Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
VALENTINA
I t’s been an hour and a half since that psycho bastard locked me up in the back room of the jet. The only reason I know how long it’s been is because there’s an alarm clock on the bedside table.
I feel weak, so I decide to sit on the edge of the bed, my nervousness only adding to the effects of whatever he used to get me to pass out. How could I be so fucking stupid to go to the ladies’ room without a guard? Unshed tears sting my eyes. I feel nauseous as I wonder what they’re going to do to me. Did my parents find out I’m missing? Did anyone notice I’m gone?
The door opens, and my captor walks in. “Come on, you need to be in your seat. We’re landing in twenty minutes.”
I think of a way to piss him off, but decide against it. After all, he's the Capo of the Camorra. So, I get up slowly and walk toward the door, but he stops me by grabbing my upper arm. His hand is so big that it wraps around my upper arm fully and overlaps his thumb. When I look up at him, I see him glaring down at me.
“Are you going to behave yourself this time?” he asks, lifting a perfect black brow at me. I nod, refusing to speak to this brute. That seems to appease him. My eyes trail over his body, my throat drying as I take in the ink across his forearms, all the way into his rolled up black dress shirt. When my eyes make their way back up to his, I find him already looking at me. He gives me a heated stare before he turns around and opens the door, then gestures for me to walk ahead of him.
This time, he goes and sits back where his original seat was, next to Romiro—if I’d heard his name right—who is watching both of us right now as if we’re on some sitcom show he enjoys in his spare time. His neck is craned in our direction, and I flash him a fake smile, which he returns, his more predatory than fake. It drops off his face as soon as it had appeared when his eyes move back to the brute next to him. Something must pass between them because he doesn’t turn back around and stares ahead. I continue my way to the front of the plane, to my seat. To my surprise, Romiro gets up once I sit in my seat and heads toward me.
“So, you’re the beloved Moretti of the American paparazzi.” Romiro seems to have mistaken my fake smile as an invite. I turn my head to tell him to fuck off when I see an opportunity to maybe get something useful out of him.
“If you think you’d get anything out of me,”—he leans his head closer and finishes his sentence—“you’re more naive than I thought you were.”
My face scrunches up in disgust, more pissed that he caught on to me. “As if I’d want anything from a dirty Camorrista,” I snarl. He goes to stand up, but to both our dismay, the seat belt sign lights up, and he mumbles some curses in Italian.
“What’s your name?” he asks me.
“You kidnapped me and don’t even know who I am?” I answer, exasperated.
He rolls his eyes. “Of course I know who you are. I was just being conversational. Why are you being so bitchy?” Oh God, I really want to slap this idiot.
“Are you honestly being purposefully oblivious, or are you just plain stupid? You fucking kidnapped me and expect me to want to talk to you. Without being bitchy.”
“I’m Romiro, thanks for asking.” He completely ignores my mini rant and introduces himself as if he’s the most important person I’ll ever meet.
“And that asshole over there”—he points his thumb back, to where the brute is sitting talking on the phone, his eyes glued to the back of our heads, and he narrows them when he sees that we’ve turned around to look at him—“is Emiliano Folonari.”
I roll my eyes. Of course, my dad had managed to piss off the Camorra’s Capo. Which in turn, gets me kidnapped. My kidnapper is known as the butcher of the East Coast. A shudder passes down my spine when Emiliano’s eyes zero in on me.
I turn my attention back to Romiro, trying to appear unfazed.
“Can I at least know the reason for my abduction?” I ask, and Romiro wiggles his index finger in my face as if he’s scolding a child.
“God, the tabloids said you were beautiful, but they didn’t mention your dramatics,” he says.
The flight attendant cuts our conversation short to tell us we’ve landed in New York City. My jaw clenches at how far I am from home and the fact that I’m now in the heart of the Camorra’s territory. The prospect of finding a way out is slim to none. Hell will freeze over before I’m able to do that.
