Page 20 of Stolen By the Don

I didn’t expect to walk out of the bathroom last night and find Roman in my room. Nor did I expect him to press me against the wall and put his hands on my body.

Worse yet…I’m also ashamed. Ashamed that for a moment, I was willing to let him take what he wanted. My body, betrayer that it is, almost slipped out of rationality and into lust. Then I saw the look in his eyes, and I knew it wasn’t about lust or desire.

It was control.

His thumb on my cheek and his fingers digging into my hip—everything was about control. I couldn’t let him take my body that way, and yet I knew if I fought, he’d easily overpower me.

So I begged.

“Fuck!” I kick the covers angrily, throwing them off. I drag my fingers through my hair, yanking strands out. “Argh!” I can still see myself, like prey caught in a trap, begging for its life.

My father would rather let himself get gutted than beg for his life, and he never failed to teach me about pride.

“Never beg. It lets your enemy know they have the upper hand.”

He didn’t say anything about forcing me to get married for the family’s sake. Just sprung it on me because he knew his daughter, who would do anything to please her father, wouldn’t refuse.

All of them. My father. Roman. The big guy who drove me from the wedding and dragged me into the house while I kicked and screamed. I wish they’d all burn in hell.

But Roman Volkov most of all. If I watched him burn, I wouldn’t put out the fire. Rather, I’d get gasoline so he didn’t have a chance to survive with his charred body.

My stomach grumbles as I think of everything I’d like to do to him, and another sharp pain shoots through me, making me double over with a groan.

“Fine!” I throw my hands in the air. “I’ll eat.”

I tiptoe to the door and squint through the peephole. There’s no one there. That’s good. Exhaling slowly, I remove the chair wedged under the door handle.

There’s no one in the hallway either, and I dash through, reaching the stairs. Halfway down, I realize how I must look—if there was an audience. Like a frightened mouse without a backbone. The image is insulting enough that I straighten up, squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin as I continue.

“Miss Ricci.”

“Jeez!” I jump, hand flying to my chest, only to find Polina staring at me from the foot of the stairs. “Hi,” I mumble.

“It’s past noon,” she says flatly. There’s no emotion on her face to help me decipher if she’s displeased or just stating the time, but it doesn’t matter because she barely says more than a few words to me.

Despite the number of staff who come and go—from Polina to the gardener, the man with the van who came to deliver food supplies yesterday, and the men standing outside the house with their guns to make sure I don’t escape—it still feels like I’m the only one living here.

A large, empty house.

Because barely anyone looks my way. If Polina didn’t have to interact with me, I’m sure she wouldn’t spare a glance in my direction either.

“Oh well,” I mutter, pushing the thought aside before it festers into a deep feeling of loneliness. “What’s for breakfast?” I ask.

“It’s past noon,” she reminds me.

Oh.She’s displeased, then. “Lunch,” I correct as my stomach makes the same soul-sucking sound. “What’s for lunch?”

Lunch is a two-course meal of wild mushroom risotto with steak salad. Polina leaves me in the kitchen, and after a couple of look-throughs, I find a few bottles of red wine in the adjoining pantry.

It looks vintage, probably one of Roman’s prized collections.

“Good.” I grin. “The more the merrier.”

I open a bottle, then another. When I leave the kitchen, both bottles remain open and hardly touched, abandoned on the counter.

“Some sightseeing?” I murmur as I stand outside the door, glancing around. I haven’t been anywhere since the day I stumbled across his study.

Because the memory of being toyed and played with never left my head. And some part of me held on to the idea that—other than my plan for revenge—my father would find a way to get me out. But after trying to reach him several times without success, my hope in the latter is waning.

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