Page 35 of The Bond

Enzo placed his strong hands on my back, the weight of his touch grounding me and making me feel safe. He leaned in closer, kissing up and down my neck, the heat of his mouth tempting me like nothing else. I sighed against him, loving the sensation of his lips kissing a trail along my throat.

But then my phone beeped, interrupting us. I pulled back to check. A message from Mom letting me know she was making her way to the restaurant. That was my cue to head out.

Enzo walked me outside to the car, helping open the door to the backseat before my chauffeur could do it.

I smiled at him through the slightly open window. “Love you,” I said.

He placed the gentlest kiss to my lips. “Love you back. Call me when you get there.”

“Definitely,” I said.

Enzo responded by taking my hand to kiss it and then, the driver revved the engine. We drove off, Enzo standing out in front of the townhouse until we turned the corner.

I wound up my window so the air conditioning would cool me down. Leaning back, I watched as New York’s bright lights whizzed by in a blur of white and orange lights. I really wished I could have gone with Enzo. Whenever I was away from him, even for a short amount of time, I craved his company. He truly was my other half now.

Leaning back in the leather seats, I asked the driver if he could turn down the temperature of the air conditioning. The hot air from outside was still circulating and I could do with a blast of cold.

Up front, the driver adjusted his rearview mirror to look at me. “You’re not going to need air conditioning where we’re going.”

My entire body tensed up. His words sounded so sinister, but I couldn’t be sure that I’d heard right. “What did you say?”

In response, he flicked something and I heard all the door locks click at the same time.

“What are you—”

I reached for the lock of the passenger door in a foolish, dangerous effort to test if it would open. We were moving at what must have been sixty miles an hour, but I was so uneasy that I was willing to check if I could escape. I couldn’t. The door was locked and nothing I did got it to open. Whatever he’d done, he was now in control of the car’s central lock system.

“Sit tight, Valentina,” my driver ordered.

Terror seized me. My stomach lurched and I was sure that I was going to throw up. Even though on some level I understood the danger I was suddenly in, my mind wasn’t registering it. Nothing that was happening felt real. It was like a bad dream. A total nightmare that I couldn’t shake myself from.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“You’re not going to have your night on the town tonight,” he said, his voice cold and threatening.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded shrilly. “Let me out. Let me out or I’ll scream.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He pulled up to a dimly lit alley, shadows everywhere and not a person in sight.

Without warning, he turned to face me, pointing a gun right at me. “Hand over your bag. No sudden movements.”

I saw a dark warning flicker through his gray eyes, his face half cast in shadow, the other half cast in sickly yellow light. I’d been surrounded by gangsters and killers all my life. None of them had ever frightened me as much as my driver did now.

The darkness in his eyes turned to flames of pure hatred. A loathing that hardened the harsh planes of his face so much that it seemed completely overtaken by shadow now. I had never noticed how young he seemed—barely older than I was. How could someone so young be so full of so much hate?

Dave. I recalled his first name then but his last name eluded me. I just couldn’t think straight.

“My bag...” I let out several rasping breaths, trying to regain some kind of composure.

My cell phone was in my bag. Something that we both knew because where else would I put my phone? Seeing no other choice, I removed the gold strap from around my shoulder and I handed the bag over to him with shaking hands.

He kept his gun trained on me as he used his free hand to stash my small bag in a compartment up front.

It had taken me a long time to fully grasp what was happening, and finally, my brain caught up with my terrified body. My driver was our hitman. The one who had been terrorizing us all this time. I couldn’t believe that I had missed it. I hadn’t been able to connect the dots sooner, but now that he was pointing a weapon at me, everything seemed to fall into place.

My chauffeur had access to everything. To Enzo’s apartment, to our schedules, to the phone calls we made in the car, acting like he was too invisible to matter. I had made all sorts of calls in the car. Countless calls in his presence that must have let him know where I was going, who else would be present, what I planned on doing there. He could have easily accessed the caterer’s office and would have been able to get into my townhouse to make deliveries of wedding gifts, including that threatening note along with the giftwrapped bullet. Not to mention the fact that he had access to the church on our wedding day. Domestic staff always had access to locations to make our lives easier. So much so, that at times it was easy for them to blend in with the furniture or the appliances. Easy for us to forget that they were there, always watching. Always listening.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.