Chapter 18 Captured
Chapter eighteen
Captured
Reiko pulled herself up from the groggy state of unconsciousness with a little help from the relentless pounding in her skull, and the not-so-far-away pair of voices that sounded like they were arguing rather fiercely.
But it only took a few seconds for her to realize that her raging headache and nauseating disorientation was not the reason she couldn’t understand more than tones and implicit genders.
She heard a distinctly male-oriented voice, and a rough but nonetheless identifiably female-oriented voice, and neither were speaking English.
Of course, they weren’t speaking Japanese, either. That would have been far too convenient.
Reiko bit back a groan and blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to clear her vision as the fog over her mind faded away. She was horrendously uncomfortable, actually. Her entire body hurt. And she was cold. And there was something in her mouth.
Her heart slammed hard against her ribs, the cotton-tasting thing forcing her to breathe too hard through her nose. Her nose was stuffy, because she’d been crying, and she still couldn’t fucking see, and on top of everything she suddenly remembered, it was nearly impossible not to panic.
She’d been kidnapped.
She remembered having grown tired, her eyes heavy, and informing Luca that she would be going upstairs to bed.
Luca had assured her he would remain in the house—downstairs—until Santino got home.
She wasn’t sure if Luca was being kind to her because doing otherwise would get him killed or because he liked her on some level, but he didn’t make her uncomfortable, so she had chosen to appreciate the possibility of having a friend.
Especially if she was going to have to accept that person as a living shadow for the foreseeable future.
It turned out her judgement was shit.
Luca had jumped her in the wardrobe only minutes later.
With the late-night staff all downstairs, no one had heard her screams for help or whatever sounds had resulted from her struggle.
Reiko remembered fighting. She remembered swinging her arms and legs, punching and clawing and kicking as best she could, and she was damn sure she’d connected a few times.
But it hadn’t done any good. Luca was larger and stronger than her.
Luca had actual training and experience.
Worst of all, Luca was prepared.
She’d cracked her head against something and blacked out about the time he’d muttered a curse of agitation. Her memories after that were fleeting, disassociated images and sensations of pain and half-shadowed figures. Echoes of words she couldn’t understand.
Her consciousness had finally, if not regretfully, fully returned.
She recognized that more than likely the conversation she couldn’t understand was being spoken in Italian.
What she did not understand was why she couldn’t see, and why she was so cold and stiff. Her skin felt half-numb from the chill.
Reiko swallowed compulsively and nearly choked around the gag that was soaking up her saliva and leaving her mouth too dry. It made her kind of want to vomit thinking about what it might even be.
She tried to focus on testing her body, slowly, one area at a time.
Her toes felt like they wiggled appropriately, but something definitely restricted the movement of her legs.
Bound. She pictured rope or shackles at her ankles, but didn’t want to move so dramatically as to risk making a loud sound.
She had no way to know if she was being watched, and learning her immediate situation seemed most important.
So, she kept testing her muscles, and realized quickly that she was on her side, on a hard and unforgiving surface over something reminiscent of plastic.
A different kind of chill rolled through her. Her first thought of what that plastic thing could be was a tarp.
Tarps were where people who died were dumped, to make cleanup easier. That was what they showed on television, at least.
The argument in the background stopped, heels clacked off, and a door slammed somewhere in the distance. Moments later, a male voice—the male voice from the argument—spoke in English, closer than before. “Finally woke up, huh?”
Shit. The tarp had crinkled with her movement.
Not that it mattered. She had to be blindfolded, that had to be why it felt like her entire head was wrapped—because she had a gag and a blindfold encompassing her head, as well as a crushing headache.
She was completely blind and wholly unable to do more than emit a thoroughly muffled, dehumanizing moan-like sound around the thing wadded up in her mouth.
She’d rather flip her captors off and glare in silence, but her hands were trapped behind her back at an uncomfortable angle, so that wasn’t an option, either.
The tarp crunched faintly, far too close, the sound practically reverberating through her.
Then the man spoke again, his voice lowered but crystal clear.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t see what he sees in you.
