Chapter 36
Sofia
I feel like I can’t breathe with this tape around my mouth.
People talk all around me as if I’m not sitting in this cell.
They haven’t even bothered closing the door—probably because there’s almost twenty men down here with me.
And what am I going to do? Inchworm up the stairs before anyone notices or can catch me?
They’ve only hit me three times, nothing too hard, but that doesn’t stop the fear from creeping in of what they will do to me later.
After Elio initially contacted Alessandro, I felt a wave of emotions at the news that he was coming to rescue me. That confirmed that he loved me, but it filled me with dread, knowing that he was going to give his life for mine.
But as each minute passes, it’s becoming clear that Alessandro isn’t hurrying over. And I don’t know if he’s coming at all.
Maybe he doesn’t love me, and I’m a fool.
And maybe I am going to die.
I start crying again—a difficult task with my mouth taped. Would he really do this? Let me and the baby die? I was so excited for our life together. But he strung me along, making me fall in love with him.
But why? He could have thrown me down here long ago. He always threatened to.
It must have been a sick game to him.
My self-pity spiral quickly turns to frozen fear when Elio looks my way.
Then he meanders towards me until I have to crane my neck to look up at him.
“He’s taking a long time.” He states this as if it’s a mundane fact, but I can tell he’s hiding his stress from me—he ordered my mouth to be taped shut when I begged them to let me go too much.
He’s not a monster, I can tell, but he wants to dethrone Alessandro anyway he can manage.
“Are you thirsty? Do you want something to drink?” I nod.
He steps forward to rip my tape off. “Scream, cry, or say anything I don’t like and this goes right back on. ”
When he rips the tape off, I can’t help but whimper a bit at the pain, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He nods at someone who I assume is fetching the water.
“We’ll be calling him back soon. And if he doesn’t pick up or cooperate, we’re going to have to take it out on you.”
I clench my fists to not let a sob escape me. “Please…”
“Don’t,” he snaps.
His soldier comes back with a cup of water.
The final offering of kindness before the inevitable torture starts.
It only takes three gulps to finish the glass of water, and I realize how thirsty and stressed and tired I am. I give the glass back, my hands trembling in fear.
Without saying another word, Elio rips off a fresh piece of tape and re-covers my mouth.
I panic, wondering if those were the last words I’ll ever be able to say.
I can’t control the sobs now as I breathe heavily through my nose and struggle against the tape.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and makes the call.
It rings and it rings.
No answer.
He wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t let me die down here.
Elio tries again.
Desperate, I struggle against the binds on my wrists as if that will help anything.
Elio curses as another missed call goes through. “Bastard.” He sighs and nods at Dante. “We’re going to need to make a video.”
My eyes go wide at what that could mean. Dante and his blank expression leave the cell and head towards some rolling cart from hell with various tools meant to inflict pain.
I instinctively stand up only to be thrust back down onto the bench. I feel my whole body start to tremble.
“What do you want to do?” Dante asks Elio as if this were a mundane task. “Should we wait for Vincenzo?”
Yes. Yes you should wait for Vincenzo. I scream at them mentally, knowing that Vincenzo will never walk down these steps.
“I have no fucking idea where Vincenzo is,” Elio says. “He won’t pick up his phone either.”
Panic continues to rise, and I feel like I’m in a nightmare where I have the front-row seat to my own death.
Dante and Elio bicker back and forth about whether Elio has cell service down here or whether they should go looking for either Vincenzo or Alessandro.
Then everything is black.
Pitch black.
All the men go silent for what feels like an entire minute as we’re left suspended in confusion, until Elio shouts, “Someone grab her!”
I throw myself on the ground, my knees banging against the hard concrete. I quickly roll underneath the bench towards the other side of the cell.
“She’s not here anymore!”
“Well, keep look—” Elio’s voice goes from clear, crisp, and commanding to sounding like he’s drowning in an instant.
Blood rushes to my head at the smell of copper.
Someone has slit his throat.
“Got him.” I recognize Max’s voice.
Then I hear some more scuffling followed by Nick shouting, “Watch it!”
Screams echo throughout the dungeon. Screams of pain. Screams of anger.
There aren’t any gunshots—only an overwhelming sound of sharp knives connecting with flesh.
Knowing that my family is down here fills me with both hope and dread. I know I might get out of this alive, but what if something happens to them? All because I stupidly went back into the castle to look for Alessandro.
And it’s not even him that’s saving me.
I question whether I should try to crawl my way out of my hiding space, but I seem safe enough here.
“Get the ones that are running!” someone shouts in Italian. Someone’s voice I don’t recognize. Which doesn’t make any sense if it’s Max and Nick that are orchestrating this thing.
