Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
VAL
Donnie Luka’s bullet hit my right arm.
I sucked air in through my nose and released it slowly from my mouth, fighting to keep my breathing steady and to push past the searing pain. I refused to cry out.
The depraved bastard would never get that from me. I knew what he wanted… to be in control, to have power over me, to feel like a powerful man.
He wasn’t strong. Not at all.
Just another sick asshole.
Never would I let him take my power away and own it.
Whatever psychotic bullshit he pulled out of his bag of tricks next, I wouldn’t fall for it. He couldn’t break me. I would die before giving him the satisfaction of watching me fall apart.
“This is your fault,” he hissed. “If you weren't such a stuck-up bitch, none of this would’ve happened. All you had to do was be nice and know your place.”
“My place? You have no idea where that is. You don’t even know who the fuck I am.”
“But I know what you are,” he fired back. “A worthless bitch who used her body to trap a wealthy man, so he’ll take care of you. And you did it only to find out he doesn’t want you.
“He wants someone worthy, like Benedetta. You couldn’t take it, could you? So you went crawling back and opened your legs for him again.”
I clenched my teeth.
“You better hope you’re right…” I said, “that he doesn’t want me. Because if he shows up, you’ll pray for death before he even lays a finger on you. Stefano will rain hell down on you for taking me. And I think you know that.”
My arm throbbed, and the bullet hole burned like crazy.
When I pressed on the wound to staunch the bleeding, blinding pain erupted beneath my fingers. My stomach turned, increasing my nausea, forcing me to swallow my vomit. Letting it out wasn’t an option. Luka would consider that weakness and be thrilled by it.
The asshole pulled out his phone to snap a photo of me lying on the floor in a puddle of my own blood. The sick fuck would probably masturbate to it later.
I blocked him out and focused on the pain, controlling it instead of letting it control me.
He grabbed my other arm and yanked me up on my feet.
“Get the fuck up, you stupid bitch.”
Then he dragged me to the elevator.
I struggled to stay on my feet, the slick marble floor smeared with blood, making it hard to gain any traction. It left a nice trail behind me for someone to follow, though.
I prayed Stefano would find me before I bled out.
My kidnapper moved quickly, his fingers forcefully gripping the flesh of my arm, making it impossible for me to break away. I thought about screaming for help, but if no one had heard the gunshot, they wouldn’t hear me either.
You never knew, maybe the timing could make a difference. What would it hurt if I tried?
“Help! Please help me,” I shouted.
Luka stopped and backhanded me across the face, and I hit the floor again with the taste of blood filling my mouth.
Yeah, that was what it would hurt. Me.
This time, when he yanked me back on my feet, he pressed the short barrel of his pistol against my temple.
“If you do that again, I will shoot you in the fucking head. Then I’ll do the same to your son.”
His pupils were huge, almost eclipsing his irises. Sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down the sides of his face. Not just from adrenaline. He was high.
He must have taken something before getting to Con Amore, and that made him even more unpredictable and dangerous. And a hell of a lot scarier.
I nodded to reassure him that I would keep my mouth shut.
He chuckled.
“See? You can be obedient after all.”
After we got back to the parking garage and then to his large sedan, he threw me into the trunk. I landed on my wounded arm and stifled a scream.
I gripped my arm, putting pressure on the wound again. I didn’t know if that helped dull the pain at all, but it had to help slow down the blood loss.
He slammed the trunk lid and plunged me into darkness.
A few seconds later, his car door slammed shut, then the engine roared to life. The tires squealed as he peeled away, and then the brakes made a grinding noise when he stopped quickly. More squealing tires. He was in a hurry.
Luka knew as well as I did…
Stefano Vignali was formidable, a notorious mafia boss known for his unwavering resolve, a cruel man who always needed to win.
And he would catch up with us sooner than later.
I believed that in my heart. I felt it in my bones.
Locked inside my kidnapper’s trunk again, I could only wait, prepare, and pray.
