After snorting a chuckle, I bit my lip at the tingling between my thighs. I’d never had my needs met—except with my hands and a couple of times with a vibrator—so I was never really that horny or craving something specific because I didn’t even know what to crave. But right now I was very aroused. It was probably the rush of the speed or the not so fleeting memory of—
My phone chimed. It was probably Papa. I hoped it wasn’t a patient problem at the institution. That could mean a cancelation of my well-earned vacation.
I dug my hand in the purse, searching for the elusive phone. Why did nothing in your purse ever appear when you needed it?
“C’mon. I have a sun to race, and I can’t slow down. Come out, come out wherever you—”
Bam! Dun!
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my GOD!”Screeeeech!
Did I just hit someone? How did I hit someone? There was no one of the road.
With a gulp, I bolted out of the car and went to check the front. “Please be a donkey. Please be a fucking donkey.” Heart in my feet, I stared at the front bumper. “Jesus Christ.” There was blood on it, but I didn’t see anyone or anything in the proximity. “Hello?”
I scampered to the back, praying it was just a road kill.Please, God, I can’t have another person’s blood on my hands.“Hello?” Tears pricked my eyes as I scoured the back. There was no one there, too.
That didn’t make any sense. Where did the blood come from then?
Click!Something cold hit the back of my skull, and I recognized it immediately. It wasn’t the first time someone held a gun to my head.
Of all the times I’d imagined and prayed for my death, it’d never crossed my mind it’d be over a robbery.
Why now? Today was the first day in five long years that I’d sincerely looked forward to the future. Just when I’d begun to hope again and not feel like a total failure…
“You fucking coward. At least face me if you’re going to kill me.” My throat was raw as I rasped out my final words in Italian. Their provocative nature wasn’t out of courage but anger and frustration.
“I’m sorry,” a female said in Italian with an American accent. “I’m not going to kill you. Just get in the backseat please and no one is going to hurt you.”
A polite thief. Okay. That was better than a murderer. But why would she take me with her? This didn’t seem like a robbery at all. “Am I a hostage?” I asked in English.
She didn’t respond right away. “Would you rather I left you here in the middle of nowhere?”
I didn’t know what compelled this woman to rob a car, but she was no criminal. No felonious person would say please or be concerned about the safety of a woman left on an empty road at dawn.
Perhaps I could work with that. “You know, I don’t care about the car. I can give you some cash, too. If you just tell me what happened to you, I’m sure I can help.”
She pressed the muzzle harder to my head. “Just get in the fucking car.”
Raising my hands in surrender, I tilted slowly toward the backseat door. I heard her step behind me, and her hand was faster than mine to open the car.
I noticed the drops of blood on the asphalt. She must have been hurt. “I’m a doctor. I can tend to your wound.”
“I’m fine. It’s him who needs help.”
A gasp escaped me as my eyes fell on the man sitting in my backseat. His bloody, black and blue face stared at me, and I gasped again, but before I could say anything, a sharp pain exploded against my head before I fell into the dark fog stealing my consciousness away.
CHAPTER 7
Ravenna
“What was I supposed to do? Leave her to be kidnapped and raped or shoot her? I’m not you!”
The yelling and the pain splitting my head in half forced my eyes open. It took me a moment to realize what was happening. Then I bolted upright, my hip screaming, panic surging through me, when it all came back to me.
“Besides, there’s so much I can do to keep you alive. She’s a doctor. You need her help.”
More pain seared my body, this time around my wrist. I stared at it to find I was cuffed to a pillar. “What the hell?” I yanked hard at the short chains, achieving nothing but making an irritating noise. “You can’t do this. Get me out of those restraints right now!”
