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Chiara
My harsh breathing echoes off the walls and the air feels heavy and damp. Water is dripping, and there’s broken concrete beneath my bare feet. All other sound is muted. Like a coffin. Like a crypt. I strain for the sound of traffic, voices, music. Anything.
Alone.
I’m so alone.
The last thing I remember is Acid pressing a cloth over my mouth and struggling with Thane. I lift my head and stare around me. There’s a thin shaft of daylight from a vent high in the wall, but most of the room is in darkness. The ghosts of four murdered women cluster around me, and I can feel their sorrow and hear the echoes of their screams. There are ropes around my arms, waist, and legs, intricately crisscrossing my body, like whoever did this took their time, their heart full of sadistic delight.
Lorenzo described this place as he sat, hollow-eyed, over a glass of vodka. An underground room, their sisters all alone and tied to chairs.
Then a killer entered and ripped them apart.
There’s a sharp pain in my heart. Acid is probably recording me right now, and when this is all over, he’ll deliver the video to my men. A sob rises in my throat as I picture Lorenzo in front of his laptop with a pen in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. Shoulders slumped. Defeated. A gun lays on the table nearby, tempting him.
“No,” I moan, yanking my body this way and that, trying to loosen the ropes.
How could Acid look Lorenzo in the eye day after day, week after week, year after year after what he did? There was always something crafty about Acid, but I assumed he had to be that way to survive in one of the roughest parts of Coldlake. All this time he’s been concealing a psychotic hatred of the men he takes orders from.
I twist my wrists, but I’m bound so tightly I can barely move. My only hope of getting out of here is that one of Lorenzo’s guards survived Acid and Thane’s attack and recognized my kidnappers. They’ll be able to tell my men who took me, which will give them a place to start looking.
But where are my men? They all disappeared in the middle of the night without telling me, and the only clue I have is Cassius’ cryptic text,I’m in position. That sounds like they were watching something, or about to attack someone. The Black Orchid Killer? My father?
Whatever happened next, something went wrong. Every single one of Lorenzo’s men turned pale as they received a text that read,Orchid Protocol. I have no idea what Orchid Protocol is, but the guards did. It was a signal to take me from Lorenzo’s home to a different location. The safest place for me in Coldlake was Lorenzo’s own fortress-like house, with its high walls, armed guards, and security cameras. I don’t understand why they needed to get me out of there.
Lorenzo, where are you?
Are you still alive?
Is Nicole alive?
Why did she answer the phone when I called you?
If that even was Nicole. Whoever it was, she was whispering and slurring her words. A girl who was drugged and afraid, and she was trying to warn me about something.
It’s a trap.
Dead.
And then…Blond.Scary.
The blond, scary man is dead.
Or was itDad?
Could it be that her father was leading my boyfriends into a trap? Other than disliking my men, Mr. De Luca has no reason to personally go after them. Or was the woman on the phone referring tomydad? That makes more sense. Dad absolutely wants the Coldlake Syndicate destroyed.
And I’m stuck in a basement, tied to a chair while God knows what happens out there to my men.
“I’m going to kill you, Acid,” I seethe.
A deep chuckle emanates from the darkness, and all the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
I lift my chin and stare around the room. “Is that you? Where are you?”
A figure steps forward into the light, dragging a chair with him. He straddles the seat, one muscular, tattooed forearm resting along the back of the chair. When he smiles, his emerald eyes glimmer.
