SASHA
The heavy door closed behind me with a resounding thud, sealing me inside the opulent prison cell that would be my new accommodations. I gritted my teeth, refusing to allow even a flicker of trepidation to show on my face as I took stock of the lavish surroundings.
Deep mahogany wainscoting lined the walls, accented by thick crown moldings and elegant sconces that bathed the space in a warm, golden light. An enormous four-poster bed dominated one corner, the plush duvet looking deceptively inviting. But it was the floor-to-ceiling windows that drew my eye, affording a breathtaking view of the impeccably manicured grounds and the twinkling city skyline beyond.
A gilded cage fit for a king's mistress...or in this case, the Moretti family's caged adversary.
Unbidden, my encounter with Luca replayed in my mind's eye. The whiskey-rough timbre of his voice, the predatory way he'd crowded into my space, surrounding me with his drugging cologne and the banked intensity simmering in those obsidian eyes. Our gazes had locked, two unapologetic forces of nature refusing to yield an inch to the other.
I shivered at the memory, my pulse kicking up a notch as heat blossomed low in my belly. Luca Moretti was...unsettling. Dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with his status as one of the city's most powerful crime lords. No, there was something else there, lurking beneath the refined veneer that threatened to hook my interest in ways I couldn't allow.
With a low growl, I tore my thoughts away from the infuriatingly potent mafia leader. Getting distracted by his whiskey-rough voice and the arrogant cut of his jaw would only lead to compromising my mission. My priorities needed to remain razor-focused on revenge and dismantling his vile empire piece by piece.
Speaking of...
I pivoted on my heel, scanning the room with a calculative eye as I formulated a new plan of attack. It was obvious from the lavish decor and excessive security measures that this space wasn't a typical bedroom, but a reinforced safe room designed to hold captured assets or threats. Every breath I took was undoubtedly being monitored, perhaps even recorded to study my behaviors and tendencies.
A harsh smirk curved my lips at the thought. If Luca assumed a plush environment would lull me into a false sense of complacency, he had sorely underestimated my resolve.
Still, best not to show my full hand right away. Unpredictability and subtlety were key in games of hostile subterfuge like these. I forced my shoulders to relax infinitesimally as I meandered about the room with measured nonchalance, trailing my fingers along the sleek surfaces as if drinking in the lavish scenery.
It wasn't until I reached the bedside table, its polished wood utterly devoid of personal touches, that I found my opening. A single matchbook lay in stark contrast to the otherwise pristine space, its plain cardboard exterior and embossed logo from one of the city's finest hotels catching my eye.
Instantly, I flashed back to one of my earliest missions—a job that required a ballsy heist of the hotel's security system in order to obtain blackmail materials on a corrupt politician. Schooling my features into an expression of detached interest, I slid the matchbook into the pocket of my fitted trousers and resumed my leisurely circuit of the room.
When the guards inevitably swept the chamber for potential weapons or tools, they would find nothing but the innocuous matchbook, and hopefully disregard it as unimportant in the process. And once that oversight was made, I would finally have the means to begin dismantling this gilded cage from the inside out.
A soft rap at the door had me whirling, my heart kicking into high gear as I braced myself for the next phase of my incarceration. The door opened to reveal a behemoth of a man, eclipsing the frame with his massive build. His face was a craggy mask of harsh lines and brutal angles, his shaved head gleaming beneath the ambient light. For a moment, we simply stared at each other, my defiant glare meeting his cold, assessing one without flinching.
Then his lip curled in a sneer of dark amusement. "Get comfortable, princess," he rumbled in a thick Russian accent. "You'll be staying put for a good long while."
I arched a single brow, mustering every ounce of feigned indifference I could. "That remains to be seen."
With that parting barb, I brushed past him into the room, chin angled in a silent challenge. The door closed once more with a sound like a death knell.
But my fingers closed around the matchbook in my pocket as a feral smile curved my lips.
Let the games begin, Luca Moretti.
The next few days passed in a blur of tense confinement and guarded movements. True to his word, the hulking Russian guard—who I quickly learned was named Dmitri—maintained a relentless vigil over my every move. His presence was like a menacing shadow, always lingering just out of sight yet inescapably there.
