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The impact of another car hitting us came again, this time making the limo lurch and then fishtail. The tacos I’d so happily eaten earlier tried to make a comeback, and I fought my gag reflex, trying to keep the contents of my stomach down.
But not throwing up was the least of my problems.
I barely remembered the rest of the roller-coaster ride in the limo. It was scary, the long car hitting and being hit by other cars left and right. The three of us were tossed all over the place, while the noises outside only grew more terrifying. Horns honking, metal crushing, and then there was the gunfire. It came from every direction, but luckily, the limo was bulletproof.
The last thing I remembered, before the world went dark, was Ciana screaming and rambling. Then Nova was wrapping her little body around mine, cushioning it to protect the baby and me from the impact as the limo collided with a tank.
Cali
Consciousness slowly came back to me a little at a time. I could tell I was on a plane because of the rumble of the engines and that weird feeling in the pit of my stomach I got every time I was in the air. I hated that feeling. Heights weren’t my thing, and flying always made me nervous.
But that fear was short-lived when I heard his angry bellow.
“O’Brion tried to pull a fast one on me, but that fucking bitch won’t get what she wanted. I took Vitucci’s little doll. She might have gotten the redhead, but everyone knows it’s the blonde who matters.”
I jerked, knowing the sound of Manuel’s enraged roar anywhere. As I did, my arm muscles protested, and I fought back a whimper as I lifted my lashes and slowly tipped my head back to see that my hands had been restrained above my head.
I was chained to a bar so high over my head that my feet didn’t even touch the floor. My entire body felt oddly numb, telling me I must have been in that hanging position for a while and the blood through my veins had slowed down. From the looks of it, my hands were a weird purplish color, and when I wiggled my fingers, they didn’t even tingle—there was simply no feeling in them at all.
The short distraction of figuring out what was going on with my limbs ended abruptly when I felt a punch directly to my left side from behind. I screamed in a mixture of fear and pain. Apparently not every inch of my body was as numb as I had first assumed.
“Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you, whore?” Manuel snarled, walking around to stand in front of me. I knew better than to answer, but that didn’t stop him from punching me again. This time, the blow landed in the middle of my gut, and I cried out again, now more in fear for my little nugget, although the punch knocked the air straight from my lungs. “How much money I spent in an attempt to find you? And all this time, you were hiding with fucking Vitucci and his little bitch.”
While he ranted and raved like the lunatic he was, I tried not to think about the possibility that my stepbrother could kill the baby in my belly. Not wanting to give away my secret—because the bastard would get off on making me miscarry if he knew—I tried to block him completely from my mind. Instead of looking at him, I glanced around.
Only to find Nova across from me. Her arms were tied above her head just as mine were, her head hanging forward, with her blond hair shielding her face from me. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing, and from how still she appeared, my heart broke. She was dead. She had to be. There was no way she could have survived the accident and then whatever Manuel had done to her.
Tears filled my eyes, one spilling free, just as Manuel cracked something across my head and everything went dark again.
The next time I was able to open my eyes, I nearly screamed. I knew exactly where I was—back in Colombia. But worse than that, I was in Manuel’s torture dungeon. I’d never been inside it, but from the stench of blood, decay, and all-out death, I knew that was exactly where he’d taken me. Not only the smells gave away my location, though. I could see what my stepbrother referred to as his toys hanging on the walls. Saws, pliers, surgical-style instruments that he’d used to make his victims scream so loud the entire mansion could hear them.
As my swollen, blurry eyes shifted around the room, I saw that Nova was across from me again. Her toes barely touched the floor, but her head was still hanging forward, and I couldn’t hear if she was breathing or see her chest moving. Tears leaked from my eyes. My friend was dead, and I didn’t doubt that Manuel had brought her here to torture me with the sight of her lifeless body.
I took stock of my own body. My face throbbed, and I felt something warm and thick oozing from my nose. I was still tied up with my arms above my head, but at least my feet were on the floor, which gave me a little feeling in the lower half of my body. That was how I felt the cramping, and then the wetness between my legs.
Whimpering, I didn’t try to hold back the tears.
This was it. Manuel had finally gotten me where he wanted me. And not only had he killed my best friend—the angel who had saved me from his sadistic ass—but he’d succeeded in hurting my little nugget as well. I could feel the blood trickling out of me, my baby’s life slipping away with each passing minute.
The pain of losing everyone I loved was too much, and I cried out again, not even caring if Manuel heard me. Let him come in and finish what he started. Once I was dead, he’d have what he’d always wanted, and maybe I could find peace with my baby and Nova on the other side.
I wasn’t sure how long I remained like that, moaning and whimpering. My nose eventually stopped bleeding, but the cramps got a little worse as time passed. At one point, I lost control of my full bladder and pissed all over myself. That eased a little of the cramping in my lower abdomen, but not by much. And still, time ticked away, hour after hour passed, turning into days with no signs of life. No footsteps overhead. No roar of gunfire as someone tried to rescue us.
It was time to face facts. No one was coming. I’d die in that dungeon like so many other poor fucks had before me.
Then I suddenly heard the sound of chains rattling, and I snapped my head up to find Nova testing the security of her restraints.
The feeling of loss was too much, and I couldn’t be completely sure I wasn’t hallucinating. But at least I had someone to talk to, even if it was very possible she was dead and I was imagining everything. “I thought you were dead.”
“Where are we?” Nova—or ghost Nova, I wasn’t sure which—asked.
I licked my lips, only to grimace at the taste of blood on them. “Home,” I answered with a shudder. I’d never wanted to return, yet there I was, once again a prisoner in what should have been a safe haven. “Colombia.”
“What?” Nova exclaimed. “How did we get here?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. After Manuel had started beating me, I’d lost consciousness. Which was probably a blessing, considering how bad my body felt. “When I woke up, we were on some cargo plane. Manuel started running his mouth, then to relieve some aggression, he started his favorite pastime—using me as his personal punching bag. Next thing I knew, we were in this stupid room. It’s his favorite place in the house. The torture dungeon, as he likes to call it. I’ve never been a guest, but I’ve heard plenty of people screaming from this room over the years.” I couldn’t control the shudder that racked my body again. The pain was agony. “We’re going to die, Nova.”
At least, I was. She was probably already dead.
