Chapter 34: Five days later: Running away

It had been five days since we’d been caught, and I hadn’t left my room since. I hadn’t seen Romi in all that time, and the separation was awful. I was depressed as hell and had barely eaten. I really didn’t have much of an appetite.

Miki tried to speak to me the following day, but I refused to talk to him until he got me out of this bloody stupid arranged marriage and accepted my relationship with Romi. I was losing my patience.

Nonna brought me some food and tried to encourage me to eat like she did every day, but I just wasn’t hungry.

“You have to eat, Sonia, or you will get sick,” she tried to entice me with a piece of tiramisu.

If I hadn’t been so upset over everything, I probably would have laughed. Nonna knew it was my weakness. I saw how worried she looked at the amount of weight I’d already lost, so I took a tiny bit off the spoon she held up, but even the delightful creamy coffee dessert couldn’t perk up my taste buds.

Nothing tasted good, not without Romi. Besides, eating the tiramisu brought back images of our near kiss in the kitchen, and my heart squeezed in agony. God, how I missed him.

I shook my head, and she set the tray down.

Nonna was as annoyed with Miki and Ash as I was. She told me she wasn’t talking to either of them for beating up Romi, and as a result, both had avoided her as much as possible.

Although I hadn’t been allowed to see Romi, Nonna had kept me informed about his condition. I knew he was in one of our safe houses, but I didn’t know which one. Nonna hadn’t been allowed to see him either, but both Luca and Anton had, and they had informed her that he was healing okay.

My brothers hadn’t been to see him because, apparently, they were still too annoyed with him and couldn’t trust themselves not to hurt him again. Marko hadn’t hit Romi that day, but he hadn’t defended him either, and so I was just as angry with him as I was with the others.

He’d come to see me last night, but I refused to talk to him either, and so he eventually left. Until they stopped treating me like a commodity and a possession and sorted this mess out, I didn’t want anything to do with them.

Pouting and feeling sorry for myself, I snuggled back down on my bed, hugging my pillow. Nonna sighed and brushed the hair back from my forehead, as she used to do when I was a child and sick. Her gentle caress soothed me, and I let my eyelids flutter closed and drifted off into a restless sleep.

Nonna returned a little while later to tell me the news. She’d spoken on the phone with my Aunt Letitia, and Romi was being sent back to Russia tomorrow afternoon on our private jet. I was livid at the news. How dare they send him away!

Breathing deeply through my nose, I made a decision. Romi wouldn’t be going alone. Somehow, I would be on that jet, too. I wasn’t sure what we would do then, but we could figure that out later once we were together again.

I still had my “to-go” bag packed from when I’d planned on running the last time, so I spent the rest of the day solidifying my escape plan.

Before Romi was due to leave, I intended to sneak out of the house and head to the airport. Then, I would find a way to sneak on board and hide. Hopefully, I could stay hidden long enough that it was too far for us to turn around by the time I was inevitably discovered. I knew the staff onboard well, and I was sure I could get one of them to help me with my plan.

Once we had a chance to talk again, we could figure out our next move. Hopefully, we could divert the plane somewhere and then make a run for it.

Nodding to myself, I smiled. It felt good to have a plan again.

Naturally, I didn’t sleep much that night and was up very early the next morning, filled with nervous energy. I felt sad to be having to leave my family but excited at the prospect of a life with Romi. Even if it was a life on the run.

Fortifying myself with coffee and finally being able to eat again, I wolfed down a huge breakfast—a full English. Although we were half Russian and half Italian and often ate a more continental breakfast, some days, nothing hit the spot better than a full English, and this was one of them.

Nonna smiled at seeing me munching heartily on her offering and patted my hand when I finally finished every last morsel on the plate. My heart ached at the thought of never seeing her again after today, but I was glad that if this was indeed the last time I saw her, then at least I’d made her smile.

The morning dragged on, and I paced around the room feeling like a caged animal while Nonna and I went over my plan again and again to ensure it was viable.

Although I wasn’t exactly being kept under house arrest and would have been able to go out if I had wanted, accompanied as usual, my brothers knew that left to my own devices, I would try to get to Romi. So, to ensure I couldn’t, Miki had one of his men stationed outside my door.

He was my first problem, but Nonna figured out how best to deal with him.

So, after lunch, Nonna hugged me tightly, and we said a tearful farewell before she distracted the guard long enough for me to sneak out of my room and down the stairs.

My hands shook, and my stomach churned, and I questioned the wisdom of eating that big breakfast after all. With the guard taken care of, getting out of the house itself was easy enough, but I wasn’t sure my luck would hold out, so I quickly headed through the tunnel towards the secret back entrance.

The plan was for me to head to a coffee shop in the local village, where a taxi would collect me and take me to the airport.

I crept through the tunnel, sticking close to the wall. There were cameras throughout, but I knew where they were and how to avoid them. Sometimes, it paid to help Marko with stuff. You learned a lot of useful information. Feeling more at ease with every step closer to the exit, I grinned.

I’d soon reach the lane that ran behind our property, which went directly to the main road. From there, it was only a short walk to the village. The taxi should arrive a few minutes after I did, and then I’d be off to the airport without any of my brothers being the wiser.

A noise behind me startled me. It sounded like someone was coming, although the person was still quite a distance away. I should have known it wouldn’t be this easy; I chided myself as I took off at a run.

As I burst out of the tunnel, I ran straight into a wall of muscle. I stumbled back and looked up to see Ivor standing in front of me. He looked as shocked as I was at first, but he recovered quickly.

“Well, it’s my lucky day—just the very person I was hoping to find!” he said, grinning at me. It was not the friendly, flirtatious grin he usually gave me; this one was far more sinister.

The hairs at the back of my neck stood up, and I gulped as I instinctively knew I was in danger as he reached for me. This wasn’t good. Pushing my bag into his chest to put some space between us, I turned and ran back inside the tunnel, hoping that whoever was coming could help. Before I got more than a few steps, Ivor grabbed me from behind. One hand snaked around my waist and pulled me roughly back against him as the other slammed over my mouth, cutting off my scream.

He hauled me along as he backed up while I kicked at him and tried my best to bite his hand. Succeeding to nip his fingers, he turned me quickly and swung his fist in my face. My head jerked back under the force, and pain exploded in my jaw as my body crumpled and everything went black.