“Taken care of,” he mutters. Dread pools in my chest. What have I done? All she did was try to help me, and now she’s…she’s…
I can’t think about it. We’ve reached the entrance, and Dario sets me on my feet, a hard grip on my arm dragging me behind him as he jogs toward the gates to the property. I resist at first, but it’s useless. I just end up on my knees.
“Move, dammit!” he snaps. Then he’s hauling me to my feet and towing me along again. There’s a side gate hanging open near the front gates, and I wonder where all the security guards are. I scream, hoping one of them will emerge from their post, but there’s no response. But Dario speeds up, jogging several yards with me still stumbling behind him. It’s when we reach the car parked in the shadows that I know I’m about to be taken away from here. And after that, nobody will have a clue of where I am. As lost as my sister. Maybe sold along with her. I’ve spent these months living with a man who would kill me as easily as he’d used my body, and now I’ve crossed the line.
I scream yet again as he opens the passenger door, praying someone will hear. And then I swing at him. Hissing and flailing and clawing at him as he reaches for me.
“Nikki! For God’s sakes!” he snaps, grabbing at my hands. “Will you just—” His words are cut off as I try to slap him, and he curses. It just spurs me on, adrenaline driving me as I fight for my life. But it’s pointless; he takes both of my wrists in one huge fist, and then his arm is around my waist again, lifting me off my feet and hauling me to the back of the car. He’s muttering dark obscenities as I struggle like a wildcat. He pops the trunk, and then I’m being bundled in with as much ceremony as a heap of dirty laundry. I catch a glimpse of eyes glittering in the moonlight a second before the lid of the trunk slams shut.
“Dario!” I scream, kicking at the sides of the trunk that seem to be closing in around me. Claustrophobia swirls. The fight within me is ebbing. Maybe I should be reasoning with him. “Dario, please…I’m so sorry!” If he hears me, there’s no response. The car lurches, rolling me with it as it seems to swing sharply. I get a whiff of exhaust fumes as he accelerates.
Am I going to suffocate in here? How much oxygen can get into the trunk of a car anyhow? I keep screaming his name, pleading, despite not getting a reply.
Oh God…there has to be something there. Some part of him that remembers…
My voice has grown hoarse by the time I feel the vehicle pull onto a surface that no longer feels smooth. We’re bouncing along some sort of track, and I’m being flung around, jostled until we come to an abrupt halt. The engine’s still running, but I hear a car door open, footsteps outside, muffled voices. He’s talking to someone whose voice I don’t recognize, and there’s a glare of bright light as the trunk swings open. A stranger is looming over me, reaching for my arms.
“You know what to do,” Dario says to the guy. He’s not looking at me.
“Dario…God…I’m sorry…I’m sorry,” I babble. “My sister…I have to save my sister….” Maybe if he knows I wasn’t trying to steal from him, wasn’t just leaving him…
But I was.
I was terrified of him, for all the reasons I’m facing now. A man without conscience.A monster I love.
“Do as you’re told,” he says coldly, then turns his back and climbs back in the car, gunning the engine as the car shoots off down the dirt track that we arrived on. The hawk-faced man facing me gives me a brief, appraising glance before hauling me off my feet. Again, I’m being thrown over a broad shoulder. But there’s no fight left in me now. If there’d been any chance of me getting to my sister tonight, Dario would have been the one to give it to me. And there’s no hope of that now.
I squeeze my eyes against the tears that are burning, barely paying attention to the building we’re moving through. Until I’m dropped back onto my feet, facing a huge, heavy black door. The guy kicks it open and shoves me inside.
“Don’t try to get out,” he says, then slams the door shut behind me. I hear a lock click, and a bolt slams into place. I drop back against the hard surface, staring at the room around me. A bare bulb lights the stark interior. On the walls, hooks and shelves hold a variety of objects; chains, manacles, sawblades…more, but my stomach won’t allow me to try to identify any of it. There’s a simple bunk pushed up against the wall below it all, the type we’d used in the hospital when I’d still been a nurse. Its plain white surface looks recently scrubbed. And it’s bare.
Apart from a pair of gleaming pruning shears.
Chapter 13
Dario Caraldi
It’s 3.55 a.m. when I ease into the parking lot we’d arranged to meet at. Raoul and Mateo are already waiting. Mateo’s pacing.
“Where the hell have you been?” he snaps out. I raise an eyebrow. He should know better than to question my activities.
“Had business to attend to,” I say. I know I’ve cut things fine. There’d barely been time to get Nikki back to the safe-house, let alone explain to her what was going on.
“Business?” he asks sharply. “What the hell kind of business can you be doing at three in the morning, Dario?”
I feel my fists curl as I take a step toward him. “Are we actually having this conversation, Mateo?” I say softly. I sense him withdraw slightly, though he doesn’t step back. I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t trust this man as much as I do if he was a coward.
“We need to get moving,” Raoul breaks the tension. He’s arrived in one of the vehicles from the firm and leans against it now. The SUV has been customized for us. Door panels are plated to withstand armor-piercing rounds. The ballistic glass in the windows will hold up against automatic gunfire and more – which it may have to. Those damn Russkis love their fucking Kalashnikovs. The damn thing cost us a bomb, but then it’s designed to survive one. I’m hoping we won’t have to put that to that test because if it fails, it’s not as if we’ll go crawling back asking for a refund.
“You good?” Raoul asks as we climb into the vehicle. I give a curt nod. I’m tense but feeling a little less anxious now that I’ve managed to get Nikki to safety. If they found her once, they can do it again, and I don’t want that fear hanging over my head while I’m trying to focus on what’s about to go down. It may not be the Ritz, but our bunker is as safe as it gets. Emilio will have triggered the alarm at her friend’s place once he’s cleared the scene. In the meantime, “Dr. Andy” will be out of the way in her bedroom until her armed reaction force arrives. Useless bastards. At least I’m not relying on more of them to keep my woman safe.
Mateo’s still scowling darkly as Raoul pulls off onto the road. He’s in the front passenger seat while I’m stretched in the back. Fucking bandages are soaked with blood again, and I reach for the first aid kit beneath the front seat to try to patch myself up as best as I can. It hadn’t been that thug in the shadows who ripped open my stitches – it was Nikki who got that right.Dammit.
My girl’s a hellcat. And the way she’d taken that fucker down…I grin as I think back to it. I’m pretty sure I broke a land-speed record getting up the stairs to her bedroom after I’d heard her scream. Then stood in the doorway as she took a bead on his head and squeezed the trigger. Just like I taught her.
What are you going to do with that, little girl?
I’m going to blow your fucking brains out…