Romiro gets up once Emiliano reaches us, and I struggle to unbuckle my seat belt. My palms are too sweaty for this, but I need to stay calm. That’s the only way for me to keep my sanity.
“Here, you need to wear this.” Emiliano passes me some sort of black fabric once I’m out of my seat.
I must look confused because he elaborates. “Tie it around your eyes, unless…” I lift an eyebrow at him, and he continues. “Unless you want to be knocked out again.”
I quickly shake my head and wrap the fabric around my eyes. Which causes both men to laugh. Dicks. One of them grabs my upper arm and leads me toward what I assume to be the exit.
“I’m going to pick you up,” Emiliano whispers in my ear, and before I can protest, he’s done just that. I am being put into a car before I know it, and the door slams, causing me to flinch.
I feel really vulnerable. I can hear everything around me, but I can’t see shit. The sound of the engine purrs to life and the car begins to move, but I don’t have any sense of direction so I have no clue which way we’re driving.
“Don’t you think this is a bit extra?” I think Romiro is the one who’s speaking, but I’m not too sure.
“No, she isn’t our guest.” I assume that’s Emiliano.
“I can hear you, guys, by the way. You know that, right?” I say to the void. Well, not the void, but it is to me.
“You’re really fucking calm for someone who was taken by force.” Romiro’s voice comes from the right. I shrug.
“Not the first time,” I tell him.
“So, we didn’t get to pop your kidnapping cherry, what a shame.”
I choke on air, and I hear a weird noise that sounds like a smack, followed by, “What the fuck, Eli?”
“Stop saying weird shit, Esposito, or you’ll end up in the Atlantic.” Emiliano’s threat seems to pass over Romiro’s head.
“I thought you said I couldn’t become a pirate.”
“Wait, Nicolo Esposito is related to you?” I cut their mini argument.
“He’s not just my relative. He’s my big brother,” he replies.
My eyebrows reach my forehead, and I blurt out, “You have a big brother?”
“Yes, why is that surprising?” he asks.
I shrug again. “I don’t know. You give off only-child vibes.”
“Vibes?” he asks like a scoff, but before I can answer, Emiliano speaks up.
“The both of you are causing me a headache the size of the Middle East. Shut up.”
“You’re just jealous she likes to converse with me better than you,” Romiro retorts.
Emiliano answers with, “Since when do you say ‘converse’? You’re a fucking idiot.”
“I’m going to tell your Mom you’re being an asshole again,” Romiro threatens, as if that would work on the Capo of the Camorra, but Emiliano doesn’t respond.
We drive for another thirty minutes with both Emiliano and Romiro exchanging insults. They sound like five-year-old children. Not even Marcello behaves this way. I wonder how he’s doing. My poor baby brother. I wish I hugged him when he’d gotten out.
I thought it would keep him safe if we all stayed away from him, but now, I don’t know when I’ll see him again, or if I’ll ever be able to.
We drive for another ten minutes, this time in silence, and then the car comes to a complete stop. I can hear the sound of two car doors opening and shutting, and two voices speaking, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.
Then the blindfold is taken off and I blink a couple of times so that my eyes can adjust to the light. Emiliano is leaning to my right with the blindfold in his hands.
He stares at me for a beat, and my face heats, which he notices. He’s about to say something, but instead, he moves out the way and says, “Come on.”
“You owe me ten grand now.” Romiro is standing on the side of the car that I’ve come out of, and he smirks at Emiliano across the hood of the car.
“You bet on me?” What the actual fuck is wrong with these people? All I get is a shrug from Romiro and a grunt from Emiliano that closely sounds like “fucking Morettis losing me money.”
My eyes wander around where we’ve stopped. It's a parking garage full of different cars. I look behind us to see an iron gate that appears to be around half a mile away, and to my surprise, there are no guards patrolling. If I thought I had a glimmer of hope to escape from the clutches of the Camorra, it’s squashed now because they’ll catch me before I can even step foot out the front doors. Emiliano’s voice cuts through my depressing thoughts.
