Chapter 29
KARINA
The trunk opens and as I blink into the bright light, someone shoves a hood over my head and hauls me out of the car onto shaky legs.
I don’t know why they bother with the theatrics. I know where we are.
Familiar scents fill my nose. I know the earthy smell of this yard, the perfume of the magnolia tree, and the sharp tinge of Murphy’s Oil Soap that always lingers inside the front foyer. They brought me home.
Somewhere between my abduction and this moment, my fear subsided, and anger replaced it.
My cheeks itch from dried tears and my eyes feel swollen, but I’m done crying.
I want nothing more than to be done with my old Bruno life, yet it keeps creeping up to drag me back in, time and time again. Why can’t they just leave me alone?
Someone takes my arm, their fingers pressing against the bruises that are already there, and walks me forward.
The sound of our footsteps changes from shoes on tile to the resonant clack of the hardwood floors.
As I’m pushed into a room and the door closes behind me, I catch another scent I recognize—my mother’s perfume.
It’s the same one she’s worn since I was a child, but it’s far from comforting.
Instead, it churns up nausea and disappointment in my gut.
My hood is suddenly whipped off, and the first thing I see is my mother. Standing right in front of me as she reaches up to move the loose strands of hair away from my face.
“You are a mess, Karina.”
She makes a tsking sound and tries to smooth my tangles, then gives up and gathers it into a loose braid over my shoulder, never making eye contact with me. Never acknowledging that her daughter is standing before her in restraints and against her will.
Realizing I’m in my uncle’s office sends me into an instant panic.
“Mom? What are you doing?”
She doesn’t respond, just keeps tidying me up as if I have somewhere to be, someone to impress. She moves away to grab something from her purse. It’s a travel size pack of makeup remover wipes. Pulling one out, she presses it against my cheeks and starts cleaning my face.
“Your makeup is a sight. And your mascara ran everywhere.”
“Mom.” My voice sounds like a pathetic, scared little girl. My mother is right here. Right in front of me, and she’s doing nothing to save me. “Stop.”
“It’s going to be fine. I’ll fix you right up. Make you pretty again.”
She reaches toward me again and I step back, my anger rising. “You’re not fixing anything! And I don’t care about looking pretty for Uncle Sergio or for fucking Pietro! How can you just stand there and let them do this to me?”
I wriggle in my bonds, making a point of the fact that my hands are tied behind my back, but my mother only sighs and shakes her head, making no move to help me.
“Karina, please. You did this to yourself when you turned your loyalty away from this family. You knew better. And now…you must pay the price.”
Trying to ignore the tone of finality in her voice, I squeeze my eyes shut, as if I can make all of this go away. The way she’s talking, it sounds like I’m about to be tortured or killed.
Or both.
Loud footsteps enter the room and my heart crashes to my feet.
“Leave us,” Uncle Sergio says, his heavy presence filling the office so completely that I feel like I’m suffocating.
I shrink away as he passes close enough to me that our shoulders brush. He drops into the leather chair behind his desk and steeples his fingers over his belly, eyeing me with disdain. A slow tremble starts in my shoulders and down my arms, working through my entire body.
It isn’t just fear causing me to come undone, though. It’s also rage. I hate him.
All I can think to do is lift my chin, pretend to be brave and insulted. Acting like the Bellantis have my back is the only weapon I have to wield right now. “You’ve made a huge mistake, Uncle. There will be consequences.”
“Is that so?” He just smiles, looking anything but intimidated, and my blood runs cold. “Come now, Karina. Quit with the childish posturing. It’s not going to get you anywhere.”
My mother’s voice rings out from behind me. “Sergio—”
I’d thought she’d left. My uncle’s attention doesn’t turn from me.
“Get your ass out of my office. This is a private meeting,” he says, completely devoid of emotion.
Was that her feeble attempt to help me somehow? Was she hoping to stand by to keep my uncle from punishing me too harshly? She can’t have actually thought she could make a difference.
I hear footsteps, the sound of the door opening and closing. Her perfume fades.
My pulse picks up, and my ears start to ring. Shooting pains stab at my stomach from the inside. I’m truly alone with Uncle Sergio now. There’s no telling what he has in mind for me. I don’t want to be afraid, but I can’t stop my visceral reaction to him. It’s pure instinct.
“You mentioned something about a mistake, Karina?”
My uncle turns to the liquor cabinet behind him and pours himself a strong, smoky whiskey. The smell hits me right in the gut with a punch of nausea. He takes a long sip.
“Speak,” he commands.
I don’t stop to wonder why he’s granting me this chance to talk my way out of this.
I take it for the gift it is. Because as terrified as I am, I’m also more confident in myself than I was the last time I stood before him.
Thanks to the Bellantis, I know my worth.
I wasted my whole life trying to be perfect, trying to be obedient, trying to be invisible.
Doing whatever I could to avoid my family’s punishment and abuse and scorn.
But I’m done cowering like a little mouse.
“You think the Bellantis are easily outmaneuvered, but they’re not,” I say as coolly as possible. “My husband won’t take my abduction lying down. I guarantee you they already have a plan in place to—”
“Your husband.” He laughs. “A pathetic excuse for a man, riding on the coattails of his older brothers with no loyalty to the Bellanti name aside from what it can do for his masturbatory racing career. He’s nothing but a spoiled, self-indulgent little dandy.”
