Chapter 20

Stale cigar smoke. Rubber. Leather. Chemical pine scent.

It hurt to breathe in too deeply, so I kept my breathing shallow.

Whirr. Thud. Whirr. Whirr. Thud. Whirr. Whirr. Whirr.

The monotonous but strangely soothing sound of wheels running over a road.

When I tried to open my mouth, my lips briefly stuck together, they were so dry.

My eyelids flickered, but even the small amount of bright light filtering through my lashes sent a spike of pain through my temples. I squeezed them shut.

With a twist of my neck, I moved my head then rolled my shoulders, wincing at the dull pain. Fear tightened my chest as I next attempted to move my arms. After shifting, I determined my wrists were not tied together. Shifting again, tormenting pins and needles ran up and down my right arm, which had fallen asleep.

Grasping my right upper arm with my left hand, I pulled myself upright. My teeth clenched as I swung my arm out and back several times, forcing blood back into the limb, ignoring the spike of pain.

Finally, I opened my eyes.

I was in the back of a sedan with the darkened glass privacy divider between the driver and the back seat up. There was no point in letting the driver know I was awake until I assessed the situation. Especially because the person involved was an accomplice in my abduction.

The moment I sat upright, my head exploded in pain, as if the headache had been waiting for just the right moment to strike. I took a deep breath to fill my lungs with air and tried to focus past it.

With a slide across the leather seat, my attention shifted to the window.

By the magenta and orange sky, it looked to be about early dawn, which meant I had been out cold for several hours since the last I remembered it was evening. Long enough to be on the ferry over from Sicily and then to drive deep into the mainland, at least.

From the rolling hills filled with gnarled olive trees and the distant winding roads lined with the distinctively tall, slender cypress trees, I was definitely traveling through Tuscany. At least I thought it was Tuscany. All I could see for several kilometers were neat rows of dead-branched orchards and one lonely medieval town perched on a mountain far in the distance.

With an eye on the privacy divider, I stretched out my arm and tried to flick up the door lock. It wouldn't budge. The child locks were engaged. Because my brain needed further validation beyond that logical conclusion, I still tried the door handle. Nothing.

My nails dug into my skin as I scratched at my neck.

That was when I realized I wasn't wearing my own clothes.

Instead of my comfortable capris and black turtleneck, I was in a ridiculous rhinestone-embroidered mesh minidress. From the short A-line cut, it was classic Prada, my sister's favorite designer. My nails scratched at the faceted crystal low scoop-neck collar again.

After the pins and needles had disappeared, I moved my right arm and pulled on the short hem. It was then that I observed a small piece of paper balled up in my palm.

In my sister's chicken-scratch scrawl was written…

I'm sorry.

I'll try to save you from Matteo in a few weeks.

Wait for a message from me.

Love,

Toni

I crumpledthe note and shoved it in the hidden dress pocket.

Of course.

The wine.

The sneer on my sister's lips.

Everything going black.

She drugged me.

My own sister fucking drugged me.

A further inspection of the back seat proved fruitless. No mobile phone. No purse. Nothing but the clothes on my back. Her clothes.

Matteo had said he was sending a car and bodyguard. Perhaps the man wasn't aware he had a kidnapped passenger. Knowing how clever Antonia could be when she wanted something, there was a chance she somehow got me into the car under false pretenses, like telling him I was drunk or something.

It was time to alert the driver I was awake.

My stomach twisted. This could either go really well, or really, really badly, but what other choice did I have?

Closing my hand into a fist, I pounded on the divider.

I held my breath, waiting for a response.

Several moments later, the air rushed out of my lungs. I took another deep breath before pounding once more.

Then again.

And again.

After several minutes of pounding, the car lurched to the side of the road so violently the tires screeched, and I fell into the footwell. With my gaze fixed on the divider, I climbed back onto the seat, searching for a sign it was about to lower.

So I was unprepared for when the passenger side door swung open.

A pair of beefy hands at the ends of hairy forearms, exposed by rolled-up cuffs, dragged me out of the car. The moment was too sudden for my still recovering brain.

Everything shifted and blurred as my stomach flipped. Acid burned the back of my throat in my struggle not to vomit.

My head bobbled on my shoulders as if my neck could no longer support it when he slammed my back against the side of the car.

A slightly crooked finger with dirt under the nail pointed at my face. "I don't want any trouble from you. Understand?"

I blinked several times to clear my vision.

I recognized the man. His name was Tasso or Terzo or Tomasso. Something like that.

He was an old boyfriend of Toni's.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Toni asked me."

I rubbed my temples. "Seriously? You'll commit a crime because an old girlfriend asked you?"

He licked his lips. "Well, she didn't just ask me, she also?—"

"Stop! I get it."

I didn't need to hear what filthy sexual favor my sister had done to convince him.

"Listen, you have to take me back to Sicily."

He crossed his arms. "I'm taking you to Abruzzo."

Of course. The Cavalieri winery.

"I don't want to go to Abruzzo."

"I don't care what you want. I was hired to drive you to Abruzzo, and that's what I'm doing."

"You can't just drug and kidnap someone, there are laws."

He snorted. "Honey, since when has the mafia ever cared about the law? We make the laws. We don't follow them."

That's right. He was also a soldata for my father.

I tried that angle. "What is my father going to say when he learns you kidnapped his daughter?"

His bushy eyebrows frowned, causing them to blend into one big hairy caterpillar over his lowered brow. "Toni didn't say anything about your father."

I nodded sagely. "I bet there are a lot of things Toni didn't tell you. Like the fact that she drugged me. Like it was my father's wish that she go to Abruzzo, not me. Like how my father is going to kill you and chop you up into little pieces when he finds out about this, and not necessarily in that order."

Who knew this would be one of the few times my father's heinous reputation would actually come in handy?

Tasso/Terzo/Tomasso backed up a step and reached into his pocket for his mobile. "Don't move."

I raised both palms. "I won't."

It wasn't like I had anywhere to go. He had obviously been told to stay off the major thoroughfares. We were clearly on some borderline dirