AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My heart dropped to my feet in fear, while excited fizzles zipped through my veins.
Seemed today was going to be a very good day, indeed.
The Bowl Championship and a new baby.
We’d decided to name him Forty. With him, Tamryn, and our two-year-old daughter, Tulah, I had everything I ever wanted and more.
There was never, ever a reason to be blue again.
THE END
About Rayvn Salvador
Rayvn Salvador is a lifelong bibliophile who left her eighteen-year IT career in Software Quality Assurance to live her dream: getting paid to read as a full-time editor (done as her alter ego), and to write when the mood strikes. She lives in Florida with three crazy cats and her incredibly supportive beau, dreaming about the Midwest’s changing leaves as she perfects her yoga poses on the beach.
Website: http://rayvnsalvador.com
The Sweet Taste of Revenge
TRACIE PODGER
Chapter One
Revenge was the dumbest name I’d heard for a girl, but that’s exactly what it was; Revenge Carlotti, daughter of one of the most horrific mob bosses in modern history. I’d known her when I was younger and rumour had it, Revenge was the product of an affair, and duly named by her mother who had subsequently paid for her infidelity; for the past twenty-five years she had been resting at the bottom of a deep lake in the grounds of her own home.
I had been contracted to find Revenge, paid half a million dollars to take her home to her father. I’d accepted that fee, of course, but little had her father, or Revenge herself, known, she was currently sitting in a secure location within my estate; a cave with metal fencing across the entrance, and a gate that only two people had a key for. She wasn’t meant to be there. It had been a monumental fuck up on Revenge and her lover’s part, but here we were. So not only was I tasked to find Revenge, I also had to return her without her knowing where she was and who was involved.
I strolled across the garden, close to the cliff top and breathed in the scent of the Mediterranean Sea below me. My house was perched near the edge in my beloved Sicily, private and secure.
The clatter of a metal chains echoed through the cave as I undid the padlock.
“Enrico?” I heard bounce back. Revenge was calling for her lover, my nephew, who had panicked and dumped her on me.
I pulled a hood over my head exposing just my eyes. Slipped gloves on my hands, not because I didn’t want to leave fingerprints, but because I had a distinctive tattoo that would easily identify me.
“No, not Enrico,” I said quietly although my voice boomed, amplified by the cavern and stone walls.
I heard her sob before I got to the inner chamber that was her temporary home. A second metal fence and gate secured her within a small area that housed a bed, a bucket for her needs, an old fashioned washstand with a jug of clean water, and candles. It wasn’t ideal but I wasn’t acting as the conscientious host.
“What have you done with him?” she asked, her voice broken, as was her spirit.
Revenge had surprised me; she’d fought for a few days, and cursed like a sailor. I sported some rather impressive bruises before I’d been able to subdue her. It hadn’t been my intention to keep her, or to have her look so sad. I simply couldn’t just return her without it looking at least like I’d taken some time to find her.
“He’s gone, Revenge. He isn’t the hero you believe him to be.” I wanted to be honest, although I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t owe her anything, least of all the truth.
“You lie,” she shouted, spitting the words as she stood and walked towards the gate. “Who are you?” Her voice quietened a little.
“I wasn’t the one who took you, but as soon as your father pays, you’ll be returned.” She visibly blanched at my words. “Don’t worry, Revenge, you won’t be harmed.” I added a little menace to my voice, a hint that I might be lying.
“I can’t go back,” she said in barely a whisper. She stepped aside and it was then that I noticed her hands shaking. “You can’t take me back.”
If she could have seen my face she would have noticed my brow furrow in confusion.
Revenge had arrived at my door passed out in the back of my nephew’s car after being drugged. He’d spluttered through an explanation that he’d spiked her drink but thought he’d killed her and didn’t know what to do. Carlo, my right hand man had helped him bring Revenge to the cave, somewhere we often kept people when information was needed from them. I wasn’t just contracted to find people, but information as well.
“What do you know about Enrico?” I asked, genuinely wanting to know the answer.
“He loves me,” she said, squaring her shoulders as if making herself believe.
