“Wait!” I told them, trying to break free of their hold as Dante and Ranieri also fought to get back to our leader—our pack alpha.
But it was too late, Alesso’s eyes found mine one last time as he was surrounded by FBI agents, then he coughed roughly and that was the last time I saw Alessandro Amante Jr. alive.
And I wasn’t sure if he had forgiven me for kissing his sister.
I was betting on no.
“A year isn’t that bad,” I told Nicolo from the other side of the glass as he stared glumly at me, a grimy black phone held up to his ear so we could hear each other.
He looked worse for wear after three months of trials had led to a year in federal prison for Dante, Ranieri, and me. His brown hair had grown out, curling around his ears, and he had more facial hair than I had ever seen before.
We used to tease him about his inability to grow anything on his face—though now it seemed he had finally matured enough to do so just one of the many things I was missing while locked up in here.
He seemed older now, more sure of himself. The death of a loved one would do that to anyone, but I was so surprised to see how different my little cousin was now.”
“And the boss told me he would work on getting us out earlier.” I’d figured that Amante would want nothing to do with us now that his son had been shot and killed, but surprisingly enough he treated us as he always had. Like a pack of loyal dogs that still had some use.
I had a sneaking suspicion that the old man had plans for us once we got out of prison, but for now I would take what I could get. Without his lawyers and his money we likely would have never seen the light of day again—compared to that I could do a year in prison.
“You don’t get it,” Nicolo insisted with a shake of his head. “Shit’s gotten real weird since you guys were chucked in here.”
“Weird? Weird how?” I asked, frowning as I watched my cousin shift uncomfortably in his seat. “Is Cini all right?”
She hadn’t been brought to any of our trials and when I asked Amante about it he had told me she was grieving for her brother—which I was sure was true—but I couldn’t help but also doubt the truthfulness of the older man’s words.
“That’s the thing, I don’t know if she’s all right. I haven’t seen her since her birthday and they revoked my pass into the main house. I don’t have any idea of what’s going on over there, but it can’t be anything good.”
A thread of unease filled me as we continued to talk. We still had a year in here, and I just hoped that Cini would be okay.
She needed to be okay because, once I got out of here, I was going to find a way to set her free.
One
6 years later…
Water dribbled down my bare shoulder, waking me up from the fitful sleep that I had forced myself into after yet another day of medical tests from my jailers.
Drip, drip, drip—or at least that was what I was told water falling on something sounded like.
I didn’t actually know what it really sounded like.
I didn’t really know what anything sounded like.
With my cochlear implant, I could sometimes hear ambient noises—the hard slam of a heavy door or the thudding beat of music.
But right now I didn’t have the transmitter that would allow the implant to work as it was the first thing they had taken from me when I was kidnapped.
Two days ago—or at least I was pretty sure it was two days—I had been yanked unceremoniously out of my solarium, a place that should have been a protected sanctum. Instead, the men who took me had made it through the house with almost no fuss.
Even I knew what that meant.
It meant that my father had let them take me, I just couldn’t figure out why.
He wasn’t a good father by any means, but at the very least I thought he wouldn’t let some Russian mobsters kidnap me out of his own home and throw me into a plastic cell.
I was apparently wrong about a lot of things these days.
On the first day, I had been so sure that my captivity would be brief. They would never let me be missing for long.
