Relentless Sinner

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Gabriella

I pace around the large bedroom, gripping my hands together.

The air is brimming with the scent of him—Jaxon Bortsov.

The scent is a combination of earth, sandalwood and power.

I caught his scent back at the dungeon. How crazy is it that it actually overpowered that stench of death? I didn’t think anything could do that, but it was like even death was afraid of him.

I also didn’t think anything could scare me any more than my previous situation. Yet here I am.

I’m beyond grateful that I’m not chained to the wall in the dungeon anymore with the threat of being raped and sold. But what is this?

What is he going to do to me now?

Jaxon saved me. He pulled me out of that hellhole, away from those men. And yet here I am, still a prisoner. But now I’m his prisoner. The thought makes me feel sick, like I’m going to throw up my insides and never stop.

I’m sure he’s not going to take it lightly that I tried to run away because I didn’t want to marry him. I’m sure he’s not going to be happy either that he had to come and rescue me.

The fact that I’m locked in here, in his bedroom, says everything.

When we first arrived at this fortress of a home one of the guards led me up here and told me to get cleaned up. A maid came with food and a big T-shirt for me to change into, then they both left. When I heard the lock turn in the door I realized I’d swapped one dungeon for another.

I freaked the fuck out and banged on the door for a full hour before I gave up and decided to clean the filth from dungeon number one off me.

I put on the T-shirt. It swamps my frame and reaches past my knees but I’m grateful for the size because I’m not wearing panties underneath. Everything I wore previously was so dirty I had to put it in a bag to be thrown away.

I have no other clothes, shoes, or anything. The only thing I got back was my purse. It was empty. I don’t know if my phone and money were taken by those men or if Jaxon’s people took them.

I had a duffel bag as well, with clothes and various other things I’d packed for my travels. I was going to head down to Florida. The plan was to get a bus ticket.

I have—or rather had —money, but taking the bus would be more inconspicuous and I thought it would throw my father off my trail.

Since I was supposed to go to med school in L.A. I thought he’d be guaranteed to look there.

I was going to lie low for a year then return to New York by my birthday next year to try and get my inheritance money.

Then I’d be able to go to med school wherever I chose and I’d be able to pay for it myself. The first thing Dad did to me when he demanded I marry Jaxon was pull the funding for med school to stop me from going.

I’d still have to get married to get my inheritance but I’m sure I would be able to find someone to fulfill that part of the deal and pay them off. Anyone would do as long as I got to choose. Not my father.

Honestly, I never want to see him again. Not after the way he beat Natasha when she told him she was pregnant. It was me who stopped him from doing more damage when I hit him with a lamp.

Dad became abusive when Mom died. The years saw him getting worse and worse but that night was catastrophic. It was like he was possessed.

The sound of the uproar brought in the guards and stopped him from going further. Of course, one of the guards was Alessandro.

He wanted to kill Dad but realized he’d only make things worse for himself and Natasha if he did so. That was the night he took Natasha away.

They worried that my father was either going to hurt her enough that she’d lose the baby or make her get rid of it—like he demanded. At the time she was only six weeks pregnant. That was nearly a month ago now.

After they left everything went to hell for me mere weeks later.

Still, I would prefer to be back at home now than here. At least I know those walls, those halls, those surroundings. The fear I feel there is familiar. This is not.

I glance around the room. The dark furniture, cold marble floors and large French window with heavy drapes surround me, feeling as formidable as Jaxon himself.

They all remind me that I’m in his home. In his bedroom.

I walk over to the window, pull the curtains back and gaze out to the mass of shadowy trees.

This home and the grounds are massive, way bigger than my father’s. And the darkness all around me feels like a thick blanket of smoke trapping me.

This room is his cage. Everything around me is a fucking cage and I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I just know I can’t stay here. I can’t stay here with him .

Clara’s voice echoes in my head, reminding me that Jaxon Bortsov is a monster. She’s my cousin but the closest thing I have to a best friend outside Natasha. Clara is four years older than me and the girl you turn to when you have problems you can’t wrap your head around.

When Natasha and I first found out that she was supposed to marry Jaxon, we went to Clara. She knows everything about the men from the Bratva and the Creed.

“They call him the Beast for a reason,” Clara had warned.

Then she proceeded to tell us all the things she’d heard about Jaxon that earned him that name.

How he butchered anyone who crossed him, how he ripped the skin off this one guy and fed his remains to wild dogs, then how he gouged out his victims’ eyes to make sure the last thing they saw before they died was him.

Monster.

But isn’t my father a monster, too? That night when he presented me with the marriage contract where he’d signed over his executive rights to Jaxon, he forced me at gunpoint to sign, too.

My father pointed a gun at my head and told me he’d shoot my hands off if I didn’t sign and agree to marry Jaxon. It was bad enough that he beat my pregnant sister but I will never forget him pointing that gun at me and threatening to destroy my dreams.

I want to be a neurosurgeon. You can’t be a neurosurgeon or any kind of surgeon without your hands. They are your tools.

