Sasha & Andriena #1 (Lovers & Sinners)
Read Sasha & Andriena #1 (Lovers & Sinners) Online
Authors: Marita A. Hansen
SASHA
& ANDRIENA
#1
Copyright
Sasha
& Andriena
#1
(Lovers &
Sinners #1)
Kindle Edition
Copyright 2015 ©
Marita A. Hansen
Cover Design © Marita
A. Hansen
Cover
Photography by Miljko
and sourced from
www.istockphoto.com
All rights reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means whatsoever without the written permission of the
author, nor circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. For
subsidiary rights inquiries email: [email protected]
All characters, names, places, and
incidents in this book are either the product of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or real
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
I
would like to say a big thank you to my beta reading team:
Menna
Mohamed
Noara Rahman
Your help is greatly
appreciated.
ANDRIENA
Andriena woke up to
the sound of a tray being slid into her cell. She opened her eyes, feeling sore
and stiff, her captor giving her nothing but a floor to sleep on and enough
food and liquid to survive.
As usual, the lights
were on, the guard not allowing her to hide in darkness, which she would give
anything to do. She’d been stripped naked the day she was forcibly carried into
the Black Palace, stealing her clothes as well as her dignity, the place a
living hell.
Ignoring her aching
body and head, she crawled over to the food on her hands and knees, aware the
guard was watching her. The beautiful man was sitting at a control panel, which
was situated behind a large window that looked into her concrete cell. He was
wearing a black uniform, with a fury military hat on his head, denoting his
Russian heritage. Her uncle had sold her to a powerful mobster called the Black
Russian after she’d stabbed his twin. She wasn’t normally violent, but he’d
tried to sexually assault a lover of hers, a man she would’ve done anything
for. Now Alessandro was safely back at home while she was languishing in a
cell. For a while, she’d held out hope that he’d rescue her, had even fantasized
ways he could break her out, but eventually came to the conclusion he couldn’t
...
or didn’t want to
.
Feeling despondent, she
bent her head to eat the strange cereal out of the white ceramic bowl. It tasted
like someone had mulched together wheat and grass, reminding her of what her late
auntie used to feed her goats. If anything, she wouldn’t be surprised if she
was
being fed goat food. The day she’d been thrown into the cell, she’d been told
she was an animal and would be treated as one. And if she dared use her hands to
eat, she would be fed nothing for days, which had happened once before. Even
worse, the guards had taunted her, eating their food on the other side of the window,
showing her what she was missing out on. And even though she hated the pellets,
she preferred to live; because she was sure the cruel bastards would let her starve
to death if she didn’t eat them.
She finished the food
and started lapping up the milk in the bowl. The process was slow and tedious,
but she had to finish everything she was given or, again, she would be
punished.
Once she’d finished the
last drop, she crawled back to her little corner in the cell and pulled her
knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. The air con was at a low
setting, far too cold for her. She jolted as a howl ripped through the air,
coming from one of the other cells. It sounded like a man was pretending to be a
wolf. A chill ran up her spine, and not from the cold. She often heard people
imitate animal sounds. Sometimes they were accompanied by screams, conjuring up
images of savage-looking humans tearing innocent people apart.
Not reacting to the
howls, the guard continued to watch her—studying her, as though she was a lab
rat in a cage. She wondered what the purpose was, because she did nothing but
eat, sleep, and shit, as well as the occasional clean. A few hours ago two
other guards had held her down and scrubbed her body clean, making her feel
like they’d scoured her flesh, the men unnecessarily rough. She had begged them
to stop, but they’d ignored her, their perfect faces emotionless masks.
The door opened again,
another guard probably removing her food tray. She didn’t look at him. She’d given
up on trying to capture the guards’ sympathies. They didn’t treat her like she
was a living, breathing human being, just a thing to be watched and studied. At
times she imagined they were robots. Not only were they heartless, they looked like
they’d been photo-shopped. Visually, they were too perfect to be real, their
young faces flawless. Everything was smooth, symmetrical—beautiful—unreal.
