Chapter 27
SOREN
Vanessa
I love you. I know that wasn’t easy. Text me when you get home!
Did you make it home okay? Haven’t heard from you, and want to make sure you’re okay.
11:23PM
Ok seriously, just let me know if there's a sign of life. If not, I’m raiding the liquor cabinet and making my way over to Kade’s.
2:54AM
Soren???
I could barely open my eyes—the best I could do was form slits and even then I could barely see anything. My vision was blurry, and my head felt like someone had installed a jack hammer as it pounded incessantly.
It took me longer than it probably should have to realize I couldn’t move my arms, or my legs, and there was something over my mouth.
My eyes flew open as everything hit me, realization hitting me like a bucket of cold water.
I tried to take in my surroundings, but the light was scarce.
But from the pieces I could put together, I was in the same warehouse we had met for the exchange between Lilah and Matthias.
Where they both had died. Who in their right mind would bring me here?
Then a wave full of agony filled memories all came floating back to me.
“Rise and shine, my dear,” a voice said from in front of me, and I realized someone had been standing in front of me this entire time. I’d been too focused on the rest of my surroundings and the fact that I was tied up to realize it.
Vincent?
My eyes widened in recognition, and Vince Peirano seemed to take that as a sign that I recognized who exactly he was.
“Surprise,” he chuckled, although he lacked any kind of humor.
I had so many questions, and so many things to shout at him, wanting to spit in his eye for producing such a foul human, but the tape currently covering my mouth made it hard.
I tried to say something against the tape, but Vincent held his hand up, wordlessly telling me to not even waste my strength.
Even though by my estimate I hadn’t been kept by him for long, his men had already done a number on me.
If the sudden chill on my back was anything to go by, he’d ordered my hair to be chopped off, leaving it in an uneven bob above my shoulders.
I could feel bruises blossoming all over my body, and a split lip caused the coppery taste of blood to fill my mouth.
The irony that his son gave me them so often wasn’t lost on me.
This was the first time that I could remember him coming here himself.
It was the first time I could remember anything at all.
Whether from the pain, or the cause of a drug they were slipping me, every time I woke up in this hell hole it felt like it was the first time.
And as soon as I began to piece together what had happened, they’d subdue me again and start the process all over.
“It’s a good thing you can’t talk, because I’m here to tell you what’s going to happen, and you’re going to listen.”
Dread filled my gut, because nothing about what he said, or my current situation, sounded good. I slowly began to grasp and accept the fact that this time, I may not make it out of here.
“You and your precious little boyfriend killed my only son, and now I don’t have an heir to take up the family business after me,” he practically growled, getting directly in my face.
He was so close that I felt beads of spit hit my cheeks, and I tried not to dry heave at how rotten his breath smelled.
“So I figured an eye for an eye as the old saying goes,” he explained. “Since your boyfriend killed my pride and joy, I’m going to kill his.”
A single tear left my eye, and that’s all I would allow myself to give to Vincent Peirano. It’s all the weakness I would allow him to see.
Unfortunately for him, being the daughter of a Mafia boss, I had come to peace with death a long time ago, knowing there was a strong possibility that I would die at the hand of my husband.
Death had become an old friend to me, and if it meant I got to see my father again, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
That’s what I pictured in my mind as I heard one of Vincent’s men cock his gun, the warehouse so quiet I swear I could hear the bullet slide into the chamber.
After all that he’d put me through, a quick death by a bullet through my skull felt like a blessing.
I pictured every single happy memory I’d ever had with my father.
The way he’d make me laugh so hard it hurt, and how he taught me to ride a bike, and when I would bring home my math homework, and we’d both be sitting at the kitchen table, having absolutely no idea what we were doing, but getting through it together anyway.
And even though I hated that I let him consume my thoughts, flashes of Kade went through as well: the way he smiled, and the look of concentration on his face when he read a book, and how he would put a bullet into anyone without blinking an eye, but would never lay a hand on me unless I wanted him to.
I felt weak that he still had the ability to enter my thoughts so freely.
The gunshot rang out, almost deafening as it bounced off the walls, but the pain never came. It took me a moment once I opened my eyes to realize that the man who had held a gun to my head was now slumped on the floor, dead.
“Vincent, I suggest you take the rest of your men and leave, unless you’d rather end up like your buddy there,” Finn said with a deadly calm. If I didn’t know how he was behind closed doors, I may have been afraid of him. The temper he inherited from his father was one of legend.
“Your brother killed my son, so it’s only fair,” Vincent snarled, looking every bit like the weasel he was. “She’s not leaving here unless it’s in a body bag.”
Another gunshot rang out, and Vincent grabbed his thigh as blood pooled from a bullet wound, courtesy of the man of the hour himself.
“For fuck sakes Kade! I told you to stay in the car!” Finn yelled over his shoulder, clearly not a fan of his brother’s negotiation tactics.
