Chapter 6
Emma
B lood dripped from my wrist.
The pain from forcing my cuff lower and shoving it down didn’t faze me. Nothing could. I was trapped in a state of panic and consumed with worry about Luke.
Antonio visited me only to leave me with a taunting warning that he would have Luke killed. He hadn’t ordered a hit on the man I loved. That would be too simple for the sadist who planned to own me in marriage. Calling in one of his killers to take care of Luke would be too easy. With his parting words, it sounded like he’d arranged for him to be beaten in a fight tonight.
Beaten to death, more like.
“Come on,” I growled, frantic to get this cuff of me. Neither one of them were giving up. My ankle was hopeless. I wouldn’t be able to extend my foot out to slip it off. My bones couldn’t allow it. I was flexible, but only ordinarily so.
I had more hope to ease off this metal shackle on my wrist, though. Still, it didn’t matter how I twisted and squeezed my fingers. I couldn’t hit that point of slippery ease and get off.
Sitting here idle was eating away at me. I had to do something. I refused to be stuck in here like a pathetic damsel in distress, a princess locked away in a room.
I had no doubt Luke would go to that fight. It would be expected of him to rise to the challenge placed on him, but I imagined he would be stressed and determined to find me.
And he couldn’t do that.
He couldn’t possibly know how to get to me here, in my father’s home. He’d be clueless about a way to get in once he identified where the house was. First, he’d have to pass all the guards. Then scale the fence and get through the locked doors. And then more patrolling soldiers stationed outside my window.
This was no fairytale. This fucked-up bullshit was my life, and I’d be damned if I didn’t do my part and try to get out.
To help him. I wasn’t sure when the fighting would take place. They always happened at night, and with the falling darkness outside the window, I felt like time was running out before I could escape and warn Luke not to enter this fight. To let him know that Antonio planned to use it as a means of killing him and getting him out of the way.
That sicko was so possessed with claiming me that he’d go to the extremes of murdering his competition. There wasn’t any, not really. Antonio would never compare to Luke. No one would.
Admitting how fated we were to love each other, to belong to each other, served as my motivation to keep trying. It seemed so fruitless, so hopeless, but as the hours wore on, I didn’t give up. My skin was rubbed raw. Cuts split wider and deeper with the abrasion of the cuffs over my wrist. Alternating between my ankle and my wrist, I worked on getting one of the shackles off. Maybe then, with one free, I could bang the metal pieces together and splinter apart the remaining one.
As I worked, tirelessly and desperately, my stomach growled and ached with hunger pangs. No one had come to give me water or food. I could go without, anyway, because eating something would trigger me closer to throwing up. Yet, the fact that no one came by had to be a warning clue.
My father didn’t want to kill me. No, I wouldn’t starve or suffer from dehydration in this short amount of time, but the lack of provisions seemed to suggest that I wouldn’t be here for long.
Antonio said he’d come back after that fight. The way he likely saw it, he’d see Luke be killed and return to gloat about it.
No. That won’t happen. I couldn’t allow the thought to even enter my mind. I had to hang on to hope. I had to resist and shun the mere thought of him being dead.
Luke was a strong fighter. I’d witnessed his power and skill firsthand, but if he went into this match tonight thinking it would be a fair, level situation, then he’d be hurt in the very least.
But did Antonio mean that he would come back after the fight to take me?
I feared it, and that added more determination into my efforts to slip free.
No weapons or tools were available in the room. Not a single thing that could damage the cuffs or break them off. I doubted I’d find a sharp edge, either, so I could hack off my hand and foot to get free. It seemed extreme, but as a last-resort option, it far outweighed the misery guaranteed to me if I were to marry Antonio and be subject to his whims.
All I could take for granted was that someone would come back. Maybe my father would, to yell at me and hit me harder. Or a guard to check that the noise of me struggling to get out of these cuffs didn’t mean I was getting free. And worse, Antonio could return like he said he would.
My isolation was a blessing, a gift I intended to make use of, so it was late into the night that I kept straining and working against my bonds.
When the doorknob jiggled, finally, I froze in trying to shove the cuff over my wrist. I watched the wooden panel, waiting and held in suspense. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Tense and anxious, I stared at the opening of the door as someone pushed it open.
Krista!
She shushed and nodded at someone at the door, probably a guard. Once she fully entered my room, she shut the door and locked it from the inside out.
“Emma!” She hurried toward me, her face etched with lines of worry. “Are you o—” She slapped her hand over her mouth to cover her gasp. Looking at the swelling from where my father backhanded me, she shook her head and sped up her approach.
Her arms wrapped around me as she hugged me tight. Closing my eyes tight, I accepted the comfort she offered me. I could only move one arm, but I did so to clutch her back. “I’m so happy to see you.”
“Those stupid fuckers.” She reared back, furrowing her brow as she looked me over. “He hit you?”
I nodded. “Just the once.”
“ Just ?” She huffed, picking up my arm and looking at my bloody wrist. “It’s unacceptable.”
“Can you help me get out of this?”
“Maybe not this one,” she said as she lifted the shackle higher. She didn’t look at the bloody mess, but the keyhole. “As soon as I realized you were gone, I came home. I assumed the worst, and when I saw that one security guy that Luke seemed to partner with, all he’d tell me was that you were gone.”
