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I drink water straight form the tap, and it tastes like sand, but I am so thirsty I don’t care. The coolness going down my scratchy dry throat is soothing, and I only stop when my stomach revolts against me putting anything it again. I gag but manage too not be sick.
When I am steady on my legs, I walk back into the main part of the space where I am being held captive. Someone has been in here while I was asleep, and that unsettles me slightly. There is a tray on the small table with food and a pitcher juice. My stomach growls, and I am not sure if it is hunger or a warning not to dare try eating.
I need to eat something, I need my strength and senses about me if I am going to find a way to get out of this situation — alive. The chances of that are already not in my favor. I sit down at the small round table and look at the plate set out in front of me. There is some bread and butter with cheese. A small bowl with fruit in it, nothing too heavy. My stomach might not hate me if I have some bread and cheese, I butter one slice and eat it. Slowly, not wanting to end up worse than I started.
When I have kept that small bit down for a while, I have a little more and I almost instantly feel my strength return. The fogginess in my head lifts and I can form full thoughts again, the reality is sinking in and my fight returns.
I start to scream, and shout and call for help — like my life depends on it. Because it does. I bang on the furniture, and holler at the loudest volume I can muster. Thick concrete walls, and ceilings. No one can hear me, and I have to wonder if they can, do they even care?
I drink the juice provided and try again to raise the alarm that I am a hostage, I need help to be freed. No one comes. I hear nothing except the seagulls making a ruckus every time I do. The birds are all I hear. What if he left me here alone? I have eaten all the food, what if I there is no one here to bring me anymore?
My breaths are short and panicked as I think about this. Should I yell, or should I save my energy? Am I alone or is someone here? What do I do? How is this happening to me? Why was I so fucking stupid?
When I can breathe again, I take stock of everything around me, pacing the entire space. I have water because there is a bathroom with a tap, and I have eaten now, so I could go days without more food. Not more than that, I have watched those survival TV shows. There are cameras that cover every inch of the space including the bathroom, and they are on, I watch them tracking my movements and I stare right into the one, wondering if he is watching me.
How long has he been watching me?
I think back to when I started talking to him online, to the conversations and things he said to me. I felt like he knew me, as if he could see into my life. Sal had been watching me, and he knew things he shouldn’t have known. I was too smitten to think about it then. My mind was all on getting away from marrying the Russian, that I didn’t even think about the devil I was hoping would save me. He took advantage of how much I liked the attention. He knew exactly what he was doing — and now what? What does he want from me?
I start to get angry all over again, and I scream, and shout and make as much noise I can. The boat I was on stopped here, there might be others out there, maybe they can hear me. I have to try, I cannot just give up and die down here.
When nothing works, I slump over into a pile of desperate tears, and pray to God my father is looking for me. I know he will pay the ransom, he won’t let this be the end, he will come to find me — won’t he?
I move so I am facing the camera, and I talk to the crazy man that took me.
“Sal, my father will pay you,” I snip past my tears, “just let me go, please.” I am not past begging if it saves my life. When nothing happens for hours, I start to scream in pure frustration again. The door flies open, and Salvatore is glaring at me with vicious angry eyes.
“Lucia, shut the fuck up,” he seethes, “you are making me angry, and if you don’t shut up, I will shut you up. I will gag you so fast, you won’t know it’s done until you can’t breathe.”
“My father will pay you, Salvatore,” I pant out, moving towards him only to have a gun pointed at me. “He will give you whatever you want.”
“I don’t want money,” he says with a straight face, “money cannot bring my twin brother back, so shut the fuck up, Lucia.” This isn’t for the money, and no amount of it will save me form Salvatore, and the anger or grief he is wrestling. “Your noise is grinding on my last nerve, keep going and see what happens.”
He is threatening me, and I back off.
“Sal, please,” I am about to beg him again but he shuts me up with a single look.
“Do not beg, it is beneath you,” he says, “you are here because you made mistakes, and now you have to live with the consequences of your own actions, Lucia. While you are here, everything will have a consequence, so I would think very carefully about your actions.” The gun is still pointed straight at my head, and his finger is on the trigger. This is not a man you toy with.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know about your brother or any of it,” I say lowering my tone, “I am just a girl, I have nothing to do with the business.” He has to know none of that was me. I wasn’t even there. I was on Capri with Laura. My father would never tell me anything about his work, I had no clue about most of it unless I got nosy and looked where I shouldn’t.
“Your family took something from mine, so I have taken something of theirs. I have no use for money, power, or anything else, Lucia. A life for a life — that is how it works. So just be quiet until I decide how I am going to kill you.” There it is, he isn’t lying. Salvatore wants his revenge, and he plans to murder me to get it. But why hasn’t he already killed me? It would have been easier. “Because you will suffer before you die,” he says, reading my mind. He is bitter and twisted with loss and hatred, nothing I can say will change the heart of a man like him.
“I am truly sorry for what my father did.” I am, no one should be killed, there are much better ways to do things, even in their business. It was a petty, impulsive move. “I understand you have to do what you think is right.” I can only hope that he hates me slightly less than he hates them.
“You understand nothing, Lucia,” he snarls, “you’re a spoiled brat, who has never known what it means to work in her life. The real world has never touched you, you have been given everything you ever wanted. Well, that ends now. You are no longer a little princess, Lucia, you are the fucking help. You will shut the fuck up and do what you are told and nothing else.” That trigger finger shakes, and I close my eyes. He’s on a knife edge, and I could die if I blink wrong. I say nothing more, I nod my head and he lowers the gun.
Salvatore stands there and looks me in the eyes, silently staring into my fucking soul. He is looking for something, and I don’t know if I should be wanting him to find it or not. I wonder if any part of him is really the guy I spoke to online — because all I see is a monster.
CHAPTER8
Salvatore
I walked out so I didn’t shoot her, because my finger hovered on that trigger just long enough that I thought about it. I wanted to kill her, to see her die like my brother and his wife did. I couldn’t reconcile the parts of her I knew, the woman who I saw and chatted with on the app, and the spawn of my enemies! She is not just one thing and it’s confusing me. The fact I am still attracted to her, thinking about her inthatway is wrong. This is revenge. I am supposed to take revenge and kill her or make her suffer — something to avenge the death of those I loved.
Her god damn noise woke up the baby and he is back to screaming blue fucking murder again. For a minute when I looked into her eyes, I felt guilty for this, and then it was gone and the need to make her family pay came back even harder than before. There’s a brief moment when I think about her as if she was someone I wanted to date — when we talked, I was attracted to her. I liked her sexy side, but she is who she is.And I am who I am.
I might have acted without thinking, because now she is here and knowing she is down there is making my obsession with watching her even harder to stop. The camera feed from the storm cellar is up on all of my screens. I have put off all the work I needed to do today to sit and watch her. It’s cathartic, and at the same time I keep seeing parts of her I am attracted to. Small things she does, like the way she ties her hair up turn me on. I am weak — only a weak man would be this reckless and stupid.
