“Sophia?” Matteo’s voice sounded so far away and echoey, like he was going through a tunnel.
Behind me, someone let out a yell. I didn’t know whether it was a shout of anger or joy.
“Matteo.” Yanking open the door, I shivered as the cold rain pelted down on me and flattened my curls to my head. “Matteo, please.” Slipping down the steps, I almost lost my footing on the wet grass. “Help me.”
There was a hissing pause. “Sophia, where are you?”
“I…” I looked around wildly, tears and rain water making it impossible to get my bearings. “I don’t know.” I sobbed loudly. “But he…he…”
“Get somewhere safe, Sophia.” There was a hardness in Matteo's voice that I had never heard before. A sharp, dangerous coldness. “I’m coming for you.”
Somewhere safe. Again, I looked around. There wasn’t anywhere safe. Not that I could see anyway.
“Come on, babe,” Zane called out behind me. “Come inside and let me warm you up.”
God, he was disgusting. How had I ever thought otherwise? Maybe because in the cold heart light of day, he had seemed clean cut and charming. He had been almost preppy and the complete opposite of the men and boys that surrounded me normally.
I’d been so desperate to be a normal girl that I hadn’t even thought about the consequences before I had agreed to go to the party with him and snuck out of my bedroom.
“Sophia?” Matteo’s voice was sharp. “Talk to me, princess.”
“I…”I dropped my voice to a whisper. “There’s nowhere to hide but a bush.”
“Get behind it. Stay on the line, okay, princess. You don’t need to talk, but stay on the line. I am a few minutes out.”
I didn’t ask why he was in this area or how he had tracked me because that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that he was coming for me.
Matteo would save me. He would protect me just like he always did.
On my hands and knees, I scuttled behind the thorny brush. My knees and hands sank into the wet mud.
“Sophie.” Zane’s voice rose up again, closer this time. “Come on. Stop playing silly games.”
I held my breath.
“Where the fuck is she?” someone else asked. Was there more than one person out there looking for me?
“No idea, but she couldn’t have gotten far. Find her and I’ll give you a go on that tight virgin.”
Their disgusting laughter floated up around me, making me colder than the rain and mud. This was what women and girls went through all the time. No wonder my brother and family were so against me dating. They knew what men were like.
They said something else that I couldn’t hear over the screech of tires.
“Where is she?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Zane’s voice was a screech. And it didn’t take a genius to know why. Matteo was a scary man.
“Where is Sophia?”
“Oh, that little cock teasing bitch? If you want a go on her virgin pussy then—"
There was a crack and a thud that sounded suspiciously like a body hitting the ground.
“Fuck! Get off of him!”
Over and over, the sound of a fist hitting flesh rang in my ears. Pushing myself upward, I stumbled forward.
“Matteo.” Freezing, I stared down at him, straddling Zane in the wet mud and pummeling his face into what looked like hamburger meat with his fists.
