AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I can’t take the distance anymore and push past Dante. I take her in my arms, but she doesn’t realize it’s me. She’s focused on her story.
* * *
Luna
It’s like a switch has been flipped. It was a game that Dante and I would play when I was little. I would tell him about the stories in the artwork around the house. But this story is mine. All the pain. All the blood and beatings. Dario holds me in his arms, but I’m focused on Dante. I’m telling him the story.
“I ended up in a school, but it wasn’t really a school. It was in Russia.” I can’t tell him the exact location because it will lead him to the doctor, and I won’t let Dante be hurt by him too. “The doctor would experiment on me with different drugs, electric shock, torture, and military interrogation training. When he wasn’t hurting me, the school was teaching me to kill. I hated it there, but at that point, they had me convinced that I had no one. That I had been abandoned. Then the mind control started when I hit thirteen. I know now why. The doctor started raping me. He didn’t want them to know.”
Dante’s body convulses like he’s been shocked. I try to pull away from Dario, but he holds me tight. He pulls me onto his lap and kisses the side of my head.
“This is why you have to leave me. I don’t even think I’m human anymore. I’m a product of the school and the doctor. The Interpol contractor oversaw everything. They hired the doctor to create me, and they’ve been pulling my strings since I was five.”
Dario gently rocks me, kissing my forehead, as Dante just shakes. I can feel myself slipping from the memory and back to the room of people I confessed my darkness to.
McKenna leans down. “Come on, Luna. Let me get you a cup of tea and these men can talk.” I nod at her because I know she is the weak link here. Her love for my brother and their son will be my way of getting away from them all. I know with her help, I’ll be able to escape.
“I’ll go with you on one condition.”
“Okay,” she says.
“No, wait.” Dante tries to stop what he knows I’m going to do.
“You take my nephew and brother to Papà’s before nightfall.”
“I can’t speak for Dante, but I will take Gian and we will go. Will that make you feel better?” It’s as if she knows that I’m going to get them all killed. I’m the harbinger of death.
“Yes.” I’ll take whatever I can get.
“Come.” She takes my hand, and I stand up.
I look back at Dario, who is just watching me. Before I step out of the room, I have a plan in motion.
“McKenna, can I borrow your phone? I need to check my messages. It will let me know how long I have until they come after me.” It’s a lie, but I need to get a message to Matty. He’s going to be my only hope of getting out of this country.
I text a coded message to his number that I memorized, then I log into a secure email server that Interpol had set up for me. I send a message that I’ve been compromised and I’m exiting. That should buy me some time. I also tell them that I was captured by the Nigerians to take the heat off of Dario’s family and away from Dante. As I’m about to exit the system, a message pops up from the doctor. I open it and stop.
I know where you are. I know you removed their tracker, but I have one on you too. I’ll kill them if you don’t leave now.
It’s signed Daddy.
I cringe. I’ve always hated that he wants me to call him that when we are alone. I decide not to tell him I have my memories back or what happened. I lie as I send a response back to him.
I’ll be leaving these people’s house soon. I don’t know why I was brought here, but I’ll be home soon.”
It’s coded with words so he will think I’m still under his influence. I log out and erase everything I’ve done. I need to find that last fucking tracker, but I don’t have the equipment here to do that.
It will take Matty several hours to get to me, so I decide to use the time I have left to get to know my brother and his family. I also will need to say goodbye to Dario. I can’t give him the words he gave me because I don’t know what that is. I don’t know what love is anymore. I have my memories but not the feelings or emotions. I don’t want him hurt. I don’t want to be away from him, but I must do this. He and Dante will never be safe as long as the doctor and deputy chief are still alive.
* * *
A couple of hours later, after a filling dinner on their back veranda, we discuss the men’s ideas to get me free. McKenna is inside packing for her and baby Giancarlo to go to Mattia’s home at the Rossi estate.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to tell Papà you are here?” Dante asks me for what feels like the thousandth time.
“I can’t. Until we know how to survive the hit squad coming after me, I can’t risk any more lives. If I had known Dario was going to bring me here, I would have figured something else out.”
“I can scan you for the chip, and we can send it away from here.”
