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My mind made up, I slip on a sundress and a pair of flat sandals, grabbing my credit card before I slip out of the room. Alessio doesn’t so much as stir, clearly exhausted, and I make my way down to the lower floor, slipping out of the hotel and heading towards the pastry shop.
It’s a beautiful day. The sun is bright, and everything smells like salt and flowers. I tip my head back, feeling the sunny, warm rays spread over my face as I walk.I could stay here forever, I think all over again, letting myself relax into the feeling. It’s the happiest I’ve felt in a long time, and I never want it to end.
I don’t see the movement in the alleyway next to me, or the three figures that slip out of it, until it’s far too late.
The hand that grabs my arm does so at the same moment that another hand covers my mouth, the chance of my being able to scream for help gone in an instant. I smell something sharp and clinical on his skin, my senses swimming as I twist in the arms dragging me backward, fear racing through me like a jolt of electricity. I haven’t felt this afraid since I found my father’s body, and the horror of that all comes back in a rush. For a brief moment, as those hands close around my arm and mouth, the open air and the Grecian street vanish, and I’m back in the study with the scent of the dying fire and blood filling my nose, the stickiness of that same blood on my hands as I’d reached for my father’s body, the grief and confusion overwhelming me. It freezes me in place, making it impossible for me to fight back—and it wouldn’t have helped even if I did. The hands holding me are far too strong.
Regret follows closely on the heels of that fear, the realization that Alessio was right to be careful coming far too late.
He’s going to wake up, and I’ll be gone. I should have listened. Tears well in my eyes as I feel the prick of a needle in my arm, and I wish I could take it all back, that I could be in that cool, crisp linen bed, that I had obeyed him the way I promised I would. I want his arms around me and the piney, woodsy scent of his skin and hair surrounding me; I want the warmth of Alessio’s body and the safety that it always makes me feel. The yearning for it cuts through me, down to my bones, making me ache as I feel myself slump against the arms holding me. It feels all wrong, the stink of sweat and unwashed skin filling my senses instead, and as I’m passed from one set of familiar arms to another, dizziness overwhelming me, I feel hot tears fill my eyes. I hear voices, mumbling something I can’t quite make out. It’s in Italian, and I should understand it, but everything sounds hollow, like hearing words from underwater.
I try to summon the last memory I have of Alessio before all of this—the feeling of his arm over my waist, the vanilla-orange scent of the candle next to the bed, and the bright warmth of the sunshine. Still, as I’m hauled into the alleyway, all of those memories are overwhelmed by the stench of garbage and the bruising grip these strange men have on me, the fear and the knowledge that there’s nothing I can do as the drugs work their way through me wiping away anything that could salve that feeling.
My legs go limp, my sandals catching on rough-hewn stone, tumbling over each other as I’m dragged backward. Dimly, I realize that it’s happened—I can feel the straps catch on my toes and the scrape of the stone against my feet, the pain lancing up them, a trickle of warm blood down my ankle— but I can’t seem to muster the energy to do anything about it. It’s as if the world is slowly going foggy, fading away, and I see a van parked at the end of the alley in the last moments before the world tilts and spins—and then everything goes black.
—
I wake to the taste of vomit in my mouth and the feeling of different sheets underneath me—rougher than before. I sit up with a jolt, my head pounding painfully, my mouth sticky and dry, and the clink of metal warns me before I feel the bite in my wrist that I’m handcuffed to something.
“Just the one hand.” A calm, Italian-accented voice drifts through the shadows towards me. “You can use the other hand. There’s water on the table if you want it.”
I blink, trying to clear my fuzzy vision. I can’t make out anything about the man sitting in the dark corner, but I finally begin to make out that I’m in a dank, basement-like room, sitting on a mattress covered with a worn sheet, a small bit of light coming through a window at the top of the stone wall. One of my wrists is handcuffed to the rusted metal headboard at one end of the mattress, and as the man said, there’s a cup of water on a rickety table next to it. I reach for it slowly, wondering if it’s drugged with something else.
“The water is fine,” the man says, as if he read my mind. “You’re not going anywhere—no reason to tamper with it.”
“You sound very sure of yourself.” The words come out a little slurred, likely because of the drugs. “There will be—people—looking for me—”
“Of course.” The man stands up as I reach for the water, walking a little closer. “But they won’t find you.”
