Chapter 29
Bianca
“I assure you, no one will look.”
I can’t believe this bastard—the same one who took me from Mattia’s house—has the nerve to chuckle after he says this. He’s come into the boxy space I’m being held captive in and thrust something at me. It’s a bundle of lace and satin, very old and fragile.
It’s a vintage wedding dress, I reckon as he unfolds it in front of me. A knife cuts my bindings, then I’m being forced to my feet. Pins and needles are flowing in my arms and legs, hurting me and making it impossible for me to fight back, to try and get some form of advantage over these men.
Surprise makes me gasp when all of them save this one turns their back to me, the person with me closing his eyes as he reaches out and grasps my caftan. With a sharp rip, it comes undone. My hands jump to my chest, trying to cover my breasts even though I still have my bra on, thank goodness.
“It’s black,” Jasir’s smooth, cold voice says from somewhere, making me jump as the too suave, melodious tone elicits solid dread to pool in my gut. “Take it off. No woman wears black to her wedding.”
The sick pervert is watching me! I don’t know where he is as I can’t see him, but he might have a camera or something in the space to check on the proceedings. Of course he wouldn’t leave me unsupervised by his own eyes. I’m his now.
I feel hands reaching for me, and this time, I bat them away.
Jasir’s voice scoffs. “For fuck’s sake! Just this once, Samir.”
I understand what he meant by this as a cold trickle of dread slithers up my spine. So far, no one has hit me except for him. Just this once, the man handling me—Samir—is granted permission to make me comply. I receive a solid knee to the small of my back, the kick knocking out my breath and forcing me down to my knees thanks to the pain.
“Careful,” Jasir chides from wherever he is.
Again, it reminds me and the other men I’m his prized possession, to be handled with care. He’s the only one allowed to deface me.
I feel rough hands relieving me of my bra. My panties are also torn, the sides giving away as if they are Velcro and not solid fabric. I’m naked on my knees, and a sob lodges in my throat. But I won’t give these fuckers the satisfaction of seeing me break or beg. No way. Leo is going to come for me, I know it. I just have to hold on.
Something smothers my face. I gasp as it’s being pulled on me, catching at my shoulders. The dress—Samir is pulling it onto me. It’s hurting me as he tugs it down. The waist feels so small, it’s constraining my chest, my breasts. Pain is all I’m feeling right now, my breath coming in short pants.
Finally, the dress makes it across my torso. The waist feels tiny, nipping mine and clamping like a corset would. The tight bodice is also making my breasts push up. Thankfully, the neckline is high, keeping my boobs in. The skirt covers my legs, hitching tightly around my hips and butt. This seems to be a dress made for a much more willowy woman. Who, I wonder. It’s vintage, though—maybe it’s a family heirloom?
Bile touches the back of my throat at this thought. Is this the dress I would’ve had to wear to marry Ardian? I made the decision to leave New York mostly because I was pregnant with my son, but I was already contemplating any possibility of escaping that marriage. The last thing I wanted was to be an Abrashi bride.
No, it’s Leo Pellegrini’s bride I wanted to be, and still do. It’s the mother of his all children that I aspire to become.
Not the plaything and sex toy of a perverted psycho. Both brothers are fucked up in this family.
As I turn around and throw up, I remember Jasir’s comment as he clamped his hand on my mouth earlier. ‘ Learn to choke, dearest.’ A shiver courses through me. I can think of some ways he plans to make this happen…but Jasir Abrashi is also a monster, and what I can imagine is probably way too tame for his tastes.
I retch again.
“Why is she throwing up so much?” a man asks.
“Probably got another bastard inside her,” someone else chides.
A laugh echoes. “If she does, it’s not gonna last long. The boss has plans for her.”
I don’t know from where my stomach pulls more content for me to throw up. If I had been pregnant right now, Jasir would’ve made it a point to make me lose my baby. Thank the Lord I’m not, but four years ago, with Enzo, this is what this family would’ve done to me, to my child, had I married into it.
God, this is a nightmare. Leo, please…
“Boss’s got more planned,” one of them says. “You know he invited her man to the wedding?”
My heart stops as the words register. What? No, he can’t have reached out to Leo. If Leo comes—
“It will be his funeral!” another man says, and guffaws erupt.
A gasp merges into a sob as tears prick my eyes. They’re planning to kill Leo. Should he come to this wedding, they will take him down.
I have to warn him…except, I can’t. I have no way of contacting him, no way of getting a message across. Maybe I can scream when the wedding itself will be happening, alert him this way? But this will mean he’ll need to be there to hear me. He will already be on the premises, and Jasir’s men are waiting to ambush and kill him.
There’s no way I can help him. I have no way of protecting him, of saving his life.
No! My heart clenches as pain erupts inside my every cell. A world without Leo, I can’t bear it. I made it look I’d died all these years ago so the Albanians wouldn’t seek retaliation against our side and hurt Leo if they ever came to know I was carrying his child at the time. I did all this to protect two Pellegrini men: Leo and Enzo.
Today, I have to do the same. I have no idea how, but I need to do it.
Hands wrap around my arms and pull me forward. I don’t know how my feet decide to work and follow through when my insides are tearing apart with loss and trepidation. I’m bundled into a waiting car, in the backseat this time, thank goodness, sandwiched between two burly men who act as tight buffers stopping me from even squirming so much they’re squeezing me tight with their bulk.
The car starts, and as I glance around, I notice some landmarks outside under the dim, rheumy glow of street lamps. We’re somewhere around South Bronx and East Harlem, a sign showing the direction to St Mary’s Park glinting under the headlights. I frown. We seem to be going closer to Manhattan and not away from it.
