Chapter 8
Emma
“N one of them are working ?” I asked of Krista slotting the keys against the lock on the cuffs. They didn’t open the metal band on my wrist. I had to hope one of them would open the shackle at my ankle.
“I’m trying.”
I nodded, shoving at the one on my arm and eyeing the other end of the thick chain. It was secured to the bedpost, and I doubted I had the strength to make that stalk of wood wiggle, much less crack
“I mean it, sis. I can’t picture you being stuck with Antonio. I saw him a little bit at the party, before they drugged me so much I passed out.” She shook her head, making her waves fall into her face.
I didn’t need to see her expression to know it was one of stark fear.
“He was talking about how he’d tame you. How you’d break you into submission and pass you around...” She glanced up at me, sneering with disgust. “Like you’re some thing to share. Not a person to treasure.”
“There’s no love in an arranged marriage.”
“But you think you’ll find it with Luke? The bouncer who moonlights as a fighter?”
I nodded, switching my ring back to its rightful place on my left hand. Glittering light reflected on the ruby’s face as I held out my hand. “I know I’ve found it with Luke.”
“Wait. What—” She stilled with the key, then shook her head to snap herself out of the stupor. Working the next key against the hole, she narrowed her eyes at me, multitasking through her shock. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“He proposed.”
Her jaw dropped, but she glanced down to put the next key against the hole. “He proposed ? When you were already promised to someone else?”
“Promised without my consent,” I argued.
“But, Emma. That agreement was made years and years ago.”
“Without my consent.” This was Luke’s biggest argument, and I’d roll with it.
“But they don’t need it. They’ve never needed it.” She lowered her focus again. “You think that would work? Luke swooping in to propose before Antonio and your dad make an official announcement otherwise?” She huffed a dark laugh. “Em, he’s planning to come here. Tonight. To rape you and force you to marry him now . Not later.”
I shook my head. “I refuse to let that happen.”
“He’ll force you! You won’t have a say in it happening or not.”
Panic rose within me, but I refused to let it control me. “Then I’ll have to work harder”— gritted my teeth with more force to slide the cuff over my raw skin—“to get out of here.”
She gasped. With a little harder push and slight twist of the key, the pressure shifted around my ankle. With a pair of loud thuds, the halves of the concave metal fell to the floor.
I was free—partly. My ankle was no longer bound. “Finally.” I exhaled a deep breath of relief as I crouched down to rub the sore skin. I hadn’t gotten as far in trying to slide off the ankle cuff so there wasn’t much raw flesh and bleeding. The area was swollen, though, and I wished for ice or a cold compress.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
Krista stood, frowning with worry.
“Thank you,” I repeated a third time as I pulled her in for a tight hug. “Thank you.” I pressed a kiss to her cheek before she reared back.
“But what about this one?” She lifted my hand, admiring the ruby on my finger with a slight smile before she furrowed her brow at the cuff.
“Halfway there. Maybe we can try the keys again?”
She shook her head. “You saw me. I tried them all.” With a sour grimace, she turned toward the bed to start unraveling the long chain that had been looped around the post to keep me secure. “Not to mention, this is pure insanity. Crazy talk. You realize that, right? We’re both insane to think and plan about running and defying them.”
“ I will be defying them. Not you. As soon as I get out of here, you need to hide.” I couldn’t stand the thought of her being caught and punished for helping me.
She nodded. “Yeah. I know. I’ve already texted my aunt’s neighbor’s sister-in-law. That whole friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend setup should help me stay hidden for a while.”
“Good. I set my hand on her back as she tugged the chain free from the post. I continued to flex my ankle, feeling every bit of pain from the cuff there. Blood rushed freer, and tingling pricks stung along my skin. “You need to hide for a long while,” I agreed, glad that she was such an extrovert to easily meet people and make such confusing paths to new friends or acquaintances. It would pay off now.
When we left to go to the Tropican to get away for a while, I hadn’t realized that I would be saying goodbye to this room or this house. After meeting Luke and wanting a future with him, I’d chosen to never return. As soon as I escaped, this would be the final time I’d set foot on my father’s property. I didn’t know where Luke and I would go. Even the Tropican was unsafe, as another extension of my father’s land.
This would be it though, and with this closure, I would need to figure out how to make sure my best friend remained safe too, from a distance until we could see each other again. She’d be suspect, looked at as someone with intel about me, but she’d lie low. She wasn’t stupid.
Before we could plan or discuss anything further, loud knocks sounded on the door. Fierce rattles of the doorknob followed. “Open up!”
It didn’t sound like Simon. He might have given Krista a loophole to get in here, but he would lie and save his own ass about the door being locked from the inside.
“Shit,” I hissed, locking my anxious gaze on Krista’s. “Go. Hide in the closet until they’re gone.”
She hardened her face into a scowl, glaring at the door as the guard pounded his fist on it. “If he’s here to let Antonio in, there’s no way I’m going to stand back and let him—”
“Hide!” I whispered again. “Go in the closet until the coast is clear.”
She nodded, snapping to focus. “If I can still fit out that one window back there, I’ll climb out and get a car ready for you to escape.”
As soon as she turned and ran into my closet, the door burst open. I’d spent too much time telling Krista to go, both of us reluctant to part ways, that I hadn’t taken the time to hide the chain. It lay out on the carpet, unattached.
That was what the tall guard spotted first. He stormed in, a baton in his hand as he noticed the chain. Then the open halves of the old-fashioned cuff that Krista had unlocked.
“What the fuck is going on here?” He knelt to grab the chain, lifting it to swing in to gain momentum to strike it down on me. “You planning on getting away, you stupid whore?”
He growled, raising his arm to unleash the flexible length of hard metal links on my back. At the last minute, I turned toward the bed, bracing for the hit and curling down to be as small as possible and protect the vulnerable front side of my body.
