Chapter 13
Sofia
My adrenaline no longer masks the pain in my feet as I continue to throw myself down this steep incline.
I wish the terrain were like what I’m used to at home: plush grass or a pine-needle ridden trail.
Dense forest to hide. Instead, I’m dodging larger rocks to land on smaller rocks, and there are barely any trees or bushes to conceal me.
I’m simply going to have to be faster than Alessandro.
I conceal my grunt as an unusually sharp one hits the arch of my foot.
A grin forms on my face when I think of all the smoke breaks Alessandro takes. I bet he’s the type to ignore cardio in his routine, and if that’s true, then maybe I can actually get away.
Deciding I need to create a plan before I get too tired, I wonder where I can go if I make it out of this trail before he catches up to me.
The police are not a smart choice—who knows what precincts they’ve paid off.
Straight to a hospital could work… unless they end up calling the cops.
I decide that I’ll wave down a stranger and say that I’m fleeing a first date gone horribly wrong, then ask to borrow a phone and call Dad.
Satisfied with my plan, I focus on putting one foot in front of the other—a limp developing because my left foot has hit more sharp rocks than the right. I continue running for what I estimate to be another five minutes, but it’s hard to tell.
I’m getting closer to the lights of Palermo.
I think about seeing my parents again, my siblings again, and going home.
Far, far away from this horrible place. My family won’t have to pay the Ferraras any money anymore—they can cut ties entirely.
My last thought is wondering if I can get my coaching position back last-minute for my high school girl’s tennis team.
A sharp, prickly pain in my left foot ruins all of those optimistic thoughts.
I can’t mask my scream as my knee buckles and I go tumbling down.
My bare legs scrape against the ground, and I can feel the pain from the fresh cuts and bruises forming already.
My gun has flown a few feet, so I crawl and gather that before dealing with anything else, and besides—I’m too afraid to check what I’ve stepped on.
I know what it could be, and I know it’s still attached.
I catch my breath, eyes fixed upwards towards the castle, but there’s no sign of Alessandro. Hell, maybe he didn’t even follow me and their plan was to catch me at the bottom of the hill.
I take a deep breath and finally gather the courage to look at my foot. And as I suspected, a small cactus is stuck in it, going along part of my arch and stopping just before the toes. I look away quickly, feeling a sense of vertigo.
“Fuck…” I moan when I realize I have to pull this thing out myself. I sit up, trying to look at it only from the corner of my eye, then reach my fingers near the cactus, bumping it. I fight the urge to scream when I realize how far into my foot some of these needles have gone.
The sound of thrashing startles me, and it’s coming from the direction I came from—it has to be Alessandro.
I crab-walk further off the trail, trying to find a place to hide. But I’m so slow with one leg dragging and one hand holding the gun.
The footfalls grow nearer.
I hate this full moon. I hate that I wore a bright dress. I’m probably not hidden at all.
It turns out I’m right as Alessandro stares directly at me from the trail.
“Stay back!” I yell, my hands shaking as they grip the gun.
He holds his hands up but doesn’t follow my orders, taking slow steps towards me. “Sofia? Neither of us has to die today. Believe me. Marco is only fucking with you.”
“I said, stay back!”
I don’t want to hear his excuses. He pauses for a moment and then continues walking towards me.
“Now…”
I aim a bit to his right, firing the gun. The loud pop echoes through the night. The gun recoils in my hand more than I would have expected, almost making me drop the thing. He curses and drops to the ground, breathing heavily.
“Sofia? Please! Listen to me.” His eyes look wild as they fall to my injured foot. “You’re hurt. Let me take a look at that.”
“No! Get the fuck away from me! Back up!”
He stands frozen for a beat. I can see the gears turning in his head, and then he continues his slow march forward.
“You don’t want to do this, Sofia. Shoot me?
Do you know what happens to someone when they get shot?
It’s not like the movies.” He chuckles. “The standard 9mm like the one you have in your hands—it won’t kill me immediately—unless you’re an excellent shot.
Which I know you’re not from the way you’re holding it. ”
I shoot it again. This time the bullet flies even closer to him. I don’t even know whether I intended to hit him or not. I’m too cornered to think. He instinctively ducks down again only to pop back up.
He pauses with a look of disbelief on his face before he continues on. “You’ll likely hit me somewhere in my abdomen or maybe a leg. But I’ll keep coming closer to you as I bleed out. The thick blood oozing out of me, looking absolutely black in this lighting.”
“Shut up!” I realize what he’s doing to me, and the rushing feeling in my head is telling me it’s working.
“Or maybe you will kill me in the first shot or two. Take a guess at how quickly a body defecates after taking its last breath. No matter how many people I’ve killed or witnessed killed, something I never get used to are the eyes…”
I’m nearly hyperventilating as I tune him out, my hand violently shaking so much that I don’t know if I could successfully hit him even if I wanted to.
I continue to slide myself away the best I can, but he’s approaching me quicker than I’m crawling away.
Eventually, his feet are right by mine as he looms over me.
“Please set the gun down and let me help you.”
I hesitate. He’s so close to me I bet I could kill him despite being a bad shot. A shot to the face, right between the eyes. Then I think of all the things he said to me and drop the gun.
I bury my face in my hands. If it weren’t for this phobia, he’d be dead and I’d be one step closer to escaping. But phobia aside, I don’t think I’m capable of killing anyone.
He squats down so he’s eye-level with me. He wipes some sweat off his forehead with his sleeve before reaching for my leg. Instinctively, I jerk my leg back, but he moves forward and grabs hold of my calf. “Look away, Sofia.” His voice is gentle—a tone I’ve never heard from him before.
I do as I’m told, stifling a small squeak as I feel the cactus getting pulled away from my foot.
He tosses the thing to the side. “Not much blood.” He stands up and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
I look at him questioningly. He said there wasn’t a lot of blood, but was he lying for my sake?
Maybe I need a tourniquet. I swallow back vomit.
He must notice my panic because he adds, “I’m boiling after that run. I wasn’t expecting you to make it this far.”
I take a deep breath. “If I were wearing running shoes, I’d probably be reunited with my family by now.”
“I’m sure you would.” I’m surprised he agrees with me. He holds his shirt in his hands, looking around as if he doesn’t know what to do with it. “Are you cold?”
I realize that my whole body is shaking, but I can’t tell if I’m cold or if it’s only the adrenaline.
“A little, but I don’t want your shirt if that’s what you’re asking.”
He rolls his eyes. “Put the damn thing on.”
Exhausted, I put it on without a fight. The gesture is oddly comforting, and besides, the protection from the wind is kind of nice.
“Can you bear weight on your other foot?”
“I think so.”
He holds both of his hands out for me, and I let him pull me up, wincing at the pain in both of my legs.
Then, seeing my discomfort, he scoops me up in his arms.
“I could have walked.”
He ignores me.
I wrap my arms around his neck so that I feel more stable, not that it’s too necessary. I fit comfortably in his arms.
He walks down, away from the castle.
“We’re not going back?” I ask.
“We are. But it’s much quicker to go down and have someone drive us up than for me to carry you all the way. We’re practically at the bottom of the trail. And I’m sure Marco has arranged for a car to be waiting. He always assumes that I’ll fuck up.”
The name Marco sends a chill down my spine. “Alessandro?”
“Hmm?”
“Marco said that only one of us will survive tonight. Aren’t you worried?” Then I wonder if he’s not worried because Marco will choose me as the sacrificial lamb. I flail in his arms, suddenly wanting to get away. I should have killed him when I had the chance.
“Easy,” he hisses. His grip tightens. “He will not kill either of us. Well, for sure not you. You’re more valuable to him than I am.”
I relax; he seems sincere right now, which only makes me more suspicious because it’s Alessandro.
“Marco plays these types of games all the time. I’m sure he’s in his bedroom, on his third whiskey and about to go to sleep.”
“So, all of that running and stepping on that cactus was nothing but a sick joke?”
“Yes.”
As Alessandro predicted, a black car waits for us at the end of the trail.
He helps me get in, and we silently make our way back to the castle.
The whiplash of emotions exhausts me. First, I was worried I was going to get shot, then I thought I’d actually escape, then I was worried I’d have to see the aftermath of Alessandro getting shot.
I desperately want to be behind the closed doors of his place—that’s a laughable thought seeing how much I’ve hated being trapped.
I try to say no to him carrying me through the castle, but he insists, stating that I’d bloody up the floors. Which is nonsense, seeing that they planned a shootout in their own home.
But again, I’m too exhausted to argue.
He kicks the door closed when we finally get to his wing and takes me all the way to the bathroom, setting me on the edge of the tub.
Alessandro lets out a low whistle. “It looks worse in the light, but I don’t think you’ll need a proper doctor. I can patch it up.”
I look down at myself and all I see are red, bloody lines along my legs. There’s a deep scrape on my thigh that I hadn’t even noticed till now.
“Oh, no.” I grab hold of the tub to steady myself and feel his hands on my arms, making sure I don’t collapse.
“Even this is too much for you?” he muses. “These are all light wounds.”
“Yes.” I jerk his hands away and peel his shirt off and throw it near the toilet.
“I didn’t mean to offend; that was meant to be an internal thought.”
“Maybe you should do a better job of keeping those thoughts internal,” I mutter.
I look away from my legs and focus on my breathing as he patches me up. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe him gruffly wrapping gauze around my legs or telling me to deal with this myself. But he seems strangely… attentive. Gentle even.
His hand brushes up against my thigh, where that large scrape is. I don’t know if it’s on purpose or absent-minded, but he caresses me with his thumb as he patches this one up. It stirs up a feeling in me that makes me question…
“Does it look like I hit my head?”
His eyes snap up and narrow in concern as he gently runs his hands through my hair, checking for blood on my skull. “Does your head hurt?”
“No, but I feel weird.”
“You’re probably starving. Do you want me to send something up?”
My stomach growls as if it’s directly answering for me.
“Maybe. The food here is delicious, but I really want something American. Comfort food. Lots of carbs.” My mouth waters when I think about what I want. “Hmm, mac n’ cheese with pulled pork and barbeque sauce over it. Do you guys even have barbeque sauce here?”
I’m expecting him to make fun of, well, all of that. Tell me I’m classless or a child. But he responds simply with, “I’ll ask.”
He finishes tending to me and instead of walking away or taking me to the bedroom; he lingers eye-level. His green eyes flick down to my lips briefly before he nervously runs his hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry about all of that. Marco? He’s uhh… awful.” A faint smile forms on his face, and it makes me blush before he quickly looks away before getting back to business. “Are you in a lot of pain? I can see what kind of medication I have here.”
“No, I’m fine.”
He stands up, pulling me with him. I bear weight on my less-injured foot and feel his firm hands support the rest of me.
I can feel his body heat radiating from him.
His masculine scent surrounds me as we stand in the bathroom suspended.
I have to come to terms with myself—that I crave more of his touch.
But I need to keep my head in the game. I’m sure these butterflies in my stomach have more to do with seeing literally no one else most days and with him saving me from someone even more cruel than he is.
But is he cruel?
I assumed so based on what Savannah told me. But he hasn’t shown that side of himself to me.
He guides me to the bed and leaves me alone, finding someone to make me the food I requested. He leaves me feeling oddly… hopeful.
Maybe the two of us can actually get along. And only good things can come of that if I can get him to like me and trust me more. But if not, it’ll at least make this prison more pleasant.