Sure, perhaps if I was already a surgeon of good standing and had lost my limbs maybe I’d be allowed to continue practicing. But I’m not even at med school yet. The only things I’ve done so far is finish my bachelor degree, pass the MCATs and do voluntary work at the general hospital for experience, so without my hands there would be no medical career for me.

My monstrous father knew exactly how to manipulate me to get what he wanted.

Dad acted like a desperate man. One who’d lost his damn mind. I don’t know if it was because Natasha had gone and it was clear he wasn’t going to get her back. He probably saw me as his only hope. For what, though?

This scheme of his must be to do with my inheritance. Dad must have some deal going with Jaxon. I just don’t know what it is and why the sudden urgency.

It’s not like Dad can get his executor’s share of my inheritance money now . He has to wait until I’m twenty-five. That’s why I was so shocked when he drafted me in to marry Jaxon.

Something else must definitely be going on. Something I can’t figure out.

The only problem I foresaw was Natasha’s pregnancy. She wouldn’t have been able to marry the man Dad chose for her but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have married Alessandro.

The problem is, Dad would have still thrown a fit and wanted her to get rid of the baby because Alessandro is a bodyguard. He doesn’t come from a high-standing Italian family like ours with links to the five families of the Syndicate.

My father was evil at the best of times, but add in desperation and I got the devil.

That’s why I had to leave.

That’s why I still have to leave.

My gaze snaps to the door when I hear the distinct sound of the key in the lock.

Oh God. That must be Jaxon.

My throat tightens and a cold wave of fear clamors down my spine. The door swings open and there he stands, just as formidable as he was back at the— wherever I was .

With his bright blue eyes fixed on me Jaxon steps into the room and does a full sweep of my body.

My limbs go stiff and heavy, my breath turns shallow, and my skin prickles with a million goosebumps. What I don’t expect is to feel that strange heat of warmth curling low in my belly, roused by the way he’s looking at me.

It would be so much easier to see him as a monster if he were as hideous as the scarred men who took me.

I suppose men who look as handsome and near beautiful as him are the ones you have to be most careful of. Those are the ones who can fool you. It’s easier to identify something when you can see what it is. When you can’t, that’s when you need to worry.

Jaxon takes slow, deliberate steps as he moves closer. I’m glad when he stops by the bed but he’s still too close for comfort.

“Good. You’re all cleaned up.” His voice is low and calm. Too calm . It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“Yes.” I swallow, trying to find my voice. I realize this is the first time we’ve spoken and I have no idea how you should speak to men like him. I’m going to try. We can get pleasantries out of the way first. “Thank you for saving me.”

“You do realize if you hadn’t run you wouldn’t have needed saving. Right?” I pick up an ever-so-slight hint of a Russian accent laced beneath his words. It came out with his sarcasm.

“I’m aware.”

“And what do you think of that, Gabriella? You were held for ten days and those men had so much worse planned for you.”

Ten days.

My God, was it really ten days? Hearing that makes my insides squeeze and my heart stall.

Ten days in captivity. In that dungeon. Tears sting the back of my eyes. It would have been better if I didn’t know.

Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm. I try to slow my breathing so I can focus enough to speak to him. "I’d like to go home in the morning.”

Jaxon tilts his head, almost as if he’s amused by my words, though his expression doesn’t shift. “This is your home now, Gabriella. The wedding will take place in three weeks’ time. Given what’s happened I think it’s best that you stay here with me.”

My chest tightens at his answer, as if someone clamped my insides with a wrench. A shudder of rage and terror courses through me and I fight to hold on to the courage that’s slipping through my fingers.

“I can’t stay here. Not yet.” Not ever . I want to say that but I know better. The bottom line is there is no yet or three weeks’ time . In my mind it’s never. So if I leave here I’m not coming back.

“Your father will arrange for your things to be sent here over the next few days.” Jaxon completely glosses over what I said.

"No," I whisper, my voice cracking. “I won’t do it. And I can’t marry you either. You can’t force me.”

With the same cool, calm manner he walks over to me, and now he’s way too close. So close the room seems to shrink with the walls pressing in on me, like one of those scenes in the movies.

And he doesn’t stop there. He moves closer, so much so that I have to step back. When my back hits the wall I realize I’ve run out of room.

He rests one hand on the space above my head and the other next to me. The gesture draws attention to how wide and big his shoulders are.

Jaxon looms before me, making me feel as small as an ant. I peg him to be at least six feet six. I’m five feet four, so he seems colossal up close.

“I don’t think I have to remind you that you signed a contract.” Finally, he speaks.

“It would never stand up in court,” I snap.

“ Court? Really?” Humor lights up his eyes and his lips slide into a mocking smirk.

Instantly I feel foolish. I should know that men like him are above the law. So is my father.

I’m acting like I don’t come from a mafia family. And like my father doesn’t provide his shady as fuck investment services to the families in the Syndicate and half of the underworld.

“Let me give you a rude awakening, Gabriella.” His voice dips on saying my name and I feel it low in my core. The feeling heightens when he inches so close we’re sharing the same air. “There will be no court. That contract stands because I say so.”

“But—”

“No.” He shakes his head and sharpens his gaze. “There will be no buts, or maybes, or any other fucking shit like that. You will not challenge me or even think of escaping me again. Am I understood?”

