Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Bianca
I'm in Dante's study, trying to focus on grading papers but really just waiting for him to come home. He left three hours ago with that look on his face—the one that means someone's about to have a very bad night.
My phone lights up. Unknown number.
I answer anyway. "Hello?"
"Miss Mancini?" The voice is female, professional, familiar. "This is Patricia from St. Catherine's Medical Center."
My stomach drops.
"Your mother has taken a turn. The doctor thinks you should come now."
The world tilts.
"How bad?"
"Just come as quickly as you can." Her voice cracks slightly. "Please."
The line goes dead.
I'm moving before I can think. Grabbing my coat. My phone.
I try Dante first. It rings once, then routes to voicemail.
Shit.
He's probably still in the meeting or in some warehouse with blocked signals and men who want him dead.
I call again. Voicemail.
Again. Voicemail.
As much as I want to tell him before I leave, I can't wait. Mom doesn't have time for me to wait, and if she really has little time left, I want to say my goodbyes.
Marco is stationed in the hallway. When I tell him I'm going to the clinic he offers to drive me, but we both decide it might be better if I take one of the drivers, so that he can stay and wait for Dante as per his instructions.
I tell him to let Dante know where I am the second he’s home and I don't wait for his response. Just grab my coat and head for the door.
However, I cannot find anyone around. Even more impatient, I decide to call a rideshare and thankfully, the car arrives in three minutes. A black sedan with a driver who doesn't make small talk. Good. I can't handle small talk right now.
I'm in the backseat, pulling up the clinic's number to call ahead, when I notice we're not heading toward the hospital.
"Excuse me?" I lean forward. "St. Catherine's is the other direction."
"GPS is rerouting," the driver says. "Accident on the main road."
Something twists in my gut. Wrong. This is wrong.
"Stop the car."
"Just a detour, miss. We'll—"
A black SUV cuts us off. Hard. The sedan screeches to a stop, tires burning rubber against asphalt.
I reach for the door handle.
Too late.
Two men yank open the back door before I can lock it. I see their gloved hands, fast movements. Professional efficiency that speaks of training and repetition, which of course means I’m in big trouble.
"Don't touch me—" I try to fight, but one grabs my arms while the other wraps something around my wrists.
Zip ties. Plastic biting into skin. I feel them tighten with a sharp click that sounds too final.
I scream. Full-throated and raw. Someone on the street has to hear. Has to help.
No one comes.
I kick out hard. My knee connects with someone's ribs and I hear a satisfying grunt of pain.
"Bitch—"
A hand clamps over my mouth, just as a leather glove presses against my lips. I bite down hard. Taste fabric and flesh and copper-salt blood through the material.
The man curses. "She broke skin—"
"Hold her still!"
I try to slam my head back, catch someone's nose or jaw. Anything. My elbow finds soft stomach and someone exhales sharply.
But there are two of them and one of me. And they've done this before.
They drag me from the sedan into the SUV. I'm fighting every second—scratching with bound hands, kicking, trying to catch door frames or seat edges. Anything to slow them down.
One of them curses. "She's stronger than she looks. Someone help—"
"Just get her in!"
Something rough drops over my head. A hood. Fabric thick enough to block out light. Everything goes dark. Claustrophobic. My breath comes back hot against my face.
I'm shoved between two large and solid bodies as arms like steel bands pin me in place.
"Drive."
The engine roars. We're moving. Fast.
I try to track the turns but it's impossible. Left. Right. Straight for what feels like forever. The sound changes—echo of concrete to open air and I know we’re on the highway.
My heart is a drum. My breath is trapped under the hood. My wrists scream where the zip ties cut.
Think. Think.
Dante doesn't know. Marco will tell him I left but not where these men took me. The rideshare driver was in on it—probably paid off or threatened.
No one is coming.
Time stretches. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty.
When the SUV finally stops, rough hands haul me out. My feet hit concrete and someone rips the hood off.
I blink against sudden fluorescent light.
I’m in a warehouse. A massive warehouse. Empty except for a few crates and a dark SUV parked near what looks like a loading dock. Through the open bay doors, I can see runway lights. Private hangars.
Oh my God, I’m in an airport. No, no, no…
My blood turns to ice.
"Welcome back, Bianca."
I would recognize that son of a bitch’s voice anywhere.
Adrian steps into view, and I barely recognize him.
His face is a mess—split lip crusted with dried blood, bruises yellowing around both eyes like he's been beaten recently.
Thoroughly. There's dried blood matted in his hairline.
His clothes hang loose. He looks thinner.
Hungrier. Desperate in a way that makes my every instinct scream danger.
This isn't the man I lived with for three years. This is something broken and dangerous wearing his skin.
And behind him, perfectly composed in a white coat and designer heels like she's heading to a business meeting, is Caterina Bellandi.
"Let me go." I jerk against the men holding me. Their grips are iron. "Let me go right now—"
"Afraid I can't do that." Caterina pulls out her phone, taps something with manicured nails, slides it back into her purse with practiced ease. "You're leaving the country, doll. Tonight. With Adrian. Everything's arranged."
