I run all the way back to that shoddy place I now call home. I don’t even look if anyone’s following me; that’s how scared I am. My heart is going a million miles an hour when I finally close the door behind me, and it takes me a while to catch my breath.
That was a close one.
Another don on the steps of that building, ready to burst in if need be.
Who would’ve thought this city was so small?
I shake my head.
Can’t believe I just met the only girl I thought I’d never see again. And that she gave me her number …
I unfurl my hand. The note is still there, all crumpled up and messy. But the phone number is clearly visible.
She gave me this for a reason. Maybe she wants me to save her. Someday.
I close my eyes and take another breath.
I can’t do shit at the moment. I don’t have money, nor do I have the power to free someone else when I’ve barely freed myself.
I wish she could’ve come with me … but knowing how these mobsters work, he’s probably forced her to take some kind of tracking device with her to make sure she doesn’t run.
She didn’t want my life to be in jeopardy too.
Oh, man. Poor Melanie.
I will help her get out. One day.
I move away from the door and go into the kitchen to grab a much-needed glass of water, which I chug down in one go. It doesn’t make me feel any better. Nor does the paper in my hand.
I look at it again and then crumple it up and stuff it in my back pocket.
I will protect this note and her number with my life.
Tik. Tik. Skkrrtt.
I freeze midway toward the living room.
The noise has me on high alert.
It sounds like a door being opened. A back door.
Voices echo through the house.
My eyes widen.
Visitors.
I quickly hide behind the couch. Peering over the edge, I gaze at three men barging inside the house like they own it, one of them fondling a tiny little bag with white powder in it.
Shock ripples through my core.
Gangbangers.
So this is a drug house after all.
Shit.
“Wow, wow, wow … What happened here?” one of them mutters as he stops in his tracks.
They all glare at the living room, which has obviously changed since the last time they were here. I moved in some extra furniture I found lying around, along with some amenities.
“What the fuck …?” another one says. “Who was in here?”
I dive back behind the couch as my heart begins to race. I have to get out before this gets ugly, and it can get ugly fast when drugs are involved. But this house has only two exits, and I’m stuck in this room while they’re right inside the door. How do I get out?
Another one barks, “Show yourself!”
Adrenaline swoops through my veins, my legs ready to run. Can I flee without them catching me? Maybe I can use this table next to the couch as a distraction and throw it at them.
Suddenly, two eyes appear from behind the couch, catching me off guard.
“Well, hello there.”
I shriek from the scare.
He walks closer.
“Stay away from me!” I yell.
He clutches the couch, wearing a filthy smirk on his face. “What a way to welcome your guests.”
I eye the corner of the room from the edge of the couch, his fellow buddies quickly approaching. There’s no time. I must act now.
So I grab the nearest pot standing on the table and hold it close. “Don’t! Or I’ll throw this!”
The guy pauses, laughing at me. “You really think I’m scared of a vase?”
His buddies join him in staring at me now while I’m crouched behind the couch, and they all start laughing in sync to make me feel ridiculed, and it’s working.
I throw the vase at them. “Get out!”
One of them sidesteps, and it barely misses him. “Jesus!”
“What the fuck are you thinking?” the other one says. “Why the fuck would you throw that?”
“I told you to get away from me,” I hiss back.
“Well, this isn’t your goddamn house, now is it?” the last one growls.
“Gee, you noticed?” I quip. I can’t help it when they’re all up in my face like that.
I grab the small table the vase was on and use it as a defense.
The first one cocks his head, tucking the bag of drugs into his pocket. “You know what? I wasn’t going to bother. I was gonna let you go. But now that you did that, I don’t think I will.”
I squeal when two of them reach for me, one of them snatching the table from my hands while the other grabs my wrist. I fight them off, kicking and screaming, but they still wrestle me to the floor. Behind the couch, I have no way of getting anyone’s attention, not even with the window open. I just pray someone will walk past and hear me scream.
“Let go of me!” I squeal. “Help!”
The third one laughs. “Should’ve thought of that before you threatened us.” He undoes his belt buckle and pulls it free from his pants. “I think we need to teach you a lesson.”
My eyes widen as he flicks it around. “No!”
He approaches, and I continue to kick, but when he grabs my legs and wraps the belt around them, I’m helpless. Another one of the guys grabs the string hanging from his hoodie and rips it out, wrapping it tightly around my wrists. “Hold still, fucking whore!”
I spit on his face.
He punches me, and my head knocks back onto the hardwood floor.
Stars float in front of my eyes, and I fade in and out.
I vaguely feel someone fumbling at my pants, trying to get them off.
This can’t be happening. It just can’t.
“No one’s going to hear you now,” one of them whispers into my ear, and he shoves a stinky sock into my mouth.
Rage bubbles in my core as he reaches under my shirt, making me want to gouge his eyes out and rip his fingers off.
