Chapter Three Caterina
While it wasn’t quite the party I had teased my brothers about, I still had a wonderful time with my sisters. We ate leftover soup and drank aged wine while polishing off the cake. They’d each regaled me with stories of their own twenty-first birthdays all of which had been inside the order. We ended up chatting long past our usual nine p.m. bedtime.
When I finally trudged into my bedroom around ten, I eyed the mop and bucket beside my nightstand. I’d fully intended on finally cleaning my floors after a two-day hiatus. But as tired as I was, it wasn’t going to happen tonight. Especially since it was my birthday.
After grabbing a nightgown out of the drawer, I went into the bathroom and took a shower. When I got into bed, I fell into an exhausted sleep. The clanging of the midnight church bells startled me awake. Lying in the pitch dark, a prickly awareness filled me. It sent a cascade of shivers down my spine. Fighting my fear, I tried regulating my erratic breathing. There hadn’t been a specific noise to alert me. It was just a feeling.
Someone was in my room.
With a trembling hand, I snaked my arm out from under the covers. Fumbling for the cord on the nightstand, I flicked on the lamp. I momentarily fought for my eyes to adjust to the light. My gaze bounced around the room, which thankfully I found empty.
As a sigh of relief whooshed from my lips, I fought to swallow but my mouth had run dry. Flipping the sheet off of me, I padded across the floor and into the bathroom. I turned on the faucet and bent my head over the sink. Instead of bothering with a glass, I cupped my hands and brought the cool liquid to my lips. Once I’d taken in enough, I splashed water on my face.
When I tossed my head back, I looked into the mirror. I shrieked when I found myself staring into a man’s blue eyes. My body tensed as fear and horror ricocheted through me. Before I could react, the man grabbed my waist and spun me around to face him. His tattooed hand closed over my mouth while his other hand pressed against my throat. “Not a fucking sound, sister,” he warned.
Instantly, I recognized his deep Irish brogue. It certainly wasn’t an accent I heard around here. It reminded me of New York. More than anything, it made me tthink of the Irish families who warred against ours. Was this man one of my father’s enemies? Had he somehow managed to track me down here to enact revenge on the Neretti family?
In another situation, I would’ve found him handsome. Jet black hair, ocean blue eyes, and finely chiseled facial features. But his beauty encompassed cruelty. His harsh gaze trailed from my face down to my breasts where it lingered momentarily before dipping lower to my hips.
“Fuck me, sister. The pictures didn’t do you justice.” He licked his lips. “You have a body for sin,” he remarked as he pressed me tight against his hardened muscles.
At that moment, I realized his intentions were to rape me. In spite of my fear, I knew I couldn’t let that happen. From the time I could walk, my brothers had taught me how to defend myself. It was a necessity for all Famiglia daughters in cases of kidnapping.
With everything I had in me, I jerked my knee up between his legs. When his hold momentarily lessened on my mouth, I reached out and chomped down on his hand, shredding the skin with my teeth until a metallic rush hit my tongue.
“Motherfucker!” he shouted before releasing his grip on me.
I dashed into the bedroom and whirled around the side of the bed. With trembling fingers, I ripped open the nightstand drawer and dug inside for the Glock my brothers had gifted me for my eighteenth birthday. While many would’ve been surprised to know that a sister was armed, it was a necessary evil based on our location outside of cloistered walls.
Once I had the gun in my hand, I spun around just as the man had breached the bathroom door. At the same time, footsteps echoed in the hallway. When the man lunged for me, I squeezed the trigger. Because of his movement, the bullet grazed him in the thigh instead of my intended target of his stomach.
“Fuck!” he bellowed, his face contorting in pain.
With a grimace, I steadied my hand, which was hard to do with how much I was shaking. Just as I was about to shoot again, another man barreled into me. When he slammed the two of us to the floor, the gun slipped from my grasp.
I began thrashing under the man’s weight, kicking him as hard as I could in the shins. As we rolled around on the floor, the mop next to the nightstand got knocked to the ground. I reached over and grabbed it. Instead of whacking him around the head or abdomen, I jammed the hard end between his legs repeatedly.
At his howl of agony, I scrambled to my feet and raced out of the room. “Sister Caterina?” Sister Antonia called from her doorway.
Waving my hands, I ordered, “Get back in your room and lock the door!”
I knew she wouldn’t want to listen to me. As the head of our group, she should’ve been the one going for help. But something in my steely expression registered with her. Maybe it was the fact she knew I’d come from a dangerous past—one that gave me more survival skills than she possessed. After giving me an agonized look, she slammed the door.
I sprinted down the corridor. If I could get to the main office, there was a phone I could use to call for help. It was a windowless room, so I could barricade the door with some of the furniture. It would buy me time to hopefully have someone come to our rescue.
As I started around the fountain past the main gate, a body crashed into me, sending me flailing into the fountain’s pool. As water cascaded over me, I gasped from the temperature. Then as a body held me captive, I fought to breathe. Panic ricocheted through me as I desperately tried getting air in my lungs.
Strong hands grabbed me by the shoulders and jerked me to the surface. I gasped and wheezed to catch my breath. “Let me go!” I screeched.
“Dunk her again,” a man’s voice growled from my right.
“Forget that. Just fucking sedate her.”
“No!” I screamed. If I was out, the men could violate me anyway they wanted to. I continued to thrash and fight, but then something jabbed into my upper arm. “No, no, no!” I cried. I kicked one last time before darkness took me under.