"I'm not going anywhere with him."
"You don't have a choice." Adrian moves closer.
Too close. Invading space that used to be familiar but now feels like a violation.
His hand comes up to touch my face and I flinch away violently.
His fingers still make contact. Cold. Trembling.
"You're the only good thing I ever had, Bianca.
The only clean thing in my life. I won't lose you to a monster like Dante. "
"You sold me to him!"
"I made a mistake!" His voice cracks. High-pitched.
Unhinged. "I was desperate. Scared of what they'd do to me.
But I realized—lying awake every night for weeks—I can't live without you.
We belong together. We were good together before everything got complicated.
We can start over. Somewhere new. Somewhere safe. Just you and me, like it used to be."
He's insane. Completely, utterly insane. I can see it in his eyes—the way they don't quite focus. The way he's looking at some fantasy version of me that never existed.
"You think I'd go anywhere with you after what you did?"
"What I did?" He laughs. Bitter. Broken. A sound with jagged edges. "What about what you did? Spreading your legs for that bastard when you were supposed to stay mine. Only mine."
"I was never yours."
His face twists. "I saved your mother. I paid for her treatment. I gave you everything—"
"You gave me nothing!" The words rip out of me. "You know you used my mother as leverage. You used me. And now you're working with her—" I jerk my chin toward Caterina. "—to ruin the one person who actually treats me like I matter."
"Dante doesn't love you." Adrian's voice drops. Venomous. "He's using you. Just like everyone else. Once the scandal breaks, once everyone knows what you really are, he'll throw you away."
"That's not true—"
"Isn't it?" Caterina steps forward. "I released the article twenty minutes ago.
Photos. Client lists. Every sordid detail of your time as an escort.
By morning, every newspaper in New York will have the story.
Your students' parents will demand you be fired.
Dante's partners will demand he leave you. "
No.
No no no—
"You're lying."
"Am I?" She holds up her phone. Shows me the screen.
It's real. The headline screams across the top: VITALE'S FIANCéE: SECRET LIFE AS HIGH-END ESCORT EXPOSED.
Below it, photos. Me in evening gowns at expensive restaurants. Me leaving hotels. Me with clients whose faces are blurred but whose identities are barely concealed.
My vision blurs.
Everything. I've lost everything.
My job. My reputation. Any chance with Dante.
"See?" Adrian's hand is on my shoulder now. "This is why we need to leave. Start fresh. I can protect you from all of this."
I look at him. Really look at him.
And I see it. The truth behind the desperation.
"You did this on purpose." My voice is hollow. "You let my mother's care slip. Not because you couldn't pay. Because you wanted to keep me desperate, didn’t you?"
His eyes flicker. Guilt and defiance warring.
"You sabotaged her treatment so I'd stay dependent on you. So I'd never leave."
"I did what I had to do!" His grip tightens. "You were getting too confident. Too independent. I saw the way you looked at other men. The way you talked about teaching like it was more important than us. I needed you to need me."
The confession is a knife.
Every missed payment. Every call from the clinic saying coverage had lapsed. Every night I spent terrified my mother would die because I couldn't afford her care.
He did that. Deliberately. Even before his debt with Dante.
"You're a monster."
"I'm a man in love!" He shakes me. "And you're coming with me whether you like it or not. We have a plane waiting. Two hours from now, we'll be in Mexico. We can disappear. Be together the way we were always meant to be."
"I'd rather die."
His face goes dark. "That can be arranged."
The men holding me start dragging me toward the hangar doors and the tarmac beyond, where the private jet is waiting to steal my life.
I fight. Scream until my throat is raw. Thrash against their hold with everything I have left.
It changes nothing.
They're too strong. Too practiced. Too many. And I'm just one woman with zip-tied wrists and a coat I grabbed without thinking.
My feet scrape against concrete. My shoulders scream from the angle they're holding me. I try to drop my weight, make myself harder to move, but they just lift me. Carry me like I'm nothing.
Adrian walks beside us. Talking. Always talking.
"It'll be better in Mexico. You'll see. We can get married. Start a family. Leave all this behind—"
"I hate you." The words come out broken. "I hate you so much—"
"You'll forgive me eventually. You always do. That's who you are, Bianca. Too good. Too forgiving. It's what I love about you."
Okay, I have to think. Dante doesn't know where I am. Won't know until it's too late. By the time Marco tells him I left, by the time he traces the rideshare, by the time he realizes it was a trap—
I'll be gone.
And everyone will believe I left willingly. That the escort scandal broke me. That I ran from the shame. With Adrian. That I chose him over Dante, over everything we built together.
The article will make sure of that. It will poison every conversation, every search, every attempt at truth.
I've lost Dante. Lost my job. Lost any chance at the life I was starting to believe I could have.
We all have.
The hangar doors loom closer. Through them, I can see the jet. Stairs down. Engine already running.
This is real. This is happening.
And I can't stop it.