The insults roll off me, simply because they are so far off base that I can’t even take offense. But my wrists burn and itch from my bonds and I ache everywhere. Fatigue is setting in. My body is so very tired.
“You clearly know nothing about him,” I say, but my anxiety is rising again. This conversation is going nowhere, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m simply standing here to be humiliated and shamed for the sole purpose of my uncle’s personal pleasure.
He raises a placating hand. “Believe what you wish. I’m not here to debate your husband’s lack of virtue. However, since you mentioned mistakes, I consider it my duty to enlighten you about a few things that have perhaps escaped your knowledge heretofore.”
After taking another long pull of whiskey, he sets the glass down and smacks his lips, a disgusting sound that sends a shudder through me.
“You see, Karina, you are the mistake. You always have been. Your mother was supposed to birth a son. Instead, we got you. Your failures have only continued from there. But I’ve come up with a plan to fix everything.”
“Well, excuse me for having a vagina.”
He whips me a look. I stare back at him, dead-eyed. I’ve never been so bold with my uncle, but it isn’t bravery that’s driving me—it’s a combination of exhaustion and my best attempt to seem like I’m not afraid of him anymore.
“I’d be happy to dispatch you here and now, keep things clean and simple, but unfortunately you’re more valuable to me alive than buried in the Mojave desert in a stainless steel drum full of lye. Unless that sounds like a preferable alternative to what I’m about to ask of you.”
Leaning back, he lets his words sink in. The way he spoke leaves no doubt in my mind that this is a method of making people disappear with which he has much experience. And judging by the thoughtful expression on his face, he’s still seriously considering it.
All I can do is shake my head. He’s called my bluff. There’s no hiding the very real fear I’m feeling.
Clearly, Uncle Sergio notices. He smirks as he goes on, “So you do want to make things right. I thought you’d come around.”
I’ll never help him with anything, but I have to at least pretend to agree with whatever he says if I want to make it out of this room alive. He needs to feel like he’s winning, like he’s got me in the palm of his hand. I can play along with that.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Simply atone for the mess you’ve created. Surely you can agree that’s fair.”
He’s talking in circles, trying to get me to agree before he’s even laid out the terms. I huff a humorless laugh. “I need some reassurances, then. Why should I do anything you ask if you only plan to kill me later?”
“Because you’re not the only one at risk of losing a head,” he says sharply. “Olivia Abbott may have slipped from our grasp thanks to your meddling, but Francesca Bellanti is pregnant and quite vulnerable, isn’t she? It would be a shame if something happened to her…or her baby.”
Bile rises in my throat. I’m done bluffing. I can’t risk putting Frankie or the baby in danger. “I’m listening.”
The door behind me opens. My instinct is to look and see who has entered, but I don’t want to take my eyes off my uncle.
Pietro passes by me and hands something to my uncle. Then my ex-fiancé pours himself a drink from the whiskey decanter, making a point to ignore me.
As my uncle inspects whatever is in his hand, I stand there waiting.
My thigh muscles begin to quiver from the stress and fear and the abuse my body took in the back of the van and the trunk.
It would be so easy to close my eyes and sink away from all this, to hide inside my mind like I conditioned myself to do at a young age. But I have to stay focused.
Maybe I can still win.
“Very good,” Uncle Sergio says to Pietro before turning his cold gaze on me again.
“Here’s the situation, Karina. Living with the Bellantis puts you in an extremely advantageous position for us, as I’m sure you can imagine.
You see things, you hear things, you have access to sensitive information, computers, filing systems, cell phones. You’re on the inside, after all.”
I nod hesitantly. There’s no point trying to deny any of it.
“Not only that, but you have an in to the winery’s back end,” he says. “You’ve been working alongside Francesca, after all. Your professional relationship will only continue to grow, provided you take care to show an interest in the business. That’s useful to us as well.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He knows I’ve worked in the tasting room with Frankie. How the hell does he know that?
I clear my throat. “So you want me to spy for you.”
“I want you to pay very close attention to everything that goes on at the Bellanti compound,” my uncle says. “You will report back to us, and if you try to lie or misdirect or conveniently forget any piece of vital information, your ring will tell us everything you don’t.”
My…what?
Uncle Sergio approaches me with something in his palm. My wedding rings. He smiles nastily.
“This isn’t an act of faith on my part, Karina. Fail us, and I’ll know immediately, which will result in the very brutal death of someone you hold dear.”
He spins me so my back is toward him, then roughly twists my bound hands and pushes the rings onto my finger. I wince as the bands slide over the raw skin there. Uncle Sergio turns me around again, returns to his desk, and lowers himself into his chair with a satisfied grin.
“You know, I gotta say. I couldn’t have picked a better mole myself,” he declares, raising his glass to Pietro.
My ex-fiancé laughs around his own drink. Uncle Sergio joins him.
I look between the men, my head pounding. My left hand burns, the rings sitting heavily, almost cutting off the circulation to my finger.
What the hell have they done?