Chapter Eleven
Nina's POV
I was dying.
The ocean just took.
My lungs screamed for air that wouldn't come. I tried to kick, but my legs had turned to dead weight, useless appendages dragging me deeper into the blue-black void.
My arms moved in slow motion, pushing weakly against water that felt thick as concrete.
This is it, I thought. This is how I die.
Not in a red room full of chains. Not at the hands of whatever enemies wanted to collect on my father's debts. But here, alone in the Atlantic, my body becomes just another piece of flotsam for the tide to claim.
I saw my mother's face.
Not the waxy, wrong version in the casket. The real one. The way she looked in our kitchen on Saturday mornings, flour dusting her cheek as she laughed at her own jokes. Her eyes are bright and warm, crinkling at the corners. Her hands covered in dough, reaching for me.
Mija, she mouthed under the water.
I tried to answer. Salt rushed in, burning, choking.
The darkness folded over me like a blanket.
Then something grabbed me from behind.
Rough hands. Big hands. One arm hooked under my ribs with bruising force, the other clamped across my chest, pinning my arms to my sides. My body jerked violently as I was yanked upward through the water.
I couldn't tell which way was up. Couldn't tell if the hands pulling me were rescue or just another kind of drowning.
The water changed color black to navy to a blinding, painful white.
Then air.
Air hit my face like a physical blow. I tried to gasp but nothing worked. My lungs were full of ocean and razors and death.
"Breathe," a harsh voice commanded beside my ear. "Breathe, damn it."
I couldn't. My chest wouldn't expand. My throat wouldn't open.
The world spun ,water, sky, sand, all mixed together in a nauseating blur. Then there was something solid under my back. Hot and gritty. Sand.
A heavy weight pressed down on my chest, released, pressed again. Counting. "One, two, three, four, five…"
Hand pinched my nose shut. A mouth sealed over mine firm, demanding and blew hard.
My body convulsed. Water erupted from my throat in a violent rush, spilling down my chin, my neck, soaking into the sand beneath me. I rolled onto my side, retching, coughing so hard I thought my ribs would crack.
"Good," the voice said, rough with something that might have been a relief. "That's it. Get it out."
A different hand gentler supported the back of my neck, holding my head steady as my body purged itself of seawater.
I coughed until there was nothing left. Until my throat was raw and my chest felt like it had been beaten with hammers. Until I could finally drag in a full breath that didn't immediately come back up.
The air burned going down, but God, it was air.
My vision cleared in fragments. Sky first painfully blue came to view Then sand, white and glittering and then a face.
Nikolai.
He knelt beside me in the sand, chest heaving, dark hair plastered to his skull in wet ropes. Water dripped from his beard onto my cheek warm drops that felt wrong against my frozen skin. His tattoos looked darker when wet, the ink seeming to move under slick skin.
But his eyes.
His eyes were wild. Frantic in a way that made my still-drowning brain stumble.
"You crazy little idiot," he growled, and his voice shook. Actually, I was shaking. "What the hell were you thinking?"
I tried to speak but only managed a weak, pathetic croak. My lungs still felt full of broken glass. Every breath rattled.
Somewhere behind him I heard shouting—boots pounding over wooden planks, multiple voices yelling in Italian and Spanish and English all at once. Nana's voice rose above them all, a wail of distress that made guilt twist in my waterlogged stomach.
Two more shadows fell across me, blocking out the sun.
Enzo dropped to his knees on my other side, shirt half-buttoned and askew like he'd thrown it on while running. His hair stuck up in every direction. His eyes raked over me with an intensity that felt physical.
Dante stood above us all, phone already pressed to his ear, barking orders in rapid Italian. But his free hand clenched and unclenched at his side, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.
"Is she breathing?" Dante snapped into the phone, then corrected himself. "Yes, she's breathing. Barely. Get the medic here. Now."
"I've got her," Nikolai said, his hand still supporting my neck. "She's breathing."
A towel appeared from nowhere soft, warm from sitting in the sun. Strong hands wrapped it around my shaking shoulders, tucking it tight against my frozen skin. I didn't know whose hands. They all felt too big, too sure.
"I…" My voice came out as barely a whisper. "I almost…"
"Drowned," Enzo finished, his voice flat and hard and wrong. "Yeah, princess. We noticed."