She lay down on her side and closed
her eyes, a sudden exhaustion overcoming her. A moment before she drifted into
unconsciousness, she realized she’d been drugged. But she didn’t care, if
anything she was grateful, unconsciousness her only means of escape.
***
A loud command jolted
Andriena out of her sleep, ricocheting through her head. Keeping her eyes shut,
she rubbed at her temples, willing to give up an arm and a leg just to get rid
of her migraine—something she’d had since being imprisoned. It felt like
someone was using her head as a bongo drum, pounding on it continuously.
Another loud command ripped through her skull, hammering it even harder. She
wanted to tell the guard to shut the hell up, but knew it wasn’t worth the
punishment.
She opened her eyes, wincing
at the bright lights. A second later, it hit her that she was sitting on a bed,
her migraine having distracted her before. Surprised, she looked around the
cell, also finding a picnic table at the foot of the bed, one with attached seats.
On top of it was a bottle of water and a towel, the two items looking like
luxuries to her. Instead of getting excited, it made her think of how far she’d
fallen. Prior to the mafia war, she’d been waited upon by servants and driven
around by a chauffeur, yet here she was thinking a plastic bottle of water and
a threadbare towel were luxuries? It made her want to cry.
A Russian voice
crackled over the intercom: “Put the lingerie on. It’s behind you.”
Andriena turned over,
finding a lacy red and black lingerie set. She grabbed the bra and quickly
pulled it on, along with the panties, grateful to have something to wear, no
matter how little it was. Despite how long she’d been in the cell, she still
hadn’t gotten used to being naked, and especially not in front of men, her
previous experience with the opposite sex not great.
The door opened,
drawing her attention to it. A blond man was shoved into the room, wearing briefs
and a bloodstained muscle shirt. His face was a battlefield of blood, bruising,
and swellings. One of his eyes was completely swollen shut, while the other one
was half-closed. He said something to her in Russian, his voice pleading, but despite
his beaten state, Andriena remained frozen to the bed in fear. Other than the
guards, she hadn’t seen anyone in days, weeks...
Dio
, she had no idea how
long she’d been in the cell, every day feeling like an eternity.
The beaten man said
something else, then fell to his knees, collapsing onto his face.
Andriena scrambled
off the bed and rushed over to him. She rolled him onto his back and placed an
ear to his chest, checking to see if he was still breathing. A heartbeat, slow
but steady, greeted her.
Her gaze moved to the
man’s face, examining his injuries more closely. Along with his injured eyes,
his right cheek was badly swollen, while his lips were puffy and cut. There was
also a trail of dried blood between his nose and upper lip. More blood smeared his
left cheek as well as tainted his blond hair, his face a complete mess. Her attention
drifted down to his muscular arms, which had cuts and scrapes on them, his legs
not much better.
“Put him on the bed,”
the guard barked over the intercom. As usual, he was watching her, his face an
emotionless mask of apathy.
“Who did this to him?”
she blurted out, upset over the man’s beaten state.
“You’ll receive less rations
for your outburst. Raise your voice again and you’ll receive nothing.”
She clamped her mouth
shut, angry with herself for allowing her temper to get the better of her, especially
since the guards didn’t give a shit about what she thought. Though, she’d
probably do the same thing again. She had a bad habit of speaking before
thinking, which often got her into trouble, like the time she’d blurted out
that porn wasn’t evil. Unfortunately, it had been in church.
Returning her
attention to the injured man, she grabbed his wrists and dragged him to the bed.
After a few minutes of pulling and pushing him, she managed to get him up onto
the mattress. Feeling puffed and sore, she crawled across the bed to get the
towel and bottle of water off the table. One of the picnic seats was pushed hard
up against the foot of the bed, allowing her to avoid the floor.
“You have permission
to walk freely around the room now,” the guard’s voice crackled over the
intercom. “You will nurse the traitor back to health.”
Without acknowledging
him, she grabbed the towel and bottle, and headed back to the unconscious man.
