Relentless Sinner

Chapter 1

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. Where they brought 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.

She was 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. This part was my fault. 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.

I saw it happen. I was right there.

My mother sacrificed herself and saved me so that I could live. That’s why I tried to run from my father’s controlling hand. All I could see in his plans for me was a future of darkness and doom.

His shitty plans began weeks ago when he wanted to sign Natasha’s life away to a man people call the Beast. Then when Natasha left and Dad couldn’t find her, he roped me into his plan as the replacement . Never mind that I was nigh on starting med school in L.A.

I can’t even take pleasure in the fact that Dad would have been enraged when he discovered I’d also gone. Not just one but both his daughters had managed to escape him.

That doesn’t even matter anymore. What matters is what’s going to happen to me now.

The silence around me is sharp and deafening, an arena for my thoughts and fears to war with each other. The stillness consumes me. And then… footsteps.

Oh no. Someone’s coming. One of the men.

The sound of heavy boots on the concrete floor fills my surroundings, and my insides tighten like ropes wrapping around my organs.

I sit straighter and stare through the bars with wide eyes. The footsteps come closer and I try to discern which of them is coming.

The man with the scar on his face or the man with the scar across his neck. Both of them are as gruesome and monstrous as each other.

An icy wave of dread rolls down my spine as I wait to see who it is.

Seconds pass as the sound gets closer and closer, then the light in the hallway snaps on, allowing me to see which monster has come for me tonight.

It’s the man with the scar across his neck. The one who took me. The one who chased me into the park and knocked me out with a fist to my face.

His scar stretches from ear to ear. My guess is that someone slashed him good and proper. He’s lucky to be alive.

Or maybe that was the intention—to keep him alive, with the scar as a reminder of sorts.

Listen to me trying to figure it out. As if I care.

Besides, that’s not the only scar on his head. His entire face is so fucked up I can’t tell how old he is. His scars look like wrinkles and the wrinkles look like scars. The only decent-looking thing on him is his neatly trimmed hair.

He smiles, revealing silver teeth that make his leathery pale skin look ghostly. I say nothing as I stare back at him. Not even to scream at him to let me out.

Yesterday when I did that he hit me and dragged me by my hair until my scalp bled, reminding me that I was nothing but a pawn in his twisted game.

Without taking his eyes off me he unlocks the barred door and pushes it open.

There’s a lusty look in his steely stare that churns my stomach. Since I’ve been here this man has always looked at me like that.

The others were ordered by a man I know only by his voice not to touch me. He didn’t want to devalue my worth.

I’m not a virgin but I made them believe I was. It was the one clever thing I was able to do. Thankfully they weren’t gross enough to conduct a virginity test. I guess they assumed, regardless of my age, that a man like Salvatore De Costa would have kept his daughters pure for the same reason as them—more money.

“Look at you. Not saying anything today?” His contemptuous voice is as sharp as the blade he keeps tucked away in the sheath on his belt.

He walks in, steps into the dim light and lifts his chin, giving me a better view of his scar. His smile twists into something grotesque and I wish I could run far away.

This man loves watching me squirm.

I force myself not to flinch as he walks up to me and crouches down but I can’t stop myself from heaving when he catches my face with his clammy fingers.

He tilts my head up, studying my face with amusement. "What? No fighting today? You disappoint me.” He laughs in my face. “Guess what, princess? The boss is gone for the weekend. There’s no one to stop us now from taking what we want. The boys and I plan to take turns fucking you. I get to go first."

Oh my God. No, no, no. This isn’t happening. “Let go of me, you fucking asshole.”

“No chance of that.” He reaches between us to undo his belt.

I try to back away but he tightens his grip on my face, holding me there so I can’t move.

“Let me go,” I cry out.

“Shut the fuck up.”

“No, why don’t you go and fuck yourself.”

He growls, looking more feral than a wild, ravenous animal.

Fury and fear lodge in my throat then scatter over my body, burning my nerves from the inside out.

His smile widens, becoming more hideous. He’s about to say something else but then a loud crack pierces the air and the smile leaves his face.

We hear the sound again. It’s distant but unmistakable. I’d know it in my sleep. Gunfire.

Scarred Neck tenses. There’s no trace of humor left on his face as his eyes dart toward the door.

There’s a distinct shift in the atmosphere, a sudden tension rippling through the air that feels so tangible I can almost touch it.

Another shot sounds, louder this time, closer. It echoes through the stone walls and reverberates around my soul.

For the first time since Scarred Neck took me I see fear in his eyes. The kind of fear that tells me that my father’s men might be here.

Hope sparks inside my heart. The same hope that filled me on that dreadful night when my mother was taken from me and my father rescued me.

God, could this truly be him?

Dare I hope? Dare I pray?

Scarred Neck releases me and stands, pulling his gun from his back pocket. Then he takes slow, deliberate steps towards the corner of the dungeon.

The gunfire becomes more rapid and insistent, followed by the cries of dying men. My heart pounds harder and so loud it’s no different from the sound of the war around us.

It nearly pops when the doors crash down the corridor. Footsteps thunder in next, sounding like an army.

Shots explode around me and I shrink back into the wall. A second later men rush into my cell.

Before Scarred Neck can think of shooting, bullets riddle his body. The gun slips from his hand, clattering to the floor just before he collapses, motionless.

I squeeze my eyes shut at the horrid sight but still hear the brief sound of him groaning before he’s no more.

The shooting stops and that cold silence returns. I open my eyes and stare at the men around me. It’s only then that I realize I don’t recognize them. Not one of them.

They also don’t look Italian. They’re Russian. Russian as in Bratva . Russian Mafia.

The hope I previously felt dissolves into the ether and every nerve inside me lights up with fear.

Then I hear it—another set of footsteps. These are slow and heavy, in control, as if they belong to a man who knows he owns the world.

The men part to let him through, and then I see him.

He’s as tall and muscular as a giant, with wild, untamed, raven hair that falls past his shoulders in thick waves.

Dressed in full black with a long leather jacket molding to his muscles, he looks like he just stepped off a battlefield.

Every inch of him oozes danger yet there’s a certain beauty about him in the way his sharp, angular features are sculpted to his face and his piercing blue eyes slice into me.

He has the kind of male beauty that makes you forget to breathe.

He sneers and whatever reverie came over me snaps, forcing back my awareness.

“So, this is my bride to be.” When he glares at me with those stormy blue eyes my stomach plummets through the floor. He tosses a glance back at his men then returns his gaze to me. “One of you get her in the truck and make sure she doesn’t run away again.”

Oh. My. God.

It’s him. Jaxon Bortsov—aka the Beast.

The man I’ve been dreading.

My future husband…