I turned around and my heart sank as I came face to face with the Narzand brothers. Anton had a gun pressed firmly to Milli’s temple, while Vincent was holding one out in my direction. There was nothing I could do. If they wanted to kill us right now, they could do so easily.
“Vincent,” I growled.
“Hello Giovanni,” he said. “I hope you had fun with our little sister. We’ll be taking her back now.”
22
AVION
My stomach nearly gave as I was flung from my room and up out of the window. The wind cut across my face as I reached out, wanting to get back to Gio, but I was flying up into the air somehow. I didn’t want to fight the person who had their arms wrapped around me, because I didn’t want them to drop me, but wherever they were taking me, I didn’t want to go. It seemed like Gio was about to say something important to me, and I wanted to hear what he had to say. I liked my life in his compound, I didn’t want to leave it behind and become a prisoner somewhere else.
Giovanni, help me.
Eventually, I and the person holding me whipped to a stop as we landed on something like a ladder. It was hanging loosely from a helicopter, the whipping blades of which were so deafening that I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts.
“Hang on!” the guy screamed into my ear.
Slowly, the ladder started lifting higher and higher until it was at the bottom of the helicopter. A pair of hands reached down and yanked me up, and I gave into their pull, with my only alternative being plummeting to my death. I was only on my feet for a brief moment before I collapsed on the floor of the helicopter. It was larger than a typical news helicopter, and I sprawled out on the ground trying to get my head around what had just happened or the quickest way for me to get back to Gio.
“Avion!”
A hand settled on my back and I looked up. My eyes were blurry and tired from being pulled through the wind, but as I blinked away the dryness and focused on the person looking down at me, I recognized the cool, blue eyes.
“Lorie?” I murmured.
She pulled on my arm. “Sit up!” I did as she asked, working my way around until I was sitting on my but, then Lorie took a headset and shoved it over my head, cupping her hands around the earpieces to fix them against my ears. “Can you hear me?” her voice was clearer now, coming through the headset.
“Yeah,” I said. “What’s going on?”
She threw her arms around me in a big hug. “Oh man, I’m so glad you’re okay. Your code worked like a charm.”
“My code?” I said, pushing Lorie back. “What code?”
“Come on, all that nonsense about being shacked up with a hot guy and being his sub. You’re way too vanilla for that. I knew you were trying to tell me that you’d been kidnapped and were being tortured. You’re so smart. What a good way to get the message to me.”
I didn’t quite know how to take her translation of my message. On the one hand, she wasn’t wrong that I’d been kidnapped, but on the other hand, I actuallywasGio’s sub. In fact, I was a pretty good sub—a perfect one according to him. Had I really earned a reputation as being too vanilla?
Whatever. It didn’t matter, right? This was a good thing. I’d been saved. After all that time waiting and not knowing what was in my future, this was it. I was rescued and would be going back to my regular life. I should be happy.
Iwashappy.
“Oh, poor thing, you’re crying. You must have been terrified.” Lorie wiped my eyes and started to check me over. “Was it horrible? I’m so sorry I didn’t catch on sooner. I thought something was odd when you said you were going out of town with your family, but they were still in the media as if they hadn’t left the state, but I thought maybe it was just pre-recorded stuff. Ugh. I should have been a better friend.”
I looked down out of the helicopter and watched as Gio’s mansion disappeared in the distance. My breathing got more and more shallow, and my chest was constricting. My skin was tingly, and not in a good, Gio kind of way, but in a bad way like my skin was being yanked off. My head started to pound, and my eyes started to get blurry, and all I could do was wrap my arms around myself and cry.
“She’s having a panic attack,” I heard an unfamiliar voice say into the headset.
“Okay, Avion. Avion,” Lorie’s voice called to me. “Look at me.” Her hands were on my cheeks trying to wrench my face up to meet hers. “Hey.” She looked into my eyes. “Hey. It’s me. I know, that was so scary, but you’re safe now. You never have to go back there again.”
But I wanted to go back.
“Miss Narzand.” I turned my head, and there was a man I didn’t recognize dressed in full tactical gear looking down at me. “Breathe with me. Can you breathe? Breathe in, one-two-three-four, and breath out, one-two-three-four. Breathe in…”
Lorie joined in. “Two-three-four, and breathe out, one-two-three-four.” I followed their lead, breathing in on the counts they were telling me to breathe in on and breathing out on the counts they were telling me to breathe out on. “There you go, babes. Just like that.”
It was helping me to calm my panic attack some, but it wasn’t solving the problem. I looked out of the helicopter again, but I couldn’t see anything but lights in the distance. Gio’s estate was far gone, with him left behind in it. It felt like I’d been ripped from my home; from the only place where I ever actually felt safe and comfortable. Yes, Gio and I had just gotten into a fight, but despite the alpha attitude that he exuded, he was just about to admit that he could compromise with me, I know it. Being ripped from Gio at that moment showed me very clearly that, in spite of everything, I had begun developing feelings for him that went beyond being his sub in the bedroom.
Now I’d probably never know the depth of them or get to explore them fully.