With my eyes closed, I prayed first to my grandmother. My nonna had saved me from a devastating marriage that would have ended with my death in less than a year.
A long and happy life had never been in the cards for me, not until she risked her own life to set me on a path I might survive. She helped me escape the fate of my father’s legacy.
Next, I prayed to the grandmother who had found me, taken me in, and shown me how to adapt to a new life, a free life. My adoptive nonna taught me what it meant to live, to choose, how to say “no” to those bigger than me, stronger than me, in ways that would be heard.
She taught me how to do things I didn’t know I had in me.
Before those women passed, they had helped me through the hardest times in my life, holding me up, making sure I never lost my footing. They taught me how to be strong in ways only a woman understood, how to endure things that might break even the strongest of men.
Then, while continuing to take deep breaths, in through the nose, out slowly through the mouth, I prayed to the Virgin Mother. I didn't ask her to help me or save me. I’d asked my grandmothers for that protection. Of the Virgin, I had a much more important request.
To her, I prayed for the safety and protection of my son, not only from his deranged teacher, but also from the horrors of his father's life.
I couldn’t bear to think of Enzo being raised by his father and ending up in the mafia. I couldn’t let that happen. Whether Stefano claimed him as an heir or kept him close as a soldier, the result would be the same for my son, and I couldn’t let it be.
But I knew.
I knew all the effort I’d made to keep him away from that life had been for nothing. I had failed. I knew the effort I’d made for so long to keep him away from that life had been for nothing. I had failed. The moment Enzo and Stefano laid eyes on each other, my son's fate had been sealed.
Still, I prayed to the Virgin anyway.
I begged for my son’s life to be different.
Let him live. Let him be a good man . Let him marry for love. Let him father children he adores. Let him have a long life. A full life. Let him die an old man surrounded by warmth and a loving family. Make sure my son always knows how much I love him.
Oh god, my head spun faster and faster.
My stomach twisted, and bile hit my throat.
I prayed harder.
No, no, no…
Sharp pains struck my temples, and the throbbing in my arm and shoulder intensified.
But damn it, I refused to stop praying, ignoring the pain, the sickness, the fear while pleading for my son’s life.
A cold sweat soaked my neck, my back, all of me. My body trembled violently. I was so cold. Pins and needles stabbed at my hands and my feet.
The car slowed, jostled me around over two or three considerable potholes, then rolled to a full stop.
All the energy had left my body. I couldn’t lift my head.
How was I supposed to fight back now?
The trunk opened, and bright light filtered in, blinding me. I tried to block it with my hand and get my vision into focus, but everything remained blurry. My eyelids weighed so much.
“Get up. I must get you ready,” Luka said.
“Get me ready for what?”
The sound of my voice alarmed me. The sluggishness, the hollow tone, the incoherently strung together words.
“Why Valerie, for our date, of course.”
He reached into the trunk, grabbed my arm, and pressed his thumb on the wound.
A flaring burst of pain shot through my entire body.
I squeezed my heavy eyelids shut and groaned while pushing at his hand to make him stop.
A sudden surge of adrenaline rushed through me. I’d heard that great pain and agony could do that. It was enough to wake me. Enough, at the very least, to allow me to think again.
“If you behave, I might even fuck you. Just so he never wants you again. If he ever did,” Luka said.
Then the sick motherfucker yanked me out of the trunk.
When my feet hit the ground, I forced myself to stumble and drop on one knee like my legs were giving out. I fell sideways against the rear of Luka’s car, bracing myself against the license plate and rear bumper.
By the time he hauled me upright again, I’d gotten a good glimpse of my blood smeared on the license plate.
Several drops hit the crumbling pavement.
As far as leaving a trail of clues went, a smear and drops of blood had to be better than nothing.
The asshole’s grip on my arm got tighter as he dragged me to the front of an old single-family home with buckled wooden stairs and chipping paint.
He hesitated at the door, jerking my face close to his mouth.
“I can’t wait to see if Vignali finds you in time,” he said.