice when Ludis came back into the room, not making a sound while silent tears fell down my cheeks.

For years, I was his. Then he lost a bet. Before I knew it, I was sold to the Abruzzos to pay off his gambling debt. And they weren't any better than the Petrovs. I quickly learned they dealt with things in a similar fashion.

I no longer live with the Abruzzos, but they still own me. As I stare at the guns pointed at me and the muscular men who would snap me in two without warning, Leo's stale breath from last night's alcohol flares in my nostrils. He pins his bloodshot gaze on me, seething in Italian, "You bring us nothing. Should I remind you what we do to those who betray us?" Even though my native tongue is Russian, I speak Italian fluently, and therefore have no problem understanding him.

My stomach churns. The memory of Leo's heavy body on mine makes me nauseous. Half of what I say is a lie. The other part is the truth. In a confident voice, I assert, "I haven't betrayed you. I never would. And he doesn't know. But I can only push so much before he knows who I am. He already suspects—"

"If he suspects, then you convince him otherwise!" Leo barks, slamming his hand on the table.

I refrain from jumping or showing any emotion. Most people see me as a cold, Russian woman. It's something I learned as a child from my father. He always said,"Katiya, your emotions will kill you someday. You must learn to control them."

It's something I've only gotten better at since Ludis first touched me. There's no room in life for weakness, which is another thing my father taught me.

I raise my chin and state to Leo, "I need more time."

"More time?" Leo spits, and some hits my cheek.

I don't react, freezing in my spot, resisting the urge to wipe his saliva off my face. I once did that and quickly learned my lesson when Leo kept me chained to a bench in a sauna for a week. He'd come in from time to time, taunting me with water, giving me only enough to stay alive.

Silence fills the brownstone. I struggle to push the lingering memories out of my mind. A beam of sunlight gets hotter, shining through the window, tormenting me further. My body feels overheated, as if I'm back in the sauna.

Leo nods to his thug. The sound of a magazine slamming into a Glock fills my ears right as one of the goons tugs on my hair and then holds the gun to my head.

My heart races. I tear my eyes off the ceiling, locking my gaze on Leo, staying as nonreactive as possible. In a firm tone, I say, "If he kills me, you're starting all over. Is that what you want?"

More tension fills the quiet room. The overpowering scent of men's sweat, alcohol, and smoke mix with musk. It closes in around me until I feel so suffocated, I think I might faint.

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