I groan as I tug the pillow over my head. Why is the sun so bright this morning? Normally it doesn’t hit my side of the house until late morning, and surely I didn’t sleep that long.
My eyes snap open as memories filter back through my mind. The bar. Being drugged. The tattooed man. Waking up in a room that’s too similar to my childhood bedroom. Each memory is a kick to my stomach, making it impossible to suck in a breath.
I’m not at home. Someone kidnapped me. I have no idea where I am, or if I’ll see my family again. All I know is that somewhere in this house there’s a woman named Mary who held me while I cried but denied me my freedom. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this. I’ve never had anything to do with the darker sides of the family business, only participating when absolutely necessary. But what I do know is that all our threats have been neutralized. We have no enemies right now, and maybe that’s why I’m so anxious. At least if Angelo Russo was still alive, I could surmise it was him who had orchestrated my kidnapping. But being in the dark, having no idea where I am or whose hands my fate lies in, it has a sense of dread washing over me and nausea bubbling in my belly.
Slowly I sit up and look at my surroundings again. Maybe I missed something last night. The light of day is meant to bring new opportunities, new hope, but as my eyes cast across the familiar setting, all I feel is dejected by my new reality. All I can do is hope my brothers come and save me, because they’re my only chance of getting out of here.
The door swings open just like it did last night, and again Mary strolls in with a wide smile on her face. I wonder idly if this is how I’ll wake up every morning or if this ruse is to lead me into a false sense of security, and soon, I’ll find myself locked in some kind of dirty basement. Although, in most cases, that would be the option I would suspect, I don’t think that’s the case here. Why would someone go to all this effort to make the room look exactly the same as my bedroom at home? Why would they source all the same products, buy all the same toiletries, right down to my favorite perfume Mom had bought for me when I turned eighteen, if they only intended for me to stay here for a night or two?
“Good morning, dear,” she chimes.
“Hi Mary,” I murmur, my eyes casting down to the carpet beside the bed.
“Oh, finally someone calls me Mary! Maybe you can convince everyone else to as well.”
She moves to the other side of the room, and I track her movements out of the corner of my eye. She’s left the door wide open again, and my body twitches to make a run for it. What’s the worst that can happen? They catch me and bring me back here? Or they kill you. She moves into the closet and returns with a short cotton dress as well as a matching set of bra and panties.
“You’re going to have breakfast in the main dining room this morning. When you’re ready, pop out the door and turn left, follow the hallway all the way along and the dining room is at the end.”
Before I can ask any other questions, she disappears out the door, leaving it open as she leaves. I stare after her for long moments. If I’m a prisoner, why are they letting me out of this room? A prisoner is confined to a small space, a cell of some sort, but they’ve just given me freedom to roam the house, and I don’t know what to make of that.
When I finally regain the use of my limbs, I cross to the bathroom and turn the water on in the shower as hot as it will go. I’ve always enjoyed a hot shower, but I’ve never needed one like I do right now. Every part of me feels filthy, even if I haven’t been anywhere the least bit unclean.
I take my time in the shower, only the slightest bit nervous about being naked in a foreign place when I hadn’t had a chance to find all the hidden cameras. But at this point, I have bigger problems than someone seeing my tits.
Once I’ve scrubbed every inch of my body until my skin stings, I shut the water off and wrap a soft, fluffy towel around myself. I go through my normal motions, using the skincare someone has taken the time to collect and place in the exact same order I have mine, right down to the position of the headband I sometimes use to hold my hair back while I do my makeup.
I dry my hair but don’t bother to style it before heading back into the bedroom and pulling the clothes Mary left for me on. The only room I didn’t visit last night was the closet, and something pulls me toward it, like an invisible magnet dragging me along until I’m standing in the doorway. At first, the materialistic part of me is in awe of the rows of designer clothing in front of me, but then reality hits me so hard that the wind is knocked right out of my lungs. If all these clothes are my size, which on first inspection they are, whoever took me intends to keep me for a while… a long while.
Backing out of the closet slowly before I can fall down a rabbit hole I’m not sure I’ll drag myself back out of, I turn and stare at the open door. Maybe I should just hang out in here and skip breakfast. It’s probably the safer option. But if someone has gone to all this trouble to get me here, are they really just going to let me sit in my room and sulk?
I take tentative steps toward the open door, my heart pounding in my chest when my head sticks out into the hallway, and I look side to side. There isn’t a sound in the house, and maybe that’s just as disconcerting as the room that’s eerily similar to my bedroom at the estate. My bare feet carry me across the deep pile carpet, my toes sinking into the softness and grounding me. Fear bleeds into my veins, I’ve never been that great at the unexpected, but this feels much more ominous than anything else I’ve ever faced.
The closer I get to what I assume is the dining room, the more the pit of my stomach aches with anxiety. The unknown has never felt more terrifying than it does right now. Each step is slow and calculated, barely trusting my body to remain upright as I near what could be my own demise.
My steps falter just outside the door, my eyes darting down the hallways on either side of me. Should I make a run for it? I’m already out of my room. I’ve got to be closer to the exit than I was before. Maybe I can make it. Maybe I can escape.
But the rational part of my mind reminds me I have no shoes on. I don’t have my purse or my phone. Even if I make it out the door, which is unlikely, the chance of me actually getting home is so slim my heart aches for the life I’ve taken for granted all these years. All the times I ran away from the protection my family insisted I have played back in my mind. Every lecture about staying with my security team for my own safety is like a sitcom rerun. I did this to myself. I have no one else to blame but my own stupid self for putting myself in this position, and now I have to live with the consequences.
I step forward into the dining room. A long oak table stretches from one side of the room to the other, and a man stands at the window across from me. His back is muscular and wide, and familiar tattoos wind around his bare arms up to the black T-shirt obstructing my view of the rest. The man from the bar. The one in the shadows.
Slowly, so fucking slowly, he turns around and I get my first glance at the man who has torn me from my life, and my mouth drops open in surprise when my eyes lock with his familiar green ones.
“Welcome home, my little Snowflake.”