Dread catches the drift my thoughts have picked up. We’re going closer to where Leo is. He’ll be meeting us halfway, coming to meet with his death if these thugs’ plan goes as they want it to.
We’re getting closer to Point Morris now. Across the windshield, I can see reflections of light over water, from Randalls Island across from us, the lamps from the park a distant glow making eerie flutters over the dark surface of this canal connecting the Harlem River to the East River.
A part of me knows where we’re going before we even get there. Here they go, these men, taking a memory of mine and tainting it. I can see the dilapidated church from the window as soon as we turn down the craggy street leading to it. When we were teenagers, my friends and I would sneak back here and share a bottle of cheap vodka and a spiff of weed if we were lucky to land on some. The real die-hards, the cool kids like Leo and Mattia, they used to do this, too, except they went to the insane asylum that’s been condemned on Roosevelt Island. My friends and I, we were small-time compared to them, but this abandoned church, it was our strike at glory.
Remick’s Church, it used to be called. Indeed, I catch sight of a faded signpost as we near the building.
The very reason we loved this spot so much makes it a death trap today. There’s only one access road, no surveillance, no police patrols. It’s as much a no-man’s-land as anyone can find in this area of New York.
Leo doesn’t stand a chance.
The car stops, and the men pull me out. The coarse chippings on the ground dig into my bare feet; they didn’t give me any shoes to wear, and I lost mine sometime during my arrival at the locale they were keeping me in. I’m dragged wincing and hissing up the three steps to the church door, where my ‘groom’ meets me.
Jasir is still in the violet suit. I won’t ever be able to look at this color again and not associate it with evil.
He grins as his men hand me off to him, the very image of a hopeful, expectant groom receiving his blushing bride in church. He takes my hand and tucks it in the crook of his elbow, then he starts us down the aisle.
“I’m not a big fan of music,” he says in the silence broken only by the soft whispers of the wind in the eroded stone of the walls. “There’s something about the sound of silence, don’t you think, dearest?”
I remain silent.
He stops, and his other hand comes up on mine and squeezes my fingers hard. I gasp under the sharp pain.
“I didn’t mean that literally,” he said. “You will answer me when I speak to you.”
“Y-yes,” I stammer, stars dancing in front of my eyes as he still hasn’t released my fingers.
“Good.” He chuckles, then lets go of my hand and resumes our walk. “Remember why you’re doing this. You made a promise, and now, you’ll honor it. I don’t touch children, but yours can still be made an orphan. Just like my men walked into your brother’s house earlier…”
He doesn’t need to add more. I know what he means. With a pang plunging my heart into a bottomless abyss, I know he’s telling me he can kill anyone I hold dear with just a snap of his fingers.
My father made this promise for me, to marry into the Abrashi family, but it is I who would’ve had to honor it in the end.
The past has caught up with me.
An old man steps up near the altar. A priest, it seems like. He’s bearded and wears a coiffe on his head and a robe with a long, gilded stole in front.
“I must admit, dearest, I am very much looking forward to our wedding night,” Jasir whispers in my ear. “And just knowing you’re not wearing anything under this dress…” He laughs. “Naughty minx. I’m a lucky man, wouldn’t you say?”
I’m tempted to throw up again, then I remember how he forced me to choke it down the last time he was around me. So I steel myself and straighten my back.
“Wouldn’t you say?” he asks again, as if through clenched teeth.
I also recall the press of his tight hold on my fingers. There’s no way I’ll welcome such pain.
“Y-yes,” I stammer again.
He chuckles, which makes him sound like a psychopath. As long as I agree with him, he’s happy and just deranged. When I cross him, he gets all fucked up. Neither is a palatable option, but this type of man, he’s unpredictable. The best thing to do is keep him amenable.
And as this thought dawns on me, I know what I must now do.
Jasir is looking forward to our wedding night. He’s a possessive man who didn’t allow his soldiers to see me naked earlier. He will want privacy to consummate our wedding, which means he will spirit us away once the ceremony is over.
All I wanted to do earlier was stall. Leo would come, and he would save me. But there’s at least a dozen armed men with us in this church. Even with a crew, Leo could get killed.
When Jasir leaves, some of these men will come with him, if not all of them. He wants this wedding to happen, and killing Leo will be the cherry on top of the sundae if he comes here during the ceremony.
If we’ve already left, then Leo will stand a chance.
If there’s one thing I can’t have, it’s Leo dying. Should something happen to me, it’s with him that I want Enzo to be. One of us will have to be there for our son, and the way things are looking right now, it’s not going to be me. Because I need to sacrifice myself for the two people I love the most in the world: Leo and Enzo.
The sooner Jasir and I are married, the sooner we’ll be out of here. This will at the very least win Leo some time.
He will find me, even after I become Jasir’s wife. He will take me away from this devil, take me back home. Jasir doesn’t want to kill me—he just wants to have his sick fun with my body. Leo needs time, and I just have to hold on, no matter what.
The priest is droning on in a language I don’t know. Jasir is starting to get impatient—I can see it in the tenseness of his shoulders, in the numerous glances to the classy watch on his wrist. For once, I’m with him. We need to be done here asap.
Every minute that draws this out brings Leo closer to this place…and closer to the possibility of him dying tonight. I can’t have this.
When it’s finally time for me to acquiesce to the vows, Jasir turns his dark eyes to me. An unholy gleam burns in them, and I swallow down all the fear and apprehension beating from my heart and in my veins.
“I do,” I say softly, the cavernous church however echoing the words as they dance their macabre ringing in my head, too. There’s no escape for me now, no way out. I’m Jasir’s.
It’s over.