Sasha & Andriena #1 (Lovers & Sinners) Read online

  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.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  1 Andriena

  2 Sasha

  3 Andriena

  4 Andriena

  5 Sasha

  6 Andriena

  7 Andriena

  8 Sasha

  9 Andriena

  A Special Note from the Author

  Sample of My Masters’ Nightmare

  More Books by the Author

  About the Author

  I would like to say a big thank you to my beta reading team:

  Menna Mohamed

  Noara Rahman

  Your help is greatly appreciated.

  1

  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 o
nto 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.”

  “You should know not to ask for privileges,” he barked, his hard voice not matching his young features.

  The injured man started mumbling again. His arms were wrapped tightly around his chest, while his shoulders were hunched forward, his shaking having amplified. Andriena wondered whether he was in shock, because, although it was cold in the room, it was bearable. But then again, she’d grown accustomed to the temperature.

  She returned her attention to the guard, willing to risk punishment for the injured man. “Your predecessor told me I now have privileges, which means I can’t be punished for talking,” she bluffed. “I’ve also been told I must nurse this man. Therefore, I need you to get him a blanket.”

  “He doesn’t need a blanket,” the guard replied. “All he needs is your body heat.”

  Forcing herself not to yell at the stingy bastard, she turned back to the injured man. “I need to warm you up with my body. There won’t be anything sexual about it; it’s purely a necessity. Will you give me permission to do so?”

  He nodded, his teeth chattering badly.

  Feeling self-conscious, she lay down on the bed and placed an arm over his body, encouraging him to press up against her. Still shivering, he did as instructed, laying his head against her breasts, almost making her pull away. But she remained still, again, knowing it wasn’t sexual in nature.

  “Spasibo,” he said.

  After a few minutes, his shivering started to subside, then it stopped completely, the man falling asleep in her arms. Over the next few hours she lay awake, listening to him mumble in his sleep. She wished she understood Russian, curious about what h
e was saying. She assumed he’d worked for the Black Russian, since the previous guard had called him a traitor. She wondered whether he’d been a guard too. Although his face was too injured to tell whether he was attractive, his body was incredible—muscular and perfectly proportioned. Maybe he’d tried to help someone escape and had gotten caught red-handed. Unlike the cruel bastards who guarded her, he probably had a conscience, one that wouldn’t allow him to torture and torment his captives. It made her want to protect him from the others, or at the very least to nurse him back to health, especially since she couldn’t even protect herself. But that was because she’d grown used to being babied. After she’d sustained a serious brain injury at the age of thirteen, people started treating her like a simple-minded child who couldn’t do anything for herself. Even after eighteen years, they still couldn’t resist babying her, making her sometimes feel like she was thirteen rather than thirty-one.

  She laid her arm over the injured man again and closed her eyes, wondering what was to become of them.

  2

  SASHA

  His mother slipped an arm around Sasha. “Snuggle up to me, baby boy,” she said, making him feel protected, loved, happy.

  He moved closer, leaning his head against her shoulder, giggling as she gave him a little tickle under his arm. He was kitted out in his Batman pajamas, which his nanny had given him for his seventh birthday, while his mother was wearing a silk dressing-gown, night-time having fallen hours ago.

  She placed a soft kiss on his head, murmuring, “I missed my snuggles with you, Sasha.” She’d returned earlier that day with her new husband, who was sitting two seats away, watching their wedding tape. On screen, his mother was pushing cake into his stepfather’s face, laughing as she did it.

  “You look beautiful, Mama,” Sasha said, focusing on the screen. “Like Cinderella.” And she did. Her tiara matched her sparkly white gown, while her blonde hair was piled high on her head.

  She gave him a gentle squeeze. “You always say the nicest things, baby boy.”