Chapter 26Anna
Chapter Twenty-Six
ANNA
Whatever drug I’d been given didn’t want to let go. My eyes were glued shut, and cobwebs covered my mind. The one thing that stood out was the smell. It was familiar.
“Anna.” Jason’s strained voice came from somewhere. “Anna, are you okay?”
Groaning, I managed to peel one eye open and then the other. My vision slowly cleared, and I realized I was in Jason’s office, hands and feet bound, lying on the floor. I rolled my head and found Jason bound to a chair with both eyes bruised and swollen, his lip busted, and a large bruise lining the right side of his face. His shirt was torn, and dried blood ran from his nose to his chin.
A few feet away from him, Cora, his secretary, was bound, and it looked like she was still unconscious.
“Jason? What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure yet, other than I’m positive our father is going to kill me.”
How had Papa even managed to get to Jason? “Where’s Thomas?”
“Dead.” Jason’s voice was laced with grief. “He died trying to protect me.”
They’d been friends since we were children. I couldn’t begin to imagine what my brother was feeling. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he whispered.
I rolled my head again, trying to see the rest of the room. “Where’s Papa?”
“I don’t know…” His voice trailed off.
My stomach churned, and bile tickled the back of my throat. I didn’t know if it was because of my emotional state, the drugs, or a little of both. “I don’t understand…” Tears clouded my vision. “Why wo uld he do this?”
His head fell back. “I guess that he’s trying to finish what he started four years ago.”
The nausea was hitting hard. I took a few deep breaths, concentrated on my breathing, and tried to convince myself that I wouldn’t throw up. I needed something to think about other than vomiting. “Would you please tell me what happened?”
“Oh, Anna, does it matter now?”
“Yeah, it matters. Tell me.”
He lifted his head and looked at me. Silence stretched. “Our father decided that sex trafficking was a more lucrative stream of revenue. He’d approached Marco Moretti because he knew our family was too weak to venture into it without his help.”
Cora moaned and stirred for a moment. Jason jerked his attention to her. “Cora?”
She took a deep breath and went still again.
He stared at her for a moment and then brought his attention back to me. “We’d suffered severe losses.” Jason licked his lips. “I’d…I’d worked with the previous police chief, Williams, to purge the strip clubs. Michael was already beginning to bring in underage girls, and I couldn’t stand by and let it happen. ”
A swell of overwhelming pride filled my chest.
“He’d approached Moretti about a union, and he wasn’t interested until our father suggested sex trafficking. He was going to assign me to the compound in Greece, and I was going to oversee the operation there. It would have been my job to keep the correct people paid off and looking the other way. Then he sweetened the pot and offered you as a way to join the families through a bond.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”
“He was going to give you to Marco.”
Give me to Marco? Lorenzo said I was promised to a Moretti, but Marco? That overweight, bulldog-jowled Marco. “He’s more than three times my age.”
My brother nodded. “Yeah.”
“Why did you push me away?”
“I’d started planning the coup, but I couldn’t have you caught up in it. He would have used you against me.”
I rolled to my back to give my shoulder a break, but once I realized it hurt worse, I returned to my side. “What are you talking about? I was already in it.”
With a grimace, Jason arched against the chair, like he was trying to stretch. “No, you weren’t. You only saw the very surface of what was going on. You didn’t see him wanting to expand the strip clubs or the kids he hired to perform in them. You didn’t see him excited to talk about selling women and children. I was trying to keep that darkness away from you.”
“He said that’s why you led a coup. You were the one wanting to move into trafficking.”
Shaking his head, he gave a strangled chuckle. “No, I was his second and I was at the meetings. Marco would have little girls with him. He’d call them his granddaughters, but I saw him do things a grandfather wouldn’t do.”
My battle with nausea came to a head and I nearly lost it. The mental picture that was painted was beyond disgusting. Then I remembered Ari asking about Gabriele’s granddaughter. Oh… “You could’ve let me help you.”
“No, you couldn’t. Anna, you are a lot of things, but cunning isn’t one of them. You wear your emotions on your sleeve. You would have never given up trying to convince our father not to do it. Your marriage to Marco was a done deal. The moment you turned eighteen, you would have been handed over to him. ”
I knitted my eyebrows together. “But I turned eighteen before the coup.”
My brother nodded. “I was causing him enough problems with Marco that he couldn’t push it through. I was feeding both of them misinformation on each other. Michael?—”
The door to the office swung open. “Oh, Anna, you’re awake,” Papa said.
I rolled my head. “Papa? What’s going on? Why am I tied up?”
Before answering me, he strode across the room and slammed his fist into Jason’s gut. My brother wheezed and groaned.
“I’m not sorry,” Jason said through a moan. That cost him a couple more blows to his midsection.
My father turned away from him and walked to me, squatting down. “I’m sorry, darling, but one of my children has already betrayed me. I can’t take any chances you might as well.”
“What is going on? Why did you kidnap me?” I couldn’t hold back tears. “Ari?—”
“Will not have your hand in marriage because I didn’t approve of it. You have already been promised to someone and I am a man of my word.” He smiled while his hand brushed across my cheek. “I’ve been assured you’ll be well taken care of as long as you’re obedient.”
I shrank back from Papa’s touch. “Obedient?”
“Of course. Marco Moretti will expect that.”
“No. I won’t marry him,” I growled. “You will never make me marry him.”
The strike to my face was so fast and hard, it momentarily dazed me. Papa had never touched me in such a violent manner before.