Unless…
Two hands grip my arms and slide me out of my hiding place. I flail until I hear the familiar voice whisper in my ear. “It’s me, it’s me.”
I nod my head and melt into him, never having felt this much relief in my life. I can feel how much I’m trembling as Alessandro holds me. His heart pounds in his chest as my head rests against him.
“I’m going to unbind you, but we’re still in danger. We’re going to wait right here until it’s over.”
He maneuvers me, sawing at the tape with a knife until my legs are broken free along with my arms. Then finally, he removes the tape from my mouth.
Despite the danger surrounding us, I instinctively try to kiss him, but he stops me, gently putting his hand on my forehead.
He guides my hand up to his face, revealing what I can assume are a pair of night-vision goggles sticking out several inches.
He brings the back of my hand to his mouth, kissing it.
Then, he turns around to watch out for anyone who could come into the cell.
There are so many things I want to say to him—questions I want to ask—but we stay crouched in the corner, him in front of me as the sound of carnage surrounds us. I don’t know how much time passes as I sit there, my forehead resting against his back.
I thought I’d never see him again. I thought he’d let me die down here, but I was so wrong.
His body moves away from me without warning, followed quickly by the horrific squishing sound of the knife puncturing whoever wandered into our cell.
That coppery smell floods the area again, and I’m surprised with myself at the fact that I’m not about to pass out.
Either fight or flight is taking care of that, or simply not being able to see the blood is helping me.
Or maybe it’s just having him close by.
“Is that it?” Nick asks, followed quickly by someone asking the same question in Italian.
A sense of calm enters the room as Alessandro helps me stand up. “I’m getting her out of here and letting them know to turn the lights back on. The rest of you, make sure there aren’t any survivors.”
He scoops me off my feet. I loop my arms around his neck, trying not to sob at the sudden relief of everything being over—the miscommunication with my family, this horrible attempt at overthrowing him.
“Wait, wait,” Max’s voice calls from across the dungeon. “Is she okay?”
“I’m fine,” I answer. A hand claps my shoulder, startling me.
“She can’t see,” Alessandro growls.
“Sorry.” I recognize Nick’s voice; he must be standing right next to us, and I didn’t realize.
“One of them is still alive!” a voice I don’t recognize shouts, followed by more sounds of killing.
The grip I have around Alessandro tightens as he hurries me up the stairs.
The lights are turned off in the hallway leading up to the dungeon, but it’s not as dark, and I can see Alessandro now. He rips off the night-vision goggles while still holding me with one arm.
“I can walk, you know.”
“Don’t care.”
He smiles down at me, but he looks like he’s on the verge of tears. I’ve never seen him like this before.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” he scoffs. “Why are you the one asking that question? Are you okay? Tell me what they did to you.”
“Nothing much.” Even I’m not convinced by that with how weak my voice sounds. “They hit me, but I was more scared than anything. And I thought that… Max and Nick convinced me that… you didn’t actually love me, and I was worried you weren’t going to come help me.”
He sets me down, lifting my chin up to look him in the eyes.
Alessandro has a knack for looking tortured and intense, but his current expression is so extreme it nearly makes my knees buckle.
“I love you. I regret not telling you sooner because of that mind-fuck of an afternoon we just had. But I can promise you that nothing like that is ever going to happen again. And if I’m wrong, then you will sit there and wait without a doubt in your mind that I will come for you. ”
“I love you too.” I stand on my tiptoes to kiss him. “So much.”
I fall back on my heels, gripping his arms so that I stay supported. He must be able to sense how physically weak I feel from all of that and scoops me up again to continue walking. I feel his love radiating from him.
“Max and Nick messed with my head so much, trying to convince me you manipulated me and didn’t love me.”
“From their perspective, it makes sense. I made your family think that we seriously harmed you before we made up in the gym, and I was too cowardly to deal with that. I just wanted to be with you and ignore the drama with them. I’m so sorry, Sofia.
” He tightens his grip on me. “I saw you in the hallway, laughing with your family and then guiding them out of the castle—”
“That was because—”
“They explained. I know you didn’t want to go with them. Either way, the thought of you leaving me broke me in a way I never thought possible.”
I think about how he must have felt in that moment. Just finding out that his sister isn’t who he thought she was and thinking that I manipulated him so that I could escape. I was tied up and thought I was going to die, but I’m not sure that I had it worse.
I still have my family, but he lost the only family member he truly had.
“I’m sorry you had to see that. And I’m sorry about what happened with Elena.”
He forces a tight smile—he still has a problem with my ‘pitying’ him. But it’s improving. Slowly.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says.
I can finally feel my heart rate slowing. My body relaxes. Maybe I died down there, and this is my heaven. Because I couldn’t fathom that this would all work out when I was bound and taped.
But now it seems like I’ll get everything I wanted.