4

Elena’s POV.

I sat on the stupid ash-gray bed for what felt like hours, my jaw still throbbing from Dmitri’s grip. The mess of food was still scattered on the floor. I hadn’t touched it. I wasn’t going to clean their mess.

But one question kept spinning in my head like crazy.

How did they know?

How did they know I threw the food on the floor? There were no cameras in here… or were there? I looked around the room again, checking every corner, the mirror, the lights. Nothing obvious. But these men… they weren’t normal. They were demons. Beasts dressed in expensive suits.

I hugged my knees tighter. My hands were shaking. The fear was crawling all over me, making my stomach twist. But then I got angry at myself.

“No,” I whispered. “You’re Elena Rossi. Daughter of Marco Rossi. You don’t break. You don’t cry for bastards like them.”

I stood up suddenly, feeling that old stubborn fire rise up again. I wanted to make them angry. I wanted to show them I wasn’t their little pet. So I took a deep breath and started screaming at the top of my lungs.

“LET ME OUT OF HERE, YOU BASTARDS!! I HATE YOU! ALL OF YOU!!”

My voice cracked. Tears started pouring down my face even though I didn’t want them to. I screamed louder, hitting the door with my fists until my hands hurt.

“I’M NOT YOUR PET! YOU CAN’T OWN ME!!”

Tears were falling hard now, but then something weird happened. I started laughing. A crazy, broken laugh mixed with the sobs. I sounded like a mad person, but I couldn’t stop laughing and crying at the same time while banging on the door.

“Come on then!” I shouted between the crazy laughter. “Come punish me, you monsters! I’m not scared of you!”

My voice echoed in the big room. I kept laughing even as more tears rolled down my cheeks. Maybe I really was losing my mind.

Viktor’s POV.

I stood in the security room with my brothers, watching the screen that showed Elena’s room. The hidden cameras caught everything her throwing the food, her pacing like a wild cat, and now this… her screaming, crying and laughing like she had gone insane.

“She’s losing it,” Nikolai said beside me, but he was smiling like he was enjoying a movie.

Dmitri crossed his arms, his mismatched eyes locked on the screen. “She’s even more fun when she’s broken. Look at her. Still fighting even when she’s terrified.”

I didn’t smile. But something inside me stirred as I watched her bang on the door, tears on her pretty face, that wild laugh coming out of her mouth. She was scared I could see it clearly. But she was still spitting fire.

This girl wasn’t like the others we had before. She had real spirit and real pride. Breaking her was going to take time… and I was going to enjoy every single second of it.

“Should we go back in?” Dmitri asked, already looking eager.

I shook my head slowly, eyes never leaving the screen.

“Not yet,” I said quietly. “Let her scream a little more. Let her feel how alone she is. The more she fights now… the sweeter she’ll taste when she finally submits.”

Elena dropped to her knees in front of the door, still laughing through her tears.

“Fuck you… fuck all of you…” she whispered, but her voice was getting weaker.

I felt a dark heat spread through my chest.

This little pet had no idea what was coming.

Dmitri suddenly let out a frustrated breath and turned away from the monitor.

“Enough of this spoiled brat,” he growled, running a hand through his hair. “We’ve wasted too much time already. Let’s talk business.”

I nodded and switched off the screen. Nikolai leaned against the wall, still wearing that playful smirk, but his eyes became serious immediately. Business always changed the mood in the room.

We moved to the long table in the meeting room next door. Bottles of expensive whiskey and cigars were already waiting. This was where real decisions were made the kind that made men rich or got them killed.

Dmitri poured himself a full glass and downed half of it in one go. “The Italians are getting too bold,” he said, slamming the glass down. “That bastard Rossi thought he could steal from us and get away with it. We took care of him, but now his old partners are sniffing around, asking questions. They want revenge.”

I lit a cigarette slowly, letting the smoke fill my lungs. “They can want whatever they want. We control the ports now. The new shipment of guns and cocaine comes in next week worth over fifty million. If anyone tries to touch it, we burn their entire family.”

Nikolai chuckled, spinning a knife between his fingers like a toy. “I heard the Moretti family is offering double the price if we work with them instead. They’re promising protection and connections in the south. But I don’t trust them. They smile too much.”

“They smile because they’re scared,” I said coldly. “We killed Marco Rossi. We took his daughter as payment. Everyone in the underworld already knows what happens when you cross the Volkov brothers. Fear is better than any alliance.”

Dmitri’s mismatched eyes darkened.

“Speaking of the girl… her uncle he keeps calling, begging us to be gentle with her.” He laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d heard. “Gentle? With that fire in her? No fucking way.”

I smiled slightly. “Her uncle is useful for now. He still has some connections we can use. Once we squeeze everything from him, we’ll decide what to do next with him.”

We spent the next hour going over numbers how much money we were moving, which politicians we had in our pockets, and which rivals needed to be reminded who was in charge.

Nikolai suggested sending a message by cutting off two fingers from one of the Moretti runners. Dmitri wanted blood. I told them we would do both.

Business with us was never clean. It was brutal, smart, and soaked in money and violence.