“Can’t we even talk about this?” Surely he can be reasonable and hear me out. “My father held a gun to my head and forced me to sign that contract. I would never have signed it otherwise.”

Something shifts in Jaxon’s gaze and for a moment I sense he’s surprised to hear what my father did. It’s strange to think that he— the Beast —would be surprised. But any sort of emotion fades from his expression seconds later, so maybe he wasn’t that surprised after all.

“Be that as it may, you’re mine now. Your father doesn’t have any power over you anymore. Now, let’s get to bed. It’s fucking late.”

My nerves scatter across my body as if someone attached a bolt of lightning to my skin and charged it with napalm.

Bed?

Let’s go to bed? As in the one across from us? Him and me?

No way. He can’t be serious. I was trying to find a good comeback for his high-handed dictator demands but now my mind is numb.

“Where is my room?” I decide to ask that question as a roundabout way of asking the real question.

“You’re in your room.”

“Then where is your room?”

He gives me a thin smile but his eyes remain flat and emotionless. “Don’t play games with me. This is our room now. And we are going to bed.”

Hell no . I will absolutely not be sharing a bed with him. No way in hell. “I’m not sleeping in here with you.”

I’m losing that grip again, over my control and sense of reasoning. I can’t get it back. It keeps slipping away from me like water in my hands and I don’t have the energy, mentally or physically, to hold on.

“You’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?” He smirks.

“You’re crazy if you think I’ll be comfortable sleeping next to you.”

I’m shaking my head at him when I realize something. The door. It’s open.

Could I run through it?

Maybe I could get outside and escape into the woods. We’re on Long Island. I’m not familiar with the area but I could hide away in the woods until it’s safe to come out, then make my great escape.

I could try to get to Clara and maybe she could help me get out of town. She knows people. I didn’t involve her before because she’d get in trouble with my father, but now that I have no money or anything I’m even more desperate than before.

It’s a crazy fucked-up idea to run but it would be crazier if I didn’t try to save myself from this madness.

“I’m sure my bed is more comfortable than the dungeon floor.” The words are barely out of his mouth before I slip past him and run.

I run without a plan, acting without thinking, and maybe I’ve become as desperate as my father.

I make it through the door and onto the landing before an arm swoops around my middle and hoists me into the air. My legs are still moving and I must look comical. Except this isn’t funny.

What’s worse is the impact of Jaxon’s grip ripping my T-shirt and exposing my breasts.

“Let me go, you asshole,” I wail, thrashing against him while trying to cover myself at the same time.

Jaxon doesn’t answer. Instead, he carries me back into the room and closes the door behind him. This time locking it with the key.

He lays me down on the bed, pinning me with his massive, hard body.

“What are you doing?” I thrash, feeling uncontrollable fear spiking my senses.

Jaxon maintains his silence, his face hard as stone as he grabs my hands and holds them down above my head. The next thing I know he’s whipped out handcuffs from God knows where. Then he’s fixing them around my wrists and securing me to the rail of the bed.

“You can’t do this to me!”

“Watch me.” His voice actually comes out like a beast’s growl. “If you want crazy, I’ll give it to you.”

He gazes down at me, his eyes drifting to the torn T-shirt hanging off my body which exposes my breasts and the mound of my pussy.

Unmistakable desire fills his eyes then he smiles, revealing stupid dimples that shouldn’t look as good as they do. My skin turns red with embarrassment and I wish I could disappear into the bed.

“What a shame, Krasota .”

I can’t speak Russian very well but I know krasota means beautiful.

Jaxon tilts his head, allowing his hair to hang over his face. “This little game of ours would have been more fun if we weren’t fighting. Maybe next time.”

“You asshole. There will be no next time.”

“That mouth of yours is going to get you in more trouble with me. But that’s fine. I’m going to enjoy punishing you in all the right ways. Wife .”

His words charge the air in the room with wild energy that hits me deep in my core once more. It makes my heart pound harder and stirs that arousing feeling again. I’m appalled at myself for even acknowledging it.

How the hell have I allowed this villainous man to exert such an effect on me? I must either have gone mad from the length of my captivity or from exhaustion.

I’m at a loss for words. And my situation has just gotten worse.

I’m lying in Jaxon’s bed, practically naked, chained up again for foolishly running. I don’t even feel better for trying to save myself.

Shit. I’m seriously trapped here.

With that mocking smirk on his face, Jaxon slides off me, then he pulls off his shirt, revealing a sculpted body covered in muscles and every Russian tattoo you can think of.

He takes off his pants, too, leaving just his boxers on.

I see more tattoos along his legs and low on his hips.

Looking away from me, he moves to the other side of the bed and switches off the light. Then he climbs in next to me and my breath stills.

It takes a moment before I can calm myself, then all I’m aware of as we lie together in the dark is him next to me with his big hulking body and the cold chains around my wrists.

I feel like I fell down a rabbit hole and emerged in an alternate dimension where I keep landing myself in one disastrous situation after another.

I’ve gone from running from my father to being taken captive by my father’s enemies. Now I’m sleeping next to the Beast in his bed.

How did my life get worse?