Chapter 24
Grace
Gio better let me out of this damn room. I color in the sketch, shading it. I love this one. He’s going to love it, too. I keep looking to the door. He’s late tonight. He told me he would be, but I still don’t like it.
I only get to see him. I miss… I miss variety, I think.
I tried to explain it to him earlier. I need to get out of here.
Soon. He always says soon. But I need a timeline.
I love being his princess, his submissive, his…
his everything. That’s the way he makes me feel, and I love it.
But I need to get out of this damn room.
I put the pencil down and hold the paper away from me. It’s beautiful. In my periphery, I see the cage. It looks so small now. It’s odd, how before it didn’t seem to be. But I can’t imagine going back in.
I turn to look toward the door as I hear Gio coming.
My forehead pinches as I move to kneel for him.
We always start the nights with training.
It’s basically foreplay for me now. I place my hands on my thighs, and my pussy clenches waiting for him.
But there’s something wrong. The footsteps sound…
different. I jolt as something bangs on the door.
My heartbeat races with worry. Gio?
I hear a muffled voice, and then another. That’s not Gio. My blood runs cold, and I scramble off the bed. Someone’s here. The banging has stopped, but I hear them punching in a code. It won’t work. Only Gio can open that door. I walk backward, my eyes on the door, wide with anxiety.
My throat closes, and I struggle to breathe. Where’s my Gio?
I almost run to the cage, as if hiding would save me, but it won’t. Nothing will save me. If these men are here, it means something bad happened to Gio. I know he wouldn’t let them near me without a fight.
My chest tightens, and I look around the room for anything that can be used as a weapon. My easel. I run toward it, holding my breath. I nearly scream as a large thud on the door accompanied by shouting makes my body freeze with fear.
I crack the easel over my leg, and then split the large stick of wood into two.
The edges are jagged. I hold both tightly in my hands, feeling the wood dig into my palms. I wait, moving back and forth on my heels, but I don’t want to stand out here in the open.
I have nowhere to hide though. I look under the bed, but it wouldn’t give me much room to fight.
Instead, I move to the bathroom and hide behind the tiny edge of the doorframe.
My heart races with anxiety. I close my eyes tightly, praying for Gio to come.
I cover my mouth with a sob and drop the one weapon as I realize he could be dead. My father. He’s come for me! He better not have killed him. Not Gio. I can’t bear the thought.
No!
No! Gio! I can’t go back to my father and that wretched life.
I won’t. As the thought resonates through me, the door smashes open and the sound of several men coming into the room echoes off the walls.
A large cloud of dust and smoke billows into the room, and I can barely make out the men.
My heart sinks, and I slide down the wall, my fingers searching for the weapons I dropped in my panic.
I barely feel the tips of the wood with my fingers and I grab them with a force that nearly snaps them in two.
I slide up the wall, waiting as deep voices speak in Italian.
The smoke and dust is beginning to settle.
Over the sound of the blood rushing in my ears, I can’t make out a damn thing they’re saying. Not that I’d understand, anyway.
As the footsteps come closer, I prepare to strike. At least one person is going to die. I’m not leaving. I don’t want to leave.
The irony of the situation settles heavy on my shoulders. I couldn’t wait to leave, but now all I want to do is stay. A shadow slowly creeps into the room.
I hold my breath, raising the stakes and as soon as the first boot lands on the tile, I turn and put all my weight into the blow.
I scream out and nearly collapse when I see who it is.
He grabs my wrist and my elbow, keeping the first stake from hitting him, but the second lands on his shoulder, slicing through the thin shirt and stabbing into his flesh.
Uncle Toni.
I scream, covering my mouth and hunching on the ground in shock and fear.
His face scrunches with agony as his piercing curse reverberates off the wall and the other men come in.
Uncle Toni rips the stake out as someone I vaguely recognize sees me and yells to someone else.
I huddle on the ground. “I’m so sorry.” I heave in a breath.
The man throws me a blanket, and Uncle Toni kneels down. “Grace,” he says and looks at me with such sadness in his eyes that I fall into his embrace, covered in the blanket.
I’m shocked and shaking with fear. The adrenaline and anxiety aren't even close to being gone. I start to say something. I want to rattle off questions and ask about Gio.
Does he know?
I need to know what’s going on, but when I pull back to look my uncle in the eyes, the men have all gathered around me and there’s only one I recognize well. Alec. He’s always by my father’s side.
I can hardly breathe, and the fear must be written on my face. I can’t go back.
My body is cold and numb. I’m outnumbered.
“Shh, it’s alright, Grace,” my uncle says, pulling me in closer. My heart beats so hard, it hurts. I want to tell him everything. I need to know what’s happened. But with the cold dead eyes of that man on me, I say nothing. I let my uncle appear to comfort me.
“We’ve got you now.” He strokes my back. “That sick fuck is dead.” My knees collapse inward and crash on the cold hard tile.
“Gio?” I whisper his name.
“It’s okay, Grace. He’s gone. He’s never going to hurt you again.”
No, I shake my head, violently. My lungs refuse to fill, and I struggle to move. I'm paralyzed. No, not Gio. He can’t be gone.
I try to swallow and regain some sort of composure. I have to tell him.
“Move,” Alec’s cold voice says, and my uncle steps aside. “I’ve got her,” he says, leaning down to pick me up. I start to push him away, but I see flashes of my father. I can’t disobey.
I tremble in his arms and stare at my cage past him and in the other room.
He’s dead. I blink away the tears. How could he leave me?
I grip onto Alec’s shoulders as he carries me away, speaking to my uncle in Italian. The cage grows small, and eventually it’s gone from my sight. I can hear barking outside, and part of me wonders what that is. A man walks by with scratches on his face, clutching his arm.
As I walk through his house, my heart splits in my chest, shattering into irreparable pieces. He can’t be dead.
They can’t take him from me.
I need him.
I won’t live without him. I can’t.