“You’ll be leaving on my terms and my terms alone. Don’t trick yourself into believing that you stand a chance of returning home without my permission. Now come on.” He begins to walk toward the doors of an elevator while both I and Romiro stay behind, before I decide there is no use pissing them off.
Romiro walks beside me and whispers, “If your Dad loves you, he’ll give us what we want by the end of this week.” My Dad, love me? My Dad doesn’t love anyone but himself, money, and walking STDs. Right now, the enemy is treating me better than he ever did. I give Romiro a weak smile, but I don’t reply. Emiliano stands near the entrance of the elevator, his arms folded across his chest, making him appear even larger than he already is.
The elevator pings and the doors slide open. It has three mirrors, one on the sliding doors and two on the right and left of us. Black velvet covers the back wall.
The doors open to a large entrance area, which has six different doors. Emiliano grabs my upper arm and drags me toward the far-left door. It leads to stairs down to what I assume to be a basement. He lets me go ahead of him, which means that there is nowhere else to go, nowhere to possibly escape.
My suspicion is confirmed once we've stepped on the bottom landing and all I can see is rows of metal cells. The walls are damp. The smell of blood and other things so thick and prominent in the air that it makes bile rise in my throat, which I force back down.
“Come on,” Emiliano mumbles as he walks to the first cell to the right. Opening it, he motions for me to get in. With my stomach churning, I decide it’s best I do what he wants in case he goes all butcher style on me.
“I’ll send down someone in a minute to give you some food,” he informs me once he finishes locking me in.
The cell is empty except for a piece of fabric with a thin cushion on the floor. Probably there to be like a bed or something. I pace around the small cell, trying to figure out how I can find a way out of this place without being spotted.
I don’t want to go back to Chicago. If I can escape, it’ll mean I can escape the clutches of my Dad too, and he’ll be none the wiser. I shake my head; I’m getting ahead of myself. First, I need to get out of here without getting caught.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the cell door being opened. I look up, and to my surprise, it’s a woman who’s entered. A woman who doesn’t seem to be that much older than me and is wearing close to nothing, which makes me blush red. She laughs softly once she sees my expression and elaborates on why she’s wearing lingerie while walking around.
“Have you never seen what a working girl looks like?”
“Oh. No, sorry, I don’t know what a working girl even is,” I tell her, feeling my face heat up in embarrassment at my ignorance.
“A prostitute, darling. I’m a prostitute,” she supplies. I grimace at her bluntness before looking around.
“What is this place, exactly?” I ask her. Her face morphs into a look of dismay, as if what she’s about to answer will make me feel a certain type of way.
“You’re at the Diamond.” When she doesn’t see anything change in my expression, she continues. “It’s a whorehouse.”
My eyes mist over and the room spins.
They brought me to a whorehouse. Oh my God. What the hell are they planning on doing? The woman must sense my panic rising because she comes farther into the cell and places her manicured hand on my shoulder.
“Listen, I know that you’re scared and rightfully so, but don’t worry. No one here will force anything on you.”
I don’t believe her, but it does ease the tightening in the middle of my chest. She holds a plastic plate up to me, and once I take it, she turns to leave, but I open my mouth.
“Wait…” I say. She turns around. “Uhhh…could you maybe…”
“You want me to stay with you?” she asks, and I nod in answer. I don’t know why I want her to stay, but I know I don’t want to be here alone.
We both head toward the sheets on the floor and sit on them.
“I’m Ruby. What’s your name?” she asks after I take a bite out of a stale piece of bread.
“My name’s Valentina,” I tell her after I swallow the gross piece of stale bread. We both fall quiet, and the only sound is me eating my food. Every time I swallow, I feel as if she could hear it.
“Do you know what they’re going to do with me?”