I stared up at the sky. It hurt to look at the too bright, too beautiful, too much after the darkness of the ocean floor. My whole body trembled violently now that the adrenaline was fading, leaving only bone-deep cold and the crushing weight of what I'd almost done.
"I saw boats," I whispered. My teeth started to chatter so hard I could barely form words. "Thought… thought I could reach them."
Dante swore a long, vicious string of Italian that needed no translation.
"Cazzo," he spat, then switched to English. "Get her inside. Now. Before anyone sees."
Nikolai slid his arms under me and one beneath my knees, one behind my shoulders and lifted me off the sand like I weighed nothing at all. The motion made my head spin, made my stomach lurch. I clutched at his wet shirt on instinct, fingers twisting into the fabric, holding on because I couldn't do anything else.
"Easy," he muttered, his voice rough against the top of my head. "I've got you. You're not going anywhere."
That's the problem, I wanted to say. I'm not going anywhere. Ever.
But I didn't have the breath for it. Didn't have the strength.
I let my head fall against his chest.
His heart hammered against my earhard, fast, frantic. Like he'd been the one drowning.
The walk back to the house blurred together. Nikolai's arms are tight around me. Enzo walking beside us, one hand hovering near my ankle like he needed to touch me, to confirm I was real. Dante ahead of us, phone still pressed to his ear, clearing the path.
Nana's hand brushed my foot as we passed her. She was crying, crossing herself repeatedly, murmuring prayers in Spanish that I only half understood.
"Lo siento," I tried to say. I'm sorry.
But the words got lost somewhere between my brain and my mouth.
Someone opened the glass doors. Cold air conditioning wrapped around my wet, shivering body like a second drowning. I gasped, and Nikolai's arms tightened.
"Almost there," he said quietly. "Stay with me, kitten."
Kitten. The Russian endearment made something in my chest twist painfully.
We went up stairs too many stairs. Through hallways that smelled like expensive wood and gun oil. Past closed doors that probably hid more secrets I didn't want to know.
"Not my room," I managed to whisper when I saw where we were heading. The door was wrong. Darker wood. Different handle. This wasn't the guest room they'd put me in before.
"Too bad," Enzo said shortly. "Yours is on the other side of the house. This one's closer."
Closer to them, my foggy brain supplied.
The door opened not to a bedroom, but to a suite. Large but masculine. Dark furniture, darker sheets. A massive bed that could easily fit three men. A window overlooking the ocean that had just tried to kill me.
And another door on the far wall, standing ajar, showing a glimpse of a second bedroom beyond.
Connected rooms.
"Put her on the bed," Dante ordered, finally off the phone.
Nikolai laid me down with unexpected gentleness, arranging me on top of the covers like I was something breakable. Something precious.
The irony would have made me laugh if I had the air for it.
The towel stayed wrapped around me, but underneath it my bikini was still plastered to my skin cold, uncomfortable, a reminder of my stupidity. I shivered so hard my teeth clacked together.
Nana bustled in seconds later with an armful of blankets, still muttering prayers and scolding in rapid Spanish. She spread them over me, tucking the corners in with shaking hands.
"Estúpida," she scolded me, but her eyes were wet. "So estúpida. You could have died, mija. You understand? Muerta."
"I know," I whispered. "I'm sorry."
She made a sound between a sob and a scoff, then turned on the men with surprising fierceness.
"She needs dry clothes," she snapped at all three of them without fear. "And hot tea. And soup. And space. You…" she jabbed a finger at Nikolai, "…you are dripping on my clean floor. Out. All of you. Out."
For a moment I thought they might actually argue with her. Dante's jaw clenched. Enzo's hands flexed at his sides. Nikolai looked like he wanted to refuse to leave my bedside.
But Nana was a force of nature in her own right.
"Fuera," she said again, shooing them toward the door. "I will call you when she is decent. Go."
They went.
But not before Nikolai looked back at me one more time, his eyes dark and unreadable.
Then the door closed, and I was alone with Nana.
She worked quickly, efficiently, murmuring in Spanish the whole time. She peeled off the wet bikini with professional detachment, dried my skin with warm towels, then dressed me in the softest t-shirt I'd ever felt oversized, smelling of cedar and smoke and something distinctly masculine.
Enzo's, I realized. This is Enzo's shirt.
Heat crept into my frozen cheeks despite everything.
"Better," Nana declared, pulling the blankets back up to my chin. "Now you rest. No more swimming. No more estupideces. Yes?"
