Page 137 of Cruel Sinner

I have no memory of how I got here and no idea where we are. Andriani gave me some iced tea to drink when he hauled me from the safe house where he first took me. One minute I was in the backseat of a G-wagon and the next, I was waking up in a dank, dark hovel with cinder block walls and a lone bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, Andriani presiding over me like I’m a pagan sacrifice laid out for him.

He drugged me, the fucking bastard.

I glare at him and threaten to chop off his balls and feed them to my brother’s dogs if he so much as looks at me the wrong way. And then something else occurs to me.

Maybe I don’t need Misha. Maybe I can get away from Scorpion Andriani on my own. I take stock of the situation. My wrists are bound and there’s a cuff and chain on my ankle, a matching metal link on the footboard of the bed. I could launch myself at him, maybe slam an elbow into his nose or knee him in the groin. But then what? There’s no escaping the chain on my ankle. Or is there? I’m not even sure if I care.

I flex my calf, giving my restraints a test.

Solid.

Fuck my life.

“The bathroom is that way.” He points to an old wooden door that’s behind him. “Pro tip: you need to hold the handle down when you flush, or it won’t work, and I’m not about to come in here to unplug your toilet. So if you don’t want to be swimming in toilet water, you’ll follow the rules, princess.”

Judging from the room we’re in, I’m not surprised the facilities in this shanty of his don’t work properly. Thank God Iwon’t be staying here long. Misha will come for me. He’ll find me.

Hehasto.

I tell Scorpion that my brother is as smart as he is deadly and that kidnapping Misha Sidorov’s sister and chaining her up in a shack isn’t going to end well for him.

“If you’re going to be nice, I’ll remove the tape from your mouth,” he says.

Thiszasranetshas no idea. Nice isn’t a part of my vocabulary. It was ruthlessly excised long ago by the world around me. Death and destruction have a way of doing that to you, leaching your innocence and kindness, like blood being siphoned away until one day, there’s just nothing left.

“On the count of three.” He reaches for the edge of the tape. “One. Two.” As he rips the tape off my mouth, he says, “three.”

“Ouch,” I cry out, reasonably sure he’s pulled off my lips with that adhesive.

“Sorry,” he says, completely unapologetic. “You brought it on yourself with that mouth.”

“You expected me to be grateful you took me hostage? What was I supposed to do, Andriani, throw you a tea party?”

“I don’t like tea, so no.”

“Funny for a psychotic kidnapper.”

He cocks his head at me. “Mouthy for a helpless captive chained to my bed.”

I struggle to sit up, my abs and whole body still weak from whatever he knocked me out with. “My brother is going to kill you for this.”

Scorpion Andriani smirks, showing off a full set of dimples, and damn. He’s the kind of man who’s almost too gorgeous to be real. The kind it hurts just to look at.

A nightmare in a designer suit.

“Not if I kill him first,” he tells me cheerfully. “If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll let you watch while I do it.”

I’m finally sitting, and the fury in me is waking up too. Gathering my strength, I launch myself at him, kicking and elbowing and pounding on him with my bound hands, as hard as I can.”

“Go to hell, Andriani,” I snarl.

But he just laughs, my blows bouncing off his hard body like they’re nothing. “I already have a one-way ticket there, princess, and I have a feeling you’ll be coming with me.”