Before the metal could whip down on me, the man cried out in pain.
His arm, up in the air to deliver a brutal punishment for locking the door and trying to break free, jerked backward at an unnatural angle. Someone’s hand had caught the chain midair. Thick fingers gripped the metal loops, and with a fierce tug back, he dislocated the guard’s arm.
Screaming out in pain, he staggered down to one knee. His drop down revealed his assailant.
My hero.
“Luke!”
He didn’t react to my greeting. Too focused on fighting the guard, he zoned in on incapacitating him. Anger shone in his dark brown eyes. His lean facial features looked tauter with the strain he used to grind his teeth. He entered instant combat with this guard. Even though Luke was taller and a better fighter, trained to handle street fights, he looked worn and tired. He seemed sluggish, even, like this was far from the first time he’d used his fists tonight.
It wasn’t the first time. He’d survived that rigged fight Antonio set against him. Then if he was captured, he’d broken out from the Marcheses’ custody as well, likely fighting his way free.
And here I was, helpless and chained.
The guard knocked into me from Luke’s hit. We collided and fell back on the bed, but the guard was stuck there. This close, Luke could use the chain that tethered me to the post. He wrapped it around the guard’s neck, squeezing tighter and tighter.
Oh, shit. I’d been raised in a life of violence, but I’d never been this close to it.
I turned my head so I didn’t watch, not this close. I didn’t think, ignoring the slacking pressure and strength in the man’s body as he sagged to death.
As soon as he went limp, Luke heaved on a hard breath and dropped him, shoving him on the floor and away.
“Emma.” He winced as he moved toward me, his calloused hands gentle on me.
I held back a sob, reaching for him. Running my fingers over the swollen marks and scrapes on his face, I despaired that he’d suffered so much already. For me. For us—for our love.
He scowled, cupping my face as he panted and breathed so fast. “Who did this to you?”
His stare was on my chin and cheek, where my father had backhanded me.
I shook my head slightly, so overjoyed to see him, so relieved that he was really here, with me. He was alive, if a little worse for the wear. Alive. And here to get me free.
Drawn to him, I kissed him quickly. I had to. I needed that contact to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. That this was really happening.
His lips were firm and demanding against mine, but he kept it brief. That sight contact was all that I needed to start soothing over the ache in my heart that all this anxiety and dread and caused there. I no longer had to feel like my heart was breaking in two. Being reunited with Luke erased the worst of the horrendous what-if thoughts that plagued my mind all night.
“Who?” he demanded, still breathing hard. “Because I will kill the stupid fucker who dared to lift a hand on you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Uh, no, you wouldn’t.”
He scowled right back. “Watch me.”
“You,” I said as I framed his face with the hand that wasn’t cuffed, “the heir of the Rossini name, will not fare well in killing the boss of the Giordino family.”
He blinked, letting that sink in. But then he smirked. “I don’t give a fuck.”
I wasn’t defending my father. I hated him with a passion that would never burn out—and that hatred started well before he hit me tonight. Luke couldn’t know what he was saying though, announcing he’d kill a mafia boss when he was next in line to become one himself.
“Let’s go.” He stepped back, realizing now wouldn’t be the time to argue. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill every one of them who thought about harming you.” Taking a bigger step back, he avoided touching the guard he’d just killed. “But right now...” He heaved in a deeper breath. “Right now we need to get out of here.”
“How did you even get in?”
“Through the back.” He shook his head, holding on to my hand and tugging me closer. “It’s not my first time sneaking in huge mansions today.”
I wanted to ask where else he’d been, but I didn’t.
“Antonio—” He stopped speaking and narrowed his eyes, listening to commotion in the hallway.
My father and Antonio. They were coming closer!
“Fuck.” He picked up my hand with the cuff and winced. Then he grabbed the free chain and wrapped it around the end to the post. His muscles bulged, and tendons flexed up his neck. But he pulled and pulled, using the chains and posts as leverage.
It snapped, sending shards of wood splintering. The cuff remained on my bloody wrist, but it felt lighter as the chain slipped out. The noise of the wood cracking would’ve alerted all the men on the floor, but I wasn’t sticking around to see who’d come and investigate. Hearing my father and Antonio nearby meant they’d know of my escape firsthand.
I grabbed Luke’s hand and ran, rushing into the closet that I prayed Krista had escaped through. Guards would be on high alert. Since I’d been brought back, especially the way they’d retrieved me, more men would be on the lookout on the premises.
Fortunately, though, the windows in the back of my walk-in closet suite weren’t easily watched. Unfortunately, the window led out to the night sky high up from the ground.
“Can we jump?” Luke asked.
I squinted to see in the darkness. Off to the side, I saw Krista park and get out of an SUV. She glanced up once, making eye contact with me and Luke on the roof. Then she darted toward another one to drive away.
“Are you asking if I can jump or if you should?”
He furrowed his brow. “Both?”
I nodded as the sound of my father and more guards rushed into my room behind us.
There was no time to debate. We had to go. Now.
He sensed that I’d made up my mind. Squeezing my hand tight before releasing it, he nodded. Then he began a slide down the slope of the roof.
I swallowed hard, my mouth so dry and my heart palpitating erratically.
Heights weren’t my thing, but surviving to love my man was.
I pushed off to scramble down until we could better jump to the ground.
Luke was faster, despite his injuries, but mine slowed me down. The aching skin where my father kicked me stung as it dragged over the shingles.
Men shouted from the window, and Luke took over.
“Fuck. Come here!” He tugged my ankle, pulling me further down until he held me close. Then he drew in a deep breath, bracing to push off.
I held on tight and closed my eyes as we went airborne.