Suddenly, gunshots ring through the room.
I shriek, hoping, praying that the person who just entered will hear me and come rescue me.
The men get up, releasing me from their grip, and I spit out the disgusting sock. Some yelling ensues. I make myself as tiny as possible and close my eyes as the men disappear from sight. There’s more fighting and yelling. Gunshots follow, the bullets ricocheting off the walls.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Three bodies flop to the floor. One of them in my reach, just beyond the couch, with blood oozing from the socket that once contained his eye.
I squeal again and scrunch up my legs, backing away against the wall as footsteps loom closer.
The face of a man that appears is not one I recognize. But it’s not a young man, not like these drug addicts who tried to use me for their own pleasure. No. This one … this one looks menacing.
With his dark gray trench coat and thick sunglasses, he looks like he just stepped out of a goddamn movie.
And there is only one place I have seen men who look like this before.
Near Marcello.
I shudder in place. “Don’t come closer.”
The man lowers his gun and holds up a hand. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I frown because I don’t know if I can believe his words. When he approaches, I still skittishly hide behind the couch, despite the fact that I could do nothing to stop him from taking what he wants from me. My ankles and wrists are still tied.
“Please,” I mutter, hoping I can play on his emotions.
The man looks at me and lowers his sunglasses. He doesn’t have the eyes of a killer, and I don’t know why that surprises me. They’re full of compassion but also something else … something that reminds me of relief.
He kneels in front of me. “If I take these off, will you promise not to fight me?” he asks.
It takes me a while to decide, but I still nod in the end. I don’t want to cause more harm to myself, and I’m really not in a position to deny him. It’s going to be hard to get these off myself, and who knows what this man would do to me if I tried. Even if he said he wouldn’t hurt me, I don’t trust him not to if push comes to shove.
After all … he looks like he’s from the Mafia.
Did Marcello’s men already find me?
An inkling of hope swashes through me like a wave crashing onto my soul, and I hate what it does to me, how it makes me yearn for the safety and comfort of Marcello’s home.
But I must not let it tempt me.
The man in front of me undoes the belt laced around my feet first, then the string around my wrists. There are red marks all over my skin now, and it hurts. But at least my anger is quelled a little when I look at the druggie on the floor bleeding out of his brain.
“Are they dead?” I ask.
“You won’t be harmed by them,” he says, and he extends a hand.
I glare at it with great suspicion. “Who are you, and why did you come here?”
A soft smile forms on his face. “My name is Cillian.”
Finally, a name. I take his hand, and he lifts me from the floor.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
My heart sinks into my shoes. So I was right.
“Took us quite some time, but I’m glad,” he adds, and he grabs my arm and suddenly drags me along. “Come. We have to go before more of them arrive.”
I try to jerk myself loose, but his grip is too strong. “Wait. Where are you taking me?”
When he doesn’t reply, I slam a fist down on his arm, forcing him to let go. “Did Marcello send you?”
Cillian pauses, glancing at me over his shoulder, the look in his eyes not so sweet anymore. “Marcello?”
The silence between us is deafening.
“You think Marcello sent me?”
My pupils dilate.
“Then …?”
“You know who.”
It takes a few seconds for it to click. There is only one other person in this world who could be looking for me.
My father.
I choke on my own breath.
But he’s dead, isn’t he?
I choked him behind the steering wheel and watched him drown along with me. No one came to save him.
I shake my head. “That’s not possible …”
“When our family heard of what happened at the warehouse, we mobilized immediately and went out to do a search and rescue. You vanished with Marcello, only to resurface in this town out of all the places you could go to,” Cillian explains, and he grabs my wrist once more. “Now, come. Unless you want me to do this the hard way.” The look in his eyes is murderous, and his free hand hovers over his gun.
I can’t possibly win against a man like him. Not with this much of a disadvantage. And something tells me he wouldn’t blink twice to use it on me. Not to kill me, but at least wound me in a way to make me comply.
And I’m not about to risk that.
So I sigh and let him pull me through the house, carefully stepping over the dead bodies and around the pools of blood as though it will prevent the dead from waking up. And he leads me right out of the house, straight into the sunlight, all the way to a car parked in front.
“Get in,” he barks, opening the door.
I sit down, and before I can even say a word, the door’s already closed.
Just like that, my freedom has been stripped away from me again.
This time, not by Marcello’s henchmen … but by my fake father’s.
Cillian hops in front of the steering wheel and shuts the door tight. The locks click into place, and the sound makes me jolt up and down in my seat.
The car begins to drive, and I gaze out the window at my hideout, which quickly vanishes from view. I don’t think I’ll ever see that place again, and that saddens me a bit.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
But I already know the answer. I just ask because I need to hear it from someone else’s mouth. Because my brain can’t cope with the undeniable truth.
“Home. Your real home. Where your mother, Molly, is waiting for you.”