She wet the towel and started cleaning the blood and dirt off his face, wondering
how people could be so cruel.
But maybe the man had
provoked them.
She stopped cleaning
him, now worried he could be a criminal. Had he done something to warrant such brutality?
Her mind went to her Uncle Michael, the relative she’d stabbed in the leg for
trying to molest her lover. He’d deserved what she’d done, if not more, the priest
a known rapist.
She looked back down
at the unconscious man, again, wondering what he’d done to deserve his beating.
A flicker of movement behind the glass caught her attention. The guard was
sitting down to eat. She wished she could ask him about why the man was in her
cell, but knew he wouldn’t reply, other than to reprimand her for talking.
Frustrated, she
forced the thoughts out of her head and resumed cleaning the injured man,
knowing she couldn’t do anything even if he turned out to be a serial killer.
Her face dropped.
No!
He wasn’t a serial killer. She just needed to shut
down her paranoia, not to mention her wild imagination. For all she knew, he was
just like her—in here for trying to protect a loved one.
Sì
, he’s like me.
She quickly finished
cleaning him and returned the bottle and towel to the table, then went to her
corner in the room. Keeping her eyes on the man, she sat down and wrapped her arms
around her legs, leaning the back of her head against the wall. The same
thoughts crept back into her mind, making her not want to close her eyes,
paranoia once again creeping into her mind, fucking with her head. She was
basically a sitting duck, her ability to defend herself practically
non-existent. The females in her family weren’t taught how to fight, they were
just expected to bat their eyelashes and look pretty. Plus, they had soldiers
to protect them... or
had
soldiers, her family crumbling as a result of
the mafia war.
A deep sorrow welled up inside her
chest, almost choking her, the disintegration of her family still weighing
heavily on her mind. So many deaths—her father, her oldest brother, one of her
sisters... She wondered whether any more of her family had perished in the war.
She looked back at the injured man, also wondering whether she would soon be
following them into the afterlife.
***
A Russian voice pierced
Andriena’s dream, making her jerk awake. She opened her eyes, realizing she’d
fallen asleep without intending to. The same male voice spoke again. Andriena
looked up at the window, expecting to find one of the guards commanding her to
do something, but he wasn’t paying her any attention, his gaze locked onto a
computer screen.
She shifted her focus
to the man on the bed, realizing the voice belonged to him. He was facing away
from her, shivering and mumbling in Russian, sounding like he was having a bad
dream.
She pushed up off the
cold concrete floor and went to him, stopping a few feet away, still wary. “Are
you all right?”
He continued to
mumble, repeating, “
Vody
.”
“What’s
vody
?”
He turned over and
looked up at her with his less injured eye. “Water,” he croaked out, his
W
sounding
like a
V
.
Grabbing the bottle
off the table, she sat down next to him and removed the cap, slowing pouring the
water into his mouth, thinking her earlier thoughts were ridiculous. He could
barely move, let alone hurt her, the man needing her help, not her fear.
Some water spilled
down the side of his face. She wiped it up with the towel, feeling a deep
sadness for him, the man’s expression full of pain. He didn’t look like a
psychopath; he looked like a tormented soul.
He croaked out, “
Spasibo
,”
which she knew meant
thank you
, one of the few Russian words in her
vocabulary.
“
Prego
,” she replied,
then corrected herself, saying, “You’re welcome,” the man probably not knowing
Italian. She was Sicilian, her olive skin much darker than his paler Slavic
complexion.
He continued to
shiver. “So cold,” he said, his teeth chattering.
Andriena shifted her
attention to the window. A different guard was on duty. He was no less
beautiful than his predecessor, just with a slimmer build and younger features,
giving him the appearance of a teenager. It just made the whole situation seem even
more surreal. Because teenagers didn’t watch over imprisoned people or stare
with an empty expression, as though their youth had been sucked out of them; they
complained about their parents, mooned over their crushes, partied and had fun.
Regardless, she called
out to him, hoping he’d be more understanding than his predecessor. “Can I
please have a blanket for the injured man? He’s freezing.”