"Yes," I whispered.
She pressed a kiss to my forehead exactly like my mother used to do and left.
I lay there in the dimming light, exhausted beyond measure but unable to close my eyes. My body ached everywhere. My throat felt like I'd swallowed broken glass. My lungs burned with each breath.
But worse than the physical pain was the crushing weight of failure.
I'd tried to escape. I'd nearly died trying.
And I was still here. Still trapped. Still theirs.
The door opened.
I didn't turn my head. Didn't have the energy.
"How long was I out?" I asked the ceiling.
"Six hours." Dante's voice. "The medic checked you while you were unconscious. Mild hypothermia. Water in your lungs. Exhaustion. You're lucky to be alive."
"Lucky," I repeated bitterly.
Footsteps approached the bed. Three sets. I finally turned my head.
They'd all changed clothes dry now, put together, but still… wrong somehow. Dante had dark circles under his eyes that hadn't been there this morning. Nikolai's hair was damp from a recent shower, but his eyes still held that wild edge.
Enzo had a red mark along his jaw like he'd scrubbed at it too hard, or punched something.
They looked tired. Strained.
Almost… scared.
"Did anyone else die because of me?" I asked quietly.
Dante's expression didn't change. "No."
"But they could have," Nikolai added, his voice harder now. Cold. Back to the ruthless mob enforcer I'd met that first night. "You set off half our alarm systems. Pulled guards from their posts. If we hadn't noticed you were missing when we did…"
"I would be dead," I finished. My voice came out flat. Empty. "Which was kind of the point."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Enzo moved closer to the bed, his eyes narrowing. "Say that again."
I met his gaze, too tired to be afraid. "If I'd made it to one of those boats, maybe they would have helped me. Called the Coast Guard. The police. Someone." I swallowed hard, my throat still raw. "And if I didn't make it… well. At least I wouldn't still be here."
"Here," Nikolai repeated, his voice dangerously soft. "With us."
"Yes." The word came out as barely a whisper. "With you."
He laughed once, sharp and bitter. "You think drowning is better than staying in a mansion with three men whose job is to keep you alive?"
"You think being sold is better?" The words burst out of me with surprising force, making me cough. When I could breathe again, I continued,
"You think I should be grateful? That I should smile and say thank you for being traded like furniture? Like property? Like I'm not even human?"
Dante stepped closer, his shadow falling across the bed. "You almost died, Nina."
"I almost died at my own choice," I shot back, pushing myself up on trembling elbows despite the way it made my head spin.
"That's more than my mother got. Someone took that from her. And someone took that from me too when they signed that contract."
The room went very, very still.
"You found the contract," Enzo said. Not a question.
"You left it on a desk like a receipt," I said, my voice shaking now with exhaustion and anger and something darker. "Collateral. Asset transfer. Four point seven million dollars. Funny ,no one asked if I wanted to be an asset."
Nikolai's jaw clenched. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
"You think we wanted this?" Enzo asked, his voice quiet. Dangerous. "You think we chose you?"
The words hit like a physical blow. I sucked in a breath that tasted like salt and shame.
"Then why keep me?" I whispered. "Why pull me out of the water? Why not just… let me go?"
For a long moment, no one answered.
Then Dante sighed a sound heavy with something I couldn't name and leaned back against the wall, folding his arms across his chest.
"You want the truth?" he asked.
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"Your father came to our boss six months ago," Dante said, his tone flat. Factual. The voice of someone delivering a business report. "He owed money. Old debts from bad investments. New debts from worse decisions. And he'd made enemies the kind that don't just take your money. The kind that takes your family piece by piece until there's nothing left."
My stomach twisted.
"He needed protection," Dante continued. "He needed to disappear some assets before his creditors could seize them. And he needed… insurance. Leverage. Something to guarantee his cooperation with certain business arrangements."
"Me," I whispered. "I'm the insurance."
"You're the guarantee," Dante corrected. "As long as you're with us, your father stays in line. He cooperates. He doesn't run. He doesn't talk to people he shouldn't talk to." His dark eyes fixed on mine.
"And as long as you're with us, his enemies can't use you as leverage against him."
"That's what you tell yourselves," I said, my voice breaking. "That you're protecting me. But you're just… using me differently than they would."
Silence.