“You’ll do as you’re told, Anna. If you don’t, I won’t be able to guarantee your safety. Marco will be your husband, and it will be out of my hands.”
I gritted my teeth. “Ari will come for me, and when he does, he’ll bring an army. He cares for me, unlike you.”
Cora groaned, and my father stood and walked over to her. He swept his hand down her body and smiled. “Clean and attractive. Most likely educated. I think we’ll auction her off.”
“No!” Jason fought against the ropes. “Don’t touch her.”
In one swift motion, my father flew across the small distance and bulldozed his shoulder into Jason’s midsection. The chair fell sideways with a sickening crunch and Jason was motionless.
“Jason! ”
“We’ve got eyes on him,” a voice called behind me.
Papa stooped and patted my cheek. There was a wild look in his eyes. I was pretty sure my father had lost his mind. Perhaps Jason turning on him had driven him insane. “Sit tight, darling. I’ll be back shortly, and then we’ll take a short trip to meet your new fiancé. We can discuss the details of the ceremony then.”
He was crazy if he thought I was simply going to hang out on the floor like I was at a slumber party.
The office door shut.
Cora lifted her head. “The next time he touches me, I’m going to leave a dental impression.”
With a grunt, I said, “Be my guest.”
She craned her neck to look at Jason. “Oh, Jason.” She slowly wiggled her way over to him. “Jason?” She touched her nose to his cheek.
“Is he breathing?” I was afraid what I heard was his neck snapping.
“Yeah, but he’s hurt pretty badly. Your father has beaten him and had him tied to that chair for hours. His shoulder is at best dislocated if not broken.” Cora set her cheek against his. “I was desperate for a job, and he let me work here. He’s been the best boss I’ve ever had.”
I watched her. “You’re in love with him?”
“What?” she asked and looked at me. “No, I’m not. He’s been good to me, and I don’t like to see him hurt.” She returned her attention to him. “Jason, wake up. You need to wake up.”
His eyes fluttered open a minute and immediately closed.
Cora sighed and seemed to fight against her restraints. “We need to figure out a way to get out of these ropes.”
Well, duh. “Yeah, I know. I’ve got a knife in my bra, but I wasn’t planning on being kidnapped and tied up, so it’s buried a little too deep to casually grab with my teeth.”
The door opened again, and my father stood there with the light behind him. “Oh, so glad you finally woke up, Cora. Is my son still breathing?”
“Yes.”
“Too bad.”
Papa strutted through the door like a peacock. Trailing behind him were two men carrying an unconscious Ari.
My breath caught. “No,” I murmured. How had my father managed to capture him ?
“I’d heard about Wick, but clearly his reputation was more lore than fact.” My father left the room and returned with a chair that matched the one Jason was in. “Tie him to it, and make sure it’s tight. I have a lesson to teach him, and I don’t need him escaping before I’ve finished.”
Once they had him secured, I finally had a good line of sight on him. It was obvious that Ari was in a fight. His face sported a few bruises, and his lip was busted. It didn’t make sense though. I’d seen him after being ambushed, and he’d looked worse. Something was amiss. Had they somehow surprised him or drugged him? Drugging wasn’t a stretch because it’d been done to me.
“Stand guard, and don’t let anyone in. I’m calling a family meeting.”
My father smacked Ari across the face. “Mr. Kalantzis, it’s time to wake up.”
A soft moan poured from Ari. My father landed another strike across Ari’s face.
“Come on, Mr. Kalantzis, I have an appointment to keep.” This time, my father patted his cheek. My father lifted Ari’s head, but he only moaned. “Stop pretending. If necessary, I’ll give you an incentive.”
Ari didn’t move. His chin rested on his chest while his shoulders were slumped forward. If he wasn’t tied to the chair, he would fall out of it.
My father dropped his hand, walked over to me, and pulled a lighter from inside his jacket pocket. “Mr. Kalantzis, I don’t want to hurt her, but I will if it means you’ll drop the act.”
He was going to burn me? Who was this man wearing my papa’s face? “Did Mama leave, or did she escape?” The words were out of my mouth before I could even fully consider them.
His eyes narrowed at the same time his lip curled. “Your mother left because she couldn’t handle two children.”
“Neither could you, apparently,” I said.
Anger flared in his eyes and the lighter flicked to life. He sank one hand in my hair at the back of my head, and with the other, he brought the lighter to my face and let it hover. The longer he left it, the more intense the heat grew. “Marco was worried about your modeling being an issue. I think I’ll fix that for him.”
“Stop,” Ari grunted. “Just stop.”
The flame danced in the current of air circulating in the office while he let it continue to hang there, almost like he wanted to see what would happen. He let the flame die and yanked me closer to his face. “The next time you say something disrespectful, I won’t let it hover. I’ll place the flame against your face.”
“Marco won’t like that.”
“That’s not the part he cares about,” he spat back.
Repulsed, I jerked away, but I didn’t respond.
He returned to Ari and his fist landed hard against his jaw. “You made a mistake coming here, putting your nose in my family affairs.”
“Your daughter is my business. She’s engaged to me.”
“Not anymore.” He smiled and rammed his fist repeatedly into Ari’s stomach until he was wheezing uncontrollably.
When I caught his gaze, the pain was etched on his features. Tears freely flowed down my face, dripping from my ear onto the carpet. My heart ached as the man I loved most suffered a merciless beating, leaving me feeling utterly helpless. I’d brought a knife to a gunfight.