Chapter 11
Eleven
Harper
My eyes lazily flutter open. There’s a pounding in the front of my skull, a dense throbbing that doesn’t want to cease in the slightest.
I feel sick.
I roll over on the hard floor and vomit on the cement.
My vision is foggy, my memories slowly coming back, waging war on my mind.
I’ve been drugged.
The ground is cold, the room dimly lit save for the light seeping in through the dirty windows above. The place looks like a warehouse of sorts, the ceiling tall, the structure wide.
Around my neck is a collar, thick but not overly heavy, and my fingers reach around the smooth contraption, trying to find a clasp. There’s no way to unbuckle or unlock the device attached to me.
Shit.
There are metal shackles on my ankles that give me several feet of movement. The chains are embedded into the cement with rusty bolts, and my fingers diligently work to loosen them, but they don’t budge.
I curse under my breath. “Hello?” I shout, my throat raw, but the sound echoes throughout the large expanse and a shiver tingles along my spine.
Where am I?
My phone has long since been abandoned. I don’t know when I lost the call with Luca. But when my phone buzzed and my mother called, Nico pulled the vehicle over, dug the phone out from under the seat, and blasted her for calling.
How dare she ask for me?
Inwardly, I laugh and wipe away the stray tear that slides down my cheek.
Why did she have to reach out to me today?
Or perhaps it was yesterday.
The sun is out now, and she had called when it was late, night time. I hadn’t spoken with her in months and now she calls me, for what reason?
Certainly not fate.
Her phone call led to Nico shoving a bottle of who the hell knows what down my throat. The orange liquid in his water bottle evidently something sinister.
It couldn’t just be “flavor enhancer”.
No. Nico drugged me.
Within seconds of being forced to swallow that concoction, I was out cold.
Metal groans as sunlight pours into the warehouse, and I wince, trying to see who is stalking toward me.
She’s no one I recognize.
“Where’s Nico?” I ask, not that I want him coming for me, but at least I know the devil I’m dealing with.
Long, dark hair frames soulless eyes glancing me up and down as she saunters closer, “Would you rather deal with him?”
Wordlessly, I shake my head.
“I didn’t think so, Harper.”
She knows my name. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I grimace at the way she says it, with such callousness and conviction. She hates me, and I’m not even sure what I did to piss her off.
My hands reach for the collar, tugging, but it doesn’t budge on its own. “Take this thing off of me!” I demand, glaring up at her.
A dark smile crosses her face. “I think it looks rather good on you,” she says with a wry smile, and my stomach churns.
“Who are you?”
She tilts her head, her face almost perfect to the extent I can’t help but wonder if she’s had work done, because a woman like her shouldn’t be in a business like this.
She’s too beautiful.
Too stunning to be doing such decrepit and dirty work, in the business of kidnapping people.
“You don’t know? You murdered my husband, Santino,” she says. “Livia DeLuca. I run the family empire, and you, my dear, are my new prize.”
Her prize? What the fuck is this woman droning on about?
She retrieves a metal key from her pocket and tosses it at me. “Unchain yourself. We have work to do.”
I don’t dally, grabbing the key from the cold cement and unlocking the binds around my ankles. I move to stand, my legs weak and my stomach roiling at the mere decision to stand.
“Don’t you dare get sick on my Louis Vuittons.” Livia scowls at me.
I swallow back the bile as I slowly rise to my feet, careful not to sway or falter. The room spins and it takes everything in my power not to stumble as my vision blurs. “What do you want with me?” I ask.
Livia smiles and laughs, sliding an arm sharply between mine, like we’re old friends. But there’s something much more sinister about her. I can feel the fiery gates of hell opening up around us as she touches me.
“Just do as you’re told and you’ll be out of here shortly.” Livia escorts me out of the abandoned warehouse and across the road, toward a mansion fifty yards away. Aside from the strange estate sitting on the property, there’s nothing in the vicinity for miles.
The air is cold, the sun nearly cast straight overhead. It’s noon or thereabouts. How long was I unconscious, a day?
I don’t think.
I run.
I take off in seconds, fleeing away from the warehouse and the building a short distance ahead. There are miles of nothing on the open road, flat desert as far as the eye can see. But there has to be a road, a highway, something, somewhere I can get help.
The pain radiates through my neck like lightning and fire burning me, dropping me instantly to my knees in agony.
My hands grip the collar, desperate to rip it off, but it doesn’t budge.
The pain extends far beyond the collar, the burning tingling down my neck, my arms, making my vision darken as I tremble for air, the throbbing unbearable, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
Livia laughs and the collar goes still.
Silent.
Tears fall aimlessly to the ground, and I slowly turn my head as I gasp for breath. My heart pounds cruelly, like it might explode after that little bit of torture.
And that smile tells me there’s plenty more where that came from.
There’s no bitterness in Livia’s voice, no disappointment, either. “That was fun, wasn’t it?” Clearly, she gets off on hurting others. “Now, get up and do as you’re told.”
I rise to my feet, my knees wobbly and stomach doing somersaults.
Livia points to the mansion. “Let’s go.”
The building is stunning: a beige stucco exterior, two stories, but it’s unlike anything I’ve seen. There are columns extending along the veranda, keeping the harsh sun out while giving the home a Mediterranean feel.
No doubt the inside is just as luxurious as the outside.
It makes Dante’s compound look like a shack, and his place is gorgeous.
There’s a freshly manicured lawn, which looks out of place against the dry desert landscape around the property.
The driveway in front is brick, wide enough for multiple cars to park, but there are no visible vehicles, each of them tucked into the private garages attached to the house.
“Come inside.” Livia opens the front door. She doesn’t so much as use a key; it’s unlocked.
With the collar attached to my neck there’s no reason to lock the doors. Leaving is a death sentence.