AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know.” He picked up his fork, flipped it back and forth in his fingers as he considered, then stabbed a penne noodle. Rachel watched him closely and Ben almost laughed. What the hell did they expect? That something in the food would instantly kill them? They were needed alive, or he had a feeling they’d be dead already.
“Go ahead, eat.”
Rachel took a careful bite, only to lay her fork back on the table when Ben heard the door open once more. Muscles tense, he darted his gaze to the image in the window, expecting Alrigo, or Nino, only to see it was Eva who’d returned. His shoulders remained rigid as she approached, but then she set a capped bottle of water in front of each of them, and next to Ben's hand, she laid a cloth covered square.
“For your mouth.”
Her soft-spoken words in accented English caught him off guard. His fingers felt a telltale chill through the cloth, and Ben wondered at the considerate gesture. Her brown eyes revealed nothing before she retreated.
Once again, he resisted turning to watch her leave and instead broke the seal on his bottle of water. The carbonation made him frown, but he’d take it since the wine was not an option in his exhausted state. Other than hoping to steal a few hours of sleep through the night, he needed to stay as alert as possible.
Rachel picked up her fork and started eating again, and Ben did the same. The pasta was divine and under any other circumstances, he would've enjoyed the meal. Right now, he ate as a necessity to keep up his strength. Come morning, he might have two sisters to get out of this mess. His foot resumed its rapid bounce under the table.
“She seems nice.”
Ben frowned at Rachel’s statement. “For someone holding us hostage? Sure. She’s wonderful.”
“I just meant...oh, hell, I don’t know.” She picked at her food and mumbled, “Forget it.”
He blew out a breath frustrated breath, fisted his hand around his fork, and reached out his free hand to cover her fingers squeezing the bottle of water.
“I know what you meant. I'm sorry, you're right.” He met her gaze and gave her hand a squeeze. “We’re going to get through this. Okay? We’re all going to be okay.”
Rachel nodded, but her slight hesitation and hard swallow told him she was as worried as he was. Unsure of what else to say, he withdrew his hand from across the table and lifted his fork for another bite of pasta.
After they’d finished eating, he couldn't stop thinking of the dark-haired woman. She had seemed different from the others. And he didn’t think it was just because she was a woman in a house full of men. She’d showed a hint of kindness with the ice pack. As he held the cold compress to his swollen lip with one hand and ripped the label from his water bottle into tiny little bits with the other, he wondered...
Did Eva have her own agenda, or could they have a potential ally?
Chapter 8
Trent pulled over two blocks from the camera store and locked the new battery into place on Halli’s camera. His free hand shook slightly, but he gave it a couple hard shakes, fisted his fingers, took a deep breath, and thumbed the Play button.
A blue screen popped u
p, and he hit the rewind. After a full minute of nothing but some weird angle that looked like an upside down shot of Halli’s black-clad thigh and a stone wall, he stopped the video and used the fast rewind. When he played it again, the screen popped up with a shot of two people walking out of the Malpensa Airport in Milan, lugging suitcases, duffle bags slung over their shoulders.
Neither of them looked much like Halli, but he figured it was a safe assumption they were her brother and sister. Curiosity kept him from hitting fast-forward right away. At first glance, the sister—Rachel, he remembered—was the obvious beauty of the two. Blonde, tall and willowy. Her brother, Ben, was a good-looking sort, also tall and blond. Halli was the odd one out with her auburn hair and short stature.
As Trent watched, Rachel frowned, raised her hand, and told Halli to shut off the camera. She made no effort to hide her annoyance, and Halli shot back a response from off-screen.
“No way. You guys may have talked me into throwing away my itinerary, but after saving six months for this camera, I’m using it every chance I get. Deal with it.”
Rachel flipped her off. Ben, a wide grin on his face, quickly grabbed her hand to pull it out of sight of the camera. Definitely siblings. A smile tugged at the sister’s lips and Trent heard Halli’s laugh as the film continued to roll.
Wow. He’d been right about her laugh. Natural and carefree, it was like music to Trent’s ears after the day they’d endured. He watched the video for a few more minutes, stealing a glimpse of her ordinary world. Their lighthearted banter started an ache in his chest; made him think of Sean on his good days. The dull pain intensified when when Ben turned the camera on Halli and she made faces at her sister.
Trent’s chest tightened. She’d been having fun at the beginning of her vacation. The trip of a lifetime.
Then she’d met him.
He shook off a twinge of guilt. Her involvement was not his fault. From the moment he’d seen the danger she was in, he’d only done whatever he felt necessary to keep her safe. That had to count for something, even if she didn’t put much stock in his motives.
Annoyed with his current line of thinking, he quickly hit the fast forward again. Good God, the woman had filmed everything. No wonder her battery had been dead by the time he showed up. Every so often he’d thumb the play button and watch, mostly when her brother commandeered filming rights and Halli appeared on screen.
How in the world had he ever thought her plain? Not with those eyes. Even when tempered by fear, or flashing in anger, and most especially on this film when sparkling with laughter, those blue eyes of hers were amazing. Unguarded, her face conveyed a myriad of expressions that increased her attractiveness ten-fold. And the body revealed under her baggy clothes—
Movement on the screen snagged his attention back where it belonged and finally, he recognized the part he’d been waiting for. His grip on the camera tightened. Swans swam on the lake in front of the villa in Lenno, and the lens zoomed in on them until they filled the viewfinder. In the background he heard Rachel complaining about Halli’s subjects.
