20. Sicily
SICILY
My head throbbed as my dry eyes tried to flutter open.
I was nestled against something hard, something that had a tang of leather.
There was only emptiness in my muscles and bones, nothing to power me to open my eyes, to move my legs or arms, to yell. I was trapped within my own body, only conscious inside of my mind.
I jolted every few seconds, each jostle bubbling the bile and nausea in my stomach and sour throat. It was obvious that I was in a car, and that meant that I was being driven away from Milan and Francesco. Away from home.
That sent a spark of electricity to my brain, and I twitched my fingers, flopped my head to the side, and finally whimpered something of a sound that unclogged my fuzzy ears.
“Morning, sunshine.” A loud, mocking chuckle sounded through the car. “Now, no more vomiting, please, I beg of you. We’re on a time crunch and I can’t stop—"
My body lurched sideways, coughing up vomit and bile over the car seats like I was being purged.
Only once it was over did my eyes peel open to find a pair of pitch-black eyes staring back at me through the front mirror, the eyes of a fucking psychopath.
The realization of what was happening settled somewhere deep inside, causing me to retch again.
Cesare Fera was the true psycho of the Feras. He wasn’t the man Milan thought he was and he was kidnapping me.
He rolled his eyes, taking a swig of his coffee as he drove like this was just a road trip. “Don’t make me knock you out again.” He pouted. “The hospital I stole this crap from will notice if I don’t put it all back and it’s expensive as fuck.”
There was no life in his eyes, nothing that I could manipulate to get me back home. There was a fine line between sanity and insanity, and this man had crossed it. What the hell had happened to this fairly ordinary guy to make him like this?
I groaned as my stomach spasmed again, but I managed to snarl at him, my weak fingers dragging into fists against the front seats to yank me upward. “Go f-fuck yourself.”
Cesare clicked his thumb over a button on the steering wheel, cranking the strange pop music up and bopping his head from side to side as he reached into the door pocket and flicked open the cap of a plastic white syringe.
My body backed into the corner of the seat, my limbs still refusing to wake up fully, and my gaze caught on the car’s floor beneath me. There was a collection of used syringes, ones matching the one he had in his hand.
He was going to put me to sleep again.
“Maybe, Sicily,” he said, his voice the embodiment of an angry, fiery hell. “This will be the end of Milan fucking Lucca. Maybe Milan Fera needs to come out and play.” Before his words had even ended, he leaned backward, stabbing the syringe into my thigh.
Pain bloomed through my veins and brain as everything Milan had told me that night in my new studio replayed in my mind.
My body gave up on me, forcing my eyes closed and emptying me of my fight.