Then Nikolai moved, closing the distance between us in two strides. He sat on the edge of the bed uninvited, too close and his massive hand cupped my face with surprising gentleness.
"Listen to me, kitten," he said, his voice rough but not unkind. "In this world, everyone is using everyone. Your father used you to save his own ass. His enemies would use you to hurt him. We use you to control him. That's how this works. That's how it's always worked."
His thumb brushed my cheekbone, catching a tear I hadn't realized had fallen.
"But here's the difference," he continued, his eyes locked on mine. "His enemies would hurt you. Break you. Send pieces of you back to him in boxes until he gives them what they wanted. Us?" His jaw clenched.
"We keep you alive. We keep you safe. We keep you whole."
"By keeping me in a cage," I whispered.
"By keeping you breathing," he corrected. "There's a difference."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to spit in his face, scratch his eyes out, make him hurt the way I was hurting.
But I was so tired. So impossibly, bone-deep tired.
Enzo sat on the other side of the bed, his weight making the mattress dip.
"New rules," he said quietly. "From now on, one of us sleeps in the room next to yours. That door…" he gestured to the connecting door, " …stays unlocked. Always. If there's another attack, you go to the panic room and you stay there until we come get you."
"I don't want to do that " I started.
"We don't care what you want," Dante cut in, his voice like iron. "We care that you're alive the next time someone tries to collect what they think they're owed."
"You can't just owe me ! I'm not a pet"
"We can," Dante said. "And we did."
Anger flared hot in my chest, giving me a second wind. I opened my mouth to tell them exactly where they could shove their rules down their tattooed ass.
But my body betrayed me. A coughing fit seized my lungs, violent and painful, making the room tilt sideways. I couldn't breathe again, couldn't think, could only hack and wheeze while my chest felt like it was being torn apart.
Enzo was there instantly, pressing a glass of water into my shaking hand, his other hand steadying it when my fingers couldn't hold on.
"Slow," he murmured, his voice different now. Softer. Almost… tender. "Small sips, princess. That's it."
I hated that I listened. Hated that the water felt like salvation sliding down my raw throat. Hated that his hand was warm and steady and exactly what I needed.
When I finished, he took the glass and set it on the nightstand. But his hand lingered near mine on the blanket, his fingers close enough that I could feel the heat of his skin.
"You scared the hell out of us," he admitted quietly, so quiet I almost didn't hear. "Out of me."
I stared at him, my brain too foggy to process what I was hearing. Enzo cold, controlled, dangerous Enzo admitting to fear.
"Good," I whispered. "Now you know how it feels."
Our eyes locked. Something passed between us, thick and hot and complicated, sharper than anger, deeper than fear. Something I didn't have a name for and didn't want to examine.
Dante's sharp exhale broke the moment.
"You need rest," he said, all business again. "Your lungs took in too much water. Your body temperature dropped dangerously low. You won't be trying any more heroics for a while."
"You can't watch me forever," I said, but even to my own ears it sounded weak. Defeated.
Nikolai's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Watch us, kitten. You'll be surprised what we can do."
I sank back into the pillows, exhausted beyond exhaustion. The blankets were heavy over my legs. The shirt, Enzo's shirt smelled like safety and captivity all at once.
"Why didn't you let me drown?" I asked, so quietly I wasn't sure they'd hear.
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Enzo leaned closer, his voice dropping to that dangerous, intimate register that made my skin prickle.
"Because you're ours," he said simply. "And we take care of what belongs to us."
The words should have made my skin crawl. Should have made me want to fight, to scream, to try drowning all over again.
Instead, something inside me twisted tight and hot and terrifyingly close to relief.
I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to see their faces. So they wouldn't see whatever was written on mine.
"Get out," I whispered. "Please."
There was a pause long enough that I thought they might refuse.
Then footsteps. The creak of floorboards as weight shifted. The rustle of fabric.
The door opened.
Before it closed, I heard Dante's voice low, cold, final.
"She'll still serve punishment when she's recovered."
The door clicked shut.
I lay there in the gathering darkness, my body aching, my lungs burning, my mind spinning.
Because you're ours.
The words echoed in my head, refusing to leave.
I should have drowned.
At least then, I wouldn't have to figure out why some small, traitorous part was glad they'd pulled me from the water.
I closed my eyes and sighed
"Thank goodness the old Nana didn't get into trouble and I wonder what kind of punishment they are going to give me "