I chafed against the restriction, the overbearing scrutiny grating on my nerves. But I refused to let Dmitri or his employer see even a hint of the growing desperation simmering beneath my skin. Weakness was a luxury I couldn't afford, not when I needed to project an aura of unflappable confidence at all times.
My fingers toyed with the matchbook in my pocket, the thin cardboard providing a small talisman of reassurance. I simply needed to bide my time, wait for the opportune moment to set the next phase of my plan into motion. Easier said than done while under the unwavering eye of my assigned jailor.
As if summoned by my thoughts, the door lock tumbled, and Dmitri stepped through with his usual unhurried menace, dark eyes scanning the room in a perfunctory sweep.
I arched a brow from my position on the plush sofa, projecting an air of indolent indifference. "I assume you're here to ensure I haven't escapado en route to the en-suite bath?"
He grunted, clearly unamused by my mordant attempt at humor. "Funny girl."
"One tries." I inspected my nails with exaggerated casualness. "Anything else, or did you just come to grace me with your sparkling conversational skills?"
Dmitri's eyes narrowed, his mouth tightening into a grim line. For an endless moment, the air crackled with unspoken tension thick enough to choke on. Then, with a subtle shake of his head, the mountain of a man turned on his heel and stalked from the room without another word.
No sooner had the lock clicked into place then a slow smirk curved my lips. Ruffling the Russian's feathers had been deeply satisfying in its own right. But the growing sense of power that simple interaction sparked within me was far more intoxicating.
I was getting to Dmitri, chipping away at his resolve with every biting barb. And if I could unsettle an unmovable force like him, then perhaps I wasn't as powerless in this situation as Luca assumed.
A harsh rap at the door jolted me from my musings, and I instinctively straightened, falling back into a defensive wariness. When the door swung open, however, it wasn't Dmitri's hulking frame filling the entrance, but a lithe figure bedecked in a crisp maid's uniform.
She ducked her head in a demure gesture, but not before I glimpsed the fullness of her lips and the rich, honeyed tone of her skin. "Pardon, Miss," she murmured, her accent marking her as distinctly Italian. "I've been sent to attend you."
My brows hiked toward my hairline even as an undercurrent of unease prickled along my nape. "I'm quite capable of attending myself."
"My instructions come from Mr. Moretti himself," she pressed, finally raising her eyes to mine—eyes that glinted with far too much worldly knowledge to belong to any innocent maidservant. "He insisted you not be made uncomfortable in any way during your...extended stay."
A harsh laugh bubbled from my throat before I could think better of it. Uncomfortable? Yes, I could only imagine the types of unseemly acts Luca had contrived to ensure my comfort and passivity. No doubt this "maid" was more akin to a seductress, sent to ply me with her wares and lull me into a state of pliant vulnerability.
Or perhaps I'd simply allowed my stay in these luxurious surroundings to skew my perspective. Maybe she really was just a hapless maid trying to perform her duties at the behest of an exacting employer.
The sudden scrape of a heavy footstep in the hallway had me tensing, my muscles coiled in anticipation. Because if this was some attempt at trickery on Luca's part...
My breath snagged in my throat as the shadow of a familiar figure filled the open doorway. Cool authority rolled ahead of him in waves, caressing my heated skin and setting my nerve endings tingling with an unwelcome frisson of awareness.
Luca braced one arm against the doorframe, his powerful body angled in a blatant show of dominance as he pinned me with a look of heated appraisal. For far too long, our gazes locked and held, a thousand unspoken words seeming to spark between us in the weighted silence.
"I trust your needs are being...attended to?" The roughness of his tone was at odds with the exaggerated politeness of his question.
I swallowed hard, silently cursing the rush of molten heat that flooded my lower belly at the sight of his smoldering gaze and the scorching timbre of that whiskey-rough utterance. This man was dangerous—more dangerous than I'd initially given him credit for. Because the dark, forbidden yearning that blossomed with every heated look spelled a different kind of undoing than anything in my meticulously crafted plans could have foretold.