“I’d do it again too,” Kade said directly to Vincent, and I knew he didn’t just mean the bullet in his leg. “Now let her go, or the next one goes in your skull.”
I watched him ponder it in his mind, as if he was actually thinking he had a choice in the matter, before nodding to his men so they’d lower their weapons.
“You think you may have won, Kade Luchetti, but the fun is just beginning,” Vincent spoke as his men practically carried him towards their own SUV, promise lacing every word.
Kade’s men kept their guns trained on Vincent and his men, and I didn’t blame them.
The man was a snake and just because he seemed to be raising the white flag now meant nothing.
He didn’t kidnap and torture me just to give up so easily.
Kade ran over to me, and relief exploded in my chest at the sight of him. But with it came doubt, and the realization that when I left his house, I was leaving town for good, and he had done nothing to try to stop me.
“You ok?” he asked as he gently ripped the duct tape from my mouth, and Finn worked to cut the zip ties.
“I will be,” I replied with a tight-lipped smile, hoping he couldn’t see the thoughts currently swirling around in my brain.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said, wrapping an arm around me and gently walking me out of the warehouse and into a waiting SUV.
“Look out!” A voice yelled from behind us.
Kade pushed me out of the way just soon enough to avoid a blacked out SUV speeding towards us, and bullets ricochet off of the glass with ease.
I cowered on the ground, covering myself with my arms and praying for the madness that was my life to just end already.
The gunshots ceased, and I slowly looked up to make sure it was safe. A dozen of Kade’s men surrounded us but thankfully none of them looked to be injured.
“The fuck was that?” Kade roared, jumping up into a standing position from where he was hunched over me.
“That was Vincent Peirano sir,” one of the guards I wasn’t familiar with said. “It looks like he’s gotten away.”
A chill went down my spine colder than the arctic thinking back to Vincent’s promise of this being only the beginning. And now that he had escaped instead of being captured and held prisoner by Kade’s men, that promise felt even more real and deadly.
I had never been so grateful for fresh clothes and a shower in my entire life. I’m also certain I’ve never taken such a long shower, working to get the blood and dirt out of my hair.
As I massaged the shampoo into my hair for the second time, I began trying to piece my memory together of what had happened.
I knew Isaac had driven me home, and I had just walked through the door when I was taken, but that’s all I really remember.
The next thing I knew I was waking up in the warehouse today, and realized how long I’d truly been gone.
It made me laugh to think Vincent could be so stupid, and think he could hide right under Kade’s nose.
But then another thought made my stomach almost bottom out.
What happened to Isaac? Is he okay?
I had no idea where my phone was, having lost it again, so I had no way to know if Vanessa had texted me or to know if her father was okay. I didn’t want to wish losing a parent on my worst enemy.
“Everything okay in there?” A soft voice came through the bathroom door after an even softer knock.
“I’m alright, Astrid, thank you,” I replied, grateful for this woman and her caring feelings towards me even though she didn’t really know me.
Maybe Astrid knows what happened to Issac?
“Actually Astrid, I have a question,” I yelled, hoping she could hear me through the door. “You can come in if it helps you hear me better.”
I heard the door creak open, and Astrid’s timid foot steps against the tile of the bathroom.
“Yes, my dear?” she questioned sweetly, too kind for her own good. What was a woman like her working for a Mafia family?
“Do you know what happened to Isaac?” I asked as I rinsed out my hair. The beat of silence that followed my question did nothing to make me feel better.
“He’s at the hospital,” Astrid said in her quiet tone. “But he’s expected to make a full recovery, so there’s no need to worry.”
“Fuck Astrid, you could have led with that!” I scolded, trying to recover from the heart attack she gave me when she said he was in the hospital.
“I’m sorry, Soren,” she apologized, before seeing herself out of the bathroom without me even having to say a word.
I didn’t know where life was going to take me next, or what my plans were, but all I knew is I was going to miss Astrid.
Even though our interactions felt few and far between, Astrid was the definition of someone who had a quiet love. She did things for me without expecting anything in return and made me feel like I was finally worthy of a motherly kind of love.
She treated me like I was one of her own and it was something I had never gotten to experience since my mother passed away and I had been stuck with Lilah against my will.
If I was on fire and there was only a glass of water to save me, Lilah would drink the glass and laugh in my face as I perished.
Now, because of Astrid and her unspoken kindness, I would never have to wonder what the love of a mother was like again. I just wish I could take her with me wherever I went. I never would have thought she would have been one of my hardest goodbyes.
But the hardest goodbye went to the man who I loved more than I ever thought possible, and I have no idea how I was going to leave him behind.
I didn’t know what had happened or how we’d fallen so fast from where we were.
We hadn’t talked about it or even stopped to discuss if this was truly what either of us wanted or if he wanted to come with me.
He just shut me out and gave me the cold shoulder with no hesitation.
I guess I’d never know what was running through his mind about us and somehow, with my heart breaking all over again, I walked away.