I nodded, amazed and about to cry the happiest of happy tears when she pulled out a ring of keys from her pocket. She frowned in concentration, holding up the keys. Even though they were old-fashioned, lock-and-key confinements, they were effective. I couldn’t get the damn cuffs off, and I prayed one of her keys would do the trick.
“So I hurried home and snuck into one of the soldier’s private quarters at my dad’s place.” He was a capo, with his own personal security team to supervise. “And fearing the worst, I grabbed these and came to see if he’d stuck you in here. My backup idea was to look at the Marchese residence.” She shrugged one shoulder as she focused on matching up a key to the cuff on my wrist. “If I couldn’t find you here, I assumed you’d be there.”
“Not yet,” I replied, giddy with the excitement her of potentially getting me out of here. Freedom was just at the tip of my fingers, within my reach, but only if she had a key they used for more than one thing. My father got a sick kick out of collecting unique cuffs and locks for them.
She nodded, her expression turning grim. “ Yet . After I got the keys, I came here and tried to get close to your room, but the guards weren’t budging. I had to wait for them to switch over patrols until Simon was on.”
“Thank goodness for you and your mouth.” It was a crude, unnecessary joke, but she grinned. Simon was one of the friendlier guards, so friendly with my daredevil friend that he took it upon himself to teach her how to give head. It was probably more of a situation of grooming, but Krista didn’t care.
“And thank goodness men are such idiots about getting head.” She rolled her eyes, flipping through the keys and trying them all.
I glanced over her shoulder, checking that no one was coming in. If she was caught in the room, she’d be dead.
“Once Simon was posted at your door, I sweettalked him into letting me chat with you.” Now she lifted her face to look past me. “How high up do you think those windows up?”
“It doesn’t matter how high they are.” I wouldn’t be picky. If I had a route to escape, I would take it.
“You have to get out.” She cringed, trying more keys. “When we went to the Tropican, I thought it would just be to have fun. But you just had to shack up with the wrong guy.”
“The right guy.” I lifted my right hand to show her the ruby ring I’d moved over.
Her eyes opened wide with shock.
“The one guy. For me.”
“Shit, Em.” She doubled down faster. “You’re serious? You’re that serious about him?”
I nodded. “I love him.”
“It’s not just sex? Good sex?”
“I love him,” I repeated. “And so long as I live and breathe, he will be the one for me. Not Antonio.”
“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have told him that.” She shook her head as she frowned deeper. “I heard the guards talking about him visiting.”
“He came to taunt me and then said he had to go to a fight. One that Luke would fight in.”
She scoffed, “Leave it to you to plan some fun and end up falling in love with a bad-boy street fighter.”
Who’s also Marlo Rossini’s son... I wouldn’t freely share that tidbit. Not anytime soon. It would only secure more trouble
“The fight was rigged with one of Antonio’s killers, though.”
“You heard them say that?”
She nodded. “More guards were talking outside and I lingered to listen. It sounds like Luke won.”
Yes! Relief filled me. My heart beat faster, with peace.
“He killed the other man, but as soon as he left the ring, Marchese men captured him.”
That relief disappeared, instantly replaced with dread.
“Antonio has him, Em.” She bore me with a sad, worried stare as she gave up on the cuff on my wrist. None of the keys worked, but she wasn’t giving up. Resuming with her hurried, fumbling fingers, she attempted to fit the keys in the cuff on my ankle.
Antonio capturing Luke didn’t bode well. Not at all.
“Is he mad because he killed the man he arranged to kill him?” I asked, knowing how stupid that question was.
“Probably, but more so because of you,” she replied. “I also heard the guards saying they had to be ready for Antonio coming back. He planned to after the fight to force you into marriage tonight.”
I tensed, pushing again at the cuff on my wrists. Whimpers left my lips, unbidden, but also unpreventable. I was beyond desperation now. I was enslaved with an obsession to escape.
“If not to force a wedding, here, then to consummate it. In advance. You’ve got to get the hell out of here. Now.”
I nodded, panicked with a renewed sense of hopelessness.
“It’s obvious he’s got an issue with Luke, with you being seen with him. But the guards are getting excited about joining forces. For the Giordino and Marchese families to at last be allies and stronger than ever.”
Which would oust the Rossini family completely.
“They made it sound like there are already plans to end the Rossini reign,” she said, as if she could read my mind. “Then Vincent—not your dad—would monopolize all of Miami. ”
Shit. The Rossinis wouldn’t be ending. It seemed like they might be starting all over again with Luke, if he were to follow Marlo’s footsteps.
“You can’t—Dammit, Em, you can’t get stuck with him. Antonio and his dad are going to ruin us all. They’re too hungry for having all the power. I know I’ve always tried to stay indifferent about you being stuck with him, but I can’t let you suffer under his control. It’ll be bad. I just know it.”
“Hurry,” I begged her. “Please, hurry.”
She didn’t slow, trying the keys at my ankles. “I’m sorry I was so sick and out of it at the Tropican. Had I known this was coming, had I been awake when they captured you, I would’ve tried to find you sooner.”
“I know.” I knew because I would always do the same for her—and had in the past. We were like sisters. She was the only friend I’d ever been allowed, and when I thought of her always being there for me, it chipped away at the loneliness that I suffered all my life.
Until I met Luke, she was all I had. Still, she came through for me, trying to get me out so I could avoid Antonio.
Now that I had him and wanted a long future with him, I had to do all that I could not to lose him for good.