Chapter 55 #2
“I’m okay.” I took a breath and swallowed down the bile, fighting this suffocating feeling.
“We’re going to get out of this,” Dante growled, “Just hang on.”
The boat’s engines roared as we pulled away from the dock, Valeria’s island growing smaller and smaller, the fire little more than a glowing orange spot against the darkness.
I focused on the water. On the familiar salt smell of the Adriatic as we raced across the surface, the big engines drowning out everything else. I could breathe easier, though I still felt like I was going to throw up. There were five of us, but we were all shackled.
We had no weapons.
There were twelve… fourteen guards.
“Heard the dark-haired bitch can’t swim.”
The voice came from my right, followed by a smattering of cruel laughter. I went still, keeping my head hung low. On either side, Gabriel and Nico moved closer, pressing me firmly between them.
Two black boots appeared in my line of sight. Stopped.
“Is that right?” he said. “The great Dominico principessa is afraid of the water?”
I looked up at him. Big and blunt-faced with sandy hair, he watched me with a malicious smile that took over his entire face. He had the look of someone who enjoyed hurting anyone or anything smaller than himself.
Enjoyed it immensely.
“Nothing to say?” He stepped between my legs, pushing his crotch in my face. Gabriel growled deep in his throat, the warning snarl of a predator. Another guard lifted his hand and brought down his club with a sickening crash onto Gabriel’s skull, so hard, I swore I heard bone break.
Blood splattered across my cheek, the world tilting as I lunged forward… and stopped, the chains catching.
“Leave him alone, you fucking bastards.” Tears burned up out of my eyes, coating my cheeks, pride nowhere to be found as I yanked at the chains, sending them rattling.
“Shut the fuck up, you,” my tormentor snapped. “One more word out of your mouth and I’ll have my guards break every bone in his body.”
I hung there, helpless, scraped cheek burning from the salt spray, wishing for a godsdamned miracle.
Something, anything to save us.
“Got anything else to say?” He leaned close enough I was swamped by the stench of his rancid breath, his expression curling into something cruel. “Not so high and mighty now, are you?”
I shook my head. Gabriel’s weight listed against me, a river of blood dribbling from his chin and down over my shirt. There was so much. With all this iron, he would never heal.
He could bleed to death.
The lanky guard reached down and unlocked me from the bench ring with the key from his pocket, leaving the long chain attached.
I was calculating exactly how I’d sweep his legs out from under him and get those keys when a big, meaty hand closed on my arm.
Then I was being hauled up, and I couldn’t fucking make my body work right.
Even without my hands shackled, all this iron was wreaking havoc on my coordination.
My arms and legs felt too heavy, my brain was working too slow.
“Let me go,” I breathed, my feet folding under me as he dragged me toward the side of the speeding boat, looping the chain around his arm like a leash. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”
“Oh, I’d do far more than touch you if I had the time, but Don Giovanni wants you alive and kicking for tomorrow’s executions, so we’ll just have a bit of fun on the ride back.”
He was double my size, and the side of the boat was getting closer and closer until the spray hit me in the face, blinding me as I tried to blink salt out of my stinging eyes.
There was the metallic grind of metal on metal and a chorus of raucous male laughter.
Nico and Dante were cursing, shouting threats, but all I could do was brace my feet on the slippery deck as I was shoved forward.
Then the railing up against my waist and my hands were cuffed behind my back with heavy chains, and oh gods… the water was right there, the boat’s wake spreading out behind us, the surface choppy and dark and right below me and… I squeezed my eyes closed.
Don’t look down.
Don’t. Look. Down.
“Put her over.”
The guard’s order came from far away. The words didn’t make sense, not with how fast my heart was beating, but then I was flipping over, my feet leaving the deck, the world going upside down.
“Nooo,” Dante’s frantic scream tore through the roar of the engines, the rush of the bow cutting through the waves. His voice did something strange to my chest—filling it up and tearing it apart at the exact same time.
I opened my mouth to scream…
But I was already falling.
The water was shockingly cold. And hard, like concrete.
I hit that surface and gasped, absolutely the wrong thing to do, just before you sank underneath, where air was a precious commodity, and then I couldn’t do anything except twist in the current as I was dragged along in the wake of the boat, the motors spinning right the fuck there, and I couldn’t swim or breathe or think or…
I sucked in a breath, my lungs flooding with seawater. Choked. Thrashed.
Drowned.
Nothing but dark and cold and suffocating water as I strained and strained to reach the surface for just one breath of air, just one…
They pulled me up.
I landed on the metal surface, gagging on the water surging up my throat, and for a moment, there was nothing except the freezing cold, the guard’s laughter, and the sound of my own coughing as I spewed everything inside me out onto the deck.
Behind me, something metal snapped, the crack rending the air like a gunshot.
A warning shout from one of the guards and there was Dante, up on his feet, one shackle still bolted around his wrist, the bench ring broken, the expression on his face as he crawled toward me… heartbreaking.
Determined. Ruined. Feral.
But all this iron sapped all his strength down to that of a mortal.
And every inch cost him.
“Don’t. Touch… her again,” he snarled, dragging himself toward me. “I might have iron in my skin, but if any of you touch her again…” Dante’s fire kept trying to burst free, only to be doused by the pins and the shackles and the mountain of iron around us, this cage we’d never escape.
“Make sure the big bastard doesn’t get up again.
” The blunt-faced guard ordered, and I began to crawl, inching toward him as a slew of guards surrounded my husband, clubs coming down again and again in fast, sharp strikes, wood thudding against muscle, until blood stained the metal deck, and he stopped moving.
“Stop… stop hurting him.”
A boot sank deep into my gut, flipping me over on the deck, the world spinning.
We’d never make it to Venice.
We were all going to die on this godsdamned boat in the middle of the sea, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
Reeking breath spilled over me, and I opened my eyes. The sadistic guard was right in my face, grinning like a maniac. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about you. Time for another swim.” He jerked his head, and the two guards grabbed my arms, hauling me toward the railing.
From the other side of the deck, a bloodied Gabriel and Nico yanked against their bindings, helpless to break free.
“I love you,” I whispered. “Take care of Dante. If you can.”
Then I tipped over the side, and the black water consumed me. Cold was everywhere, outside and inside, smothering the air from my lungs faster than before, and I released my last breath of air.
I would have liked to see Venice again.
See Luca—my brother—again, the way he was.
I would have liked to have a future with the men I loved and trusted and never would have found but for a broken vow at the altar and a promise of revenge.
The lights went out.