Slowly, I take a sip. The water is warm and tastes stale, and I swish the first sip around my mouth, wanting the taste of vomit out. I spit it out onto the filthy stone floor, and the man chuckles.
“Such manners for a well-bred lady, Gianna Mancini. I’ll have to teach you better than that, before you marry my son.”
My heart stops in my chest. For a moment, the world spins around me again, and I’m sure that I’m going to pass out.No,I think, as my fingers go numb and nerveless, and the cup drops to the floor.It can’t be.
I’ve never seen Enzo Leone myself. He’s tall, with iron-grey hair and a perfect white smile, his dark eyes fixed on me with a look that makes my skin crawl.
“Of course, Alessio will come after you,” he says, as if explaining something to a child. “For now, you’re bait. That’s why you’re not already on a plane back to Chicago, and being taken to my mansion. I need your husband dead, after all. So he’ll find his way here, to you—and then my men will kill him. Of course, we’ll set it ll up to look as if Alessio tried to murder you here in Greece. The story will be so sordid—the adopted son of Giacomo Mancini, married to his stepsister after his adoptive father died so suddenly and, strangely, insisted on such an odd union in his will. With a little more consideration, it will seem clear that Alessio orchestrated his adoptive father’s murder himself, so that he could marry you and take your inheritance. I will, of course, be happy to go along with Don Fontana’s original plan and allow Andre to marry you—despite the unfortunate loss of your virginity along the way. A small price to pay for your wealth.” He smiles lasciviously, looking down at me. “Youhavelost your virginity, haven’t you?”
“That’s none of your business,” I snap at him, shrinking back on the mattress. I hate that it’s touching my skin, butI’mnot all that clean either, my feet and calves filthy from being dragged through the alleyway, my dress torn and stained. “I don’t need to tell you what Alessio and I did together.”
“Oh, but you do.” Enzo smiles. “After all, since you’re not a virgin any longer—and don’t worry, dear, I’m quite sure that you’re not—nothing is stopping me from enjoying you before I have you sent home to my son. One more cock in you won’t make a difference, after all—and I wouldsoenjoy taking pleasure in what your father tried to make sure my family was denied. Insult to injury, isn’t it, getting fucked by your future father-in-law? Or maybe you’ll like that, since you liked fucking your stepbrother so much.”
He moves in quickly, his hand shooting out to grab my throat before I can twist away, even though I try. “I’ll start now,” he says, leaning over me. “A quick fuck to break you in, and we can test out your other talents later. It might take a little while for Alessio to find this place. I wouldn’t want you to get bored—”
His voice cuts off in a strangled gasp as I twist to one side, shoving my knee up hard and catching him in the balls. I nearly vomit all over again when I feel the pressure of his erection against my knee, the hard ridge unmistakeable, but the sound of pain he makes as he lurches and staggers backward is worth it.
Enzo glares at me, his hand cupping his groin. “You’re going to pay for that,” he snarls. “You’re going to fuckingbleedbefore I send you home to my son. Enjoy your one night of rest,” he hisses, as he stalks towards the door. “It’s the last peace you’ll get.”
I manage to hold it together until the door slams behind him. The moment it does, I clap my hand over my mouth, bursting into horrified tears as I curl into a ball on the bed, the impact of it all crashing down around me.
Enzo Leone had my father killed. He wanted me to marry his son, to take everything my father built and rip it to shreds, and he knew the only way to accomplish that was for my father to die. He knew he could pressure Fontana into giving me to Andre. What he hadn’t counted on was the will—or Alessio eventually agreeing to it.
He’s being led here. I’m bait in a trap.Tears well in my eyes, and I half wish Alessio would be so angry with me that hewouldn’tcome for me, that he’d leave me here, so that he’d be safe.
The rest of me desperately clings to the small, faint hope that hewillcome, that he’ll save me, and that this will turn into nothing but a horrible memory. That against all odds, Alessio will make sure I’m safe.
I curl up tighter, closing my eyes, tears dripping down my cheeks as exhaustion washes over me. I try to imagine myself back in the honeymoon suite with Alessio, in that huge bed with him wrapped around me, the salt breeze blowing into the room—and it feels impossible.
