39. Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Nellie
I hated the little crusty things that lined my eyes and made them difficult to open, but when I reached up to rub my eyes, I couldn’t move my arms. I blinked a few times, forcing them open and trying to look past the fog to see my surroundings. It was dim, but light enough to see a selection of shelves holding various storage items. There was soap and toilet paper, boxes piled high with liquor logos on the sides of them, and on the other side of the room was cleaning supplies.
My arms were wrapped around one of the pillars in the center of the room that supported the weight of the ceiling, and something held me in place. Judging by the sharp tug at the little hairs on my arms, it was duct tape—a lot of it. “It appears she’s waking up.”
I tried to turn my head in the direction of the woman’s voice, but my neck ached. What happened? Where was I? It looked a little bit like the storage room we held stock ingredients in at the bakery, but without the sugar, and there were fewer windows.
I sucked in a deep breath, and when the air burned my nose, throat, and lungs, I coughed. That hurt even worse. It felt like my nose was on fire, and the gasoline that fed the fuel had been running down my throat. Everything hurt, and there was a foul taste on the back of my tongue.
“I think you made a mistake,” I said, still unable to see who was behind me or if there was more than one person. I blinked again.
The woman laughed, joined by a lower chuckle. “Oh, we certainly did no such thing.” Her heels clicked against the cement floor, getting louder with each step. I tried not to shiver when I could smell her perfume. “You’re exactly who we wanted.”
“You don’t understand.” I tugged again at the tape that held my wrists together, wincing when the adhesive stayed strongly stuck to my skin and hair. “I’m protected. Someone will come looking for me.”
She rounded the pole, squatting down in front of me. I didn’t recognize her or her bouncy blonde hair and blue eyes. The woman was beautiful—I would’ve remembered her. When I ruffled my brow, she smirked. “Oh, I know.” She ran the tip of her long fingernail down the side of my cheek, and I held my breath, trying to stay perfectly still but watching her from the corner of my eye. “I know exactly who you are.”
“You’re lying,” I said quietly. I didn’t know this woman. How could she possibly know me?
She smirked. “Chanelle Giordano. You live alone with your cat and own Sugar & Spice, the bakery you almost lost but were able to keep thanks to the gracious buyout of your new secret-keeping boyfriend. You volunteer at Shady Grove nursing home, probably because you don’t have any family left. They all died terribly tragic deaths. A car accident and a suicide. It’s too bad.” She stopped and hummed a sarcastically sympathetic note. I glared at her. “You see, what I can’t figure out, though, is why you’re so clearly in love with the man responsible for your brother’s death.”
I gasped, and the room spun. “Fuck you,” I hissed. “Don’t you dare talk about my brother.”
The sting when the woman’s palm met my face traveled down to my knees, and I cried out. “You’re not in any position to talk to me that way,” she warned, flattening her hand and slapping me again across the other cheek. My head rocked to the other side, and my eyes watered. “You see, Chanelle, we know everything about you. We know more than you do.”
“That’s not possible.” I resisted the urge to close my eyes, but I could feel the pain in my jaw in my teeth. My hips were starting to ache from the cement ground, and my shoulders were begging to be stretched. I closed my eyes anyways.
“Your brother was only seventeen,” she started, and my eyes shot open. I shook my head.
“I don’t want to talk about him.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek.
The woman grabbed my hair, yanking it and pulling my head back. “Oh, but I do.” She sneered at me, clearing her throat. “Seventeen is so young for a boy to get involved in such a dirty business, but he did. Moving money and drugs for the Moretti family. Then, the FBI caught wind of it, and they got involved. Pulled poor little Dickie into their grasps.”
“That’s not true.” I shook my head. Dickie had always been an honor student, so well behaved.
She clicked her tongue, and the masculine voice behind me laughed. “Oh, but it is. Your brother was one of them until the FBI got him. Then, he was caught in the middle. Do you know what happens to someone who talks to the FBI?” I shook my head. The woman made a gun with her pointer finger and thumb and brought it to my head. “They die.”
“My brother committed suicide.” It felt suddenly like I was a little girl again, explaining to people at school why I didn’t have an older brother anymore. It no longer felt like it had been seventeen years since he died. I felt like we just buried him.
The woman hummed again, but she smiled. “And why do you think he did that, hmm?” I closed my eyes, no longer wanting to listen to this conversation. She continued anyways. “It was either tell the feds everything and take a bullet to the head, tell them nothing and go to jail, or kill himself and make everyone’s lives easier.”
“How dare you?” I shrieked. “He was my brother!”
When she hit me again, I bit my tongue, and my mouth filled with the taste of iron while it swelled. “Stop screaming, or I’ll kill you before your boyfriend makes it here to try and save you. He’s really all we want anyways.”
“Why?” I asked. It was a trap, and Ronan was going to walk right into it. Was anything they were saying real?
“Even knowing he broke your family apart, you’re still worried about him. Charming.” She rolled her eyes, standing back up. The woman didn’t answer my question. “Keep an eye on her, Frank. If she acts up, slap her around. If she gets completely out of hand, kill her. And let me know when Moretti shows up.”
I tugged frantically at the tape holding my hands, kicking my feet against the cement ground like it would help me pull harder. It didn’t, and I dropped back against the pole in defeat while a big man rounded the room and came into my line of sight. He smiled, and my stomach flipped nervously.
“We’ll be just fine here, won’t we?” he said, weaving his hands into my hair and tugging. I tilted my head, choking down a sob that threatened to rip from my chest. This couldn’t be happening to me.
You’re untouchable. Protected.
I didn’t feel very protected. A tear I couldn’t stop painted its way down my cheek, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the fresh bruises on my face or the old wound newly ripped open. All I could see were images of Dickie’s face and the silence we faced afterwards.
The man sat down in the chair on the side of the room, kicking his feet up on the shelf in front of him. “Be a good girl. Don’t cause any issues, and I promise I’ll let you get out of here alive. Deal?”
I glared at him, spitting at the ground. “Go fuck yourself. When Ronan gets here, I won’t make you the same promise.”