Never would have pegged a broken, mousey little Jap like you for his type.
” The air shifted over her and if not for the gag she would have screamed—in shock, on principle, and perhaps with a tinge of terror—when he pressed something cool to the edge of her scar.
“This isn’t personal, but that won’t stop me from carving you like a fucking Thanksgiving turkey if you give me half a reason.
Your job is to be the nice, hapless damsel.
Let me use you. Play your role, and when this is done, we let you go. Capisci?”
Tears burned her eyes, a toxic and oddly fortifying blend of fear and fury pouring through her system.
It was probably best she was gagged. Because for as deeply as she recognized her disadvantage, she was pissed.
She absolutely did not understand—her assumed translation of his Italian tag-on—and she would never, ever agree.
She had been a “broken, mousey damsel” her entire life. Then she’d met a man who’d told her, even shown her, she could be more. She’d tasted it, like licking the spatula while the real dessert baked in the oven, and goddammit she was not going to let go just because some racist trash told her to.
If only she had a way to turn that searing feeling into anything more than vibrating anger and tears.
Santino stood inside his closet, the closet Reiko’s clothes hadn’t even been hung up in yet, and stared at the evidence of the fight that should never have been.
Coats had been ripped from hangars, more hangars knocked askew, and an entire pedestal of accessories toppled over.
Watches, cuff links, clips and pins all scattered across the floor.
It was a mess, but it wasn’t the mess he cared about.
It was the cracked mirror, where traces of blood had smeared and rolled down the glass and a few errant strands of black hair had stuck.
It was the blood, dribbled like raindrops on the floor, overtop of the toppled pedestal and staining at least one Rolex.
It was the sight of Reiko’s blood and the proof that she had been scared—the proof that she’d fought—that mattered to him.
She hadn’t just been startled and calmly walked out at gunpoint.
She hadn’t been ambushed and drugged to be carted off quietly.
She’d been attacked. Someone had gone out of their way not just to abduct her from the home she had been promised was safe, but to scare the hell out of her—to give her a brand-new trauma.
So why the fuck was he standing around?
“Boss. Luca’s awake.”
Santino flexed his fists at his sides. That was why.
Because he needed to hear Luca’s recounting, and the useless shit had been too out of it when they’d arrived.
Santino had had no choice but to call in emergency medical.
He wasn’t letting Luca, or anyone else, leave until he was sure where every damn one of them stood.
He followed Armando back down the stairs and into the comparatively quieter room they were using as improvised triage.
Most of the late-night staff insisted they hadn’t even known there was a problem—that they thought Reiko had gone up to bed—until Luca had rushed through shouting about an intruder.
So, most of them were being sequestered in another space, under guard but alone.
Their stories were too similar to ignore.
Luca had the answers. Or the best answers Santino could hope for.
The doctor met him in the hall outside Luca’s temporary recovery suite, a bag on his shoulder and furrow to his brow.
Santino slipped his hands into his pockets. “What do I need to know?”
Dr. Ivers kept his voice equally hushed.
“He might have a sprained wrist, however, most of his wounds are superficial.” He made a vague, mimed scratching motion.
“Not dissimilar to claw marks, or cat scratches. They bleed and sting for a minute, but nothing will scar. Technically, there is risk of infection, so I left the usual antibiotic on the nightstand for him. He’s got a bump on the head, but nothing serious.
” Ivers tucked his hands away as his brow furrowed more.
“But that gunshot wound to the leg … I gotta be honest, Guerra. It’s suspect. ”
Santino kept his jaw locked tight for five long seconds. This was not the time to be losing his head. “Suspect how?”
Ivers cut a narrow-eyed glare toward the closed door just beyond where they stood before answering.
“I don’t have the equipment to perform a residue test here, and probably he’s got a story to explain any findings on his hands, regardless.
But some things you learn to see with your eyes over time.
” Ivers shook his head. “Denim burns a particular way when you hold a gun up against it and pull the trigger. More than that, it leaves specific trails in the skin underneath, like flash-tattooing.”