She shrugs and says, “Sorry, Valentina, but I have no clue. You were brought in by the Capo himself.”
My head hangs a bit because I feel stupid to think that they’d tell a prostitute who works for them what they plan to do with their captive. Once I’m done with the food, she gets up and dusts off her clothes—or whatever there is of them anyways.
“I have to go now, or I’ll get in trouble. The Johns here don’t like waiting for long.” I give her a small nod, not wanting to talk anymore. Exhaustion weighs heavily on me.
* * *
I’d fallen asleep. I don’t know for how long, but I jolt up from the spot I’m sleeping on. My back aches, and I feel more tired than I was before. Stretching my arms, I look around.
The place is empty, just me in here. My neck is stiff, so I try to rub it to see if that’ll help, but all it does is intensify the stiffness to an uncomfortable knot. I lie back down to see if it’ll help relax the muscles.
My ears perk up at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. I don’t get up, trying to appear as if I haven’t heard them. I focus my eyes on a spot on the concrete floor near the cell door.
It oddly resembles a bloodstain. I grimace at the thought that someone more than likely died here. The footsteps sound closer than they were a couple of seconds ago. A pair of black Oxford shoes are now in front of the cell door. Then whoever it is clears their throat as if to summon my attention.
I look up, only to find that psycho Capo is the one standing in front of the cell door. My nose wrinkles as my eyebrows pull together. He continues to look at me with what seems to be a mixture of disgust, curiosity, and amusement, as if I’m some circus monkey for him to be entertained by.
“What?” I bite out, unable to bear the unnerving stare of his. He runs his tongue over his teeth like a predator when they spot their prey, and the look in his eyes sends a chill down my spine as my blood cools.
“How old are you?” His question throws me off. I blink once, twice, and then a third time before I decide to reply.
“Twenty-one, why?” I retort, and he shakes his head at me, as if refusing to answer me.
“Why did your dad attack my territory three months ago?” he asks, I frown.
“I don’t know. I thought you said you knew all the information you needed to.”
His lips set into a line, displeased with my response. He slides his hands into his suit pants, then rolls his shoulders, as if that would ease the tension in them. As he clenches his jaws once, he sees me observing him, and I flash him the fakest smile I can muster up. He returns it with a wolfish one of his own. The smile makes two dimples appear on each of his cheeks, but they disappear as soon as they have appeared, and his face returns to its resting constipated look that seems like it’s natural state. Such a shame; he would be gorgeous if he wasn’t an asshole.
“How old are you?” I blurt out before I can stop myself. Christ, I need to get a grip.
“I’m twenty-seven.” Oh, he’s older than he looks. Even with the light stubble, he still looks around twenty-four. As if he senses my thoughts, he runs his palm over his jaw. His hands are tattooed. I can’t make out what they are, but there’s more ink peeking from his dress shirt, swirling all the way up his neck.
“Where’s Romiro?” I ask him when the silence becomes uncomfortable. I don’t know why he’s here if he isn’t going to speak. His light blue eyes darken as soon as the question leaves my mouth, turning the color of the ocean at night.
His brow furrows and his eyes narrow into thin slits before he barks out, “Romiro’s whereabouts are none of your business, and you will not ask questions.”
My face scrunches up in a scowl.
“Go fuck yourself, you brute,” I shout back. He grinds his jaw, trying to control whatever he wants to say.
With that, Emiliano turns to the side and heads toward the stairs. He’s leaving already? Did he come down here just to piss me off, or what? Men are actually so dramatic. Or maybe it’s a Made man thing.
The lights go out five minutes later. For fuck’s sake. My breathing picks up. I’ve always been scared to sleep in the dark. At least in our house, I could use a bedside lamp. Here, it’s complete and utter darkness.
A scream leaves my lips when I think something has grabbed my arm, but it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me. I lay my head on my knees and close my eyes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 … I open one eye to see if the lights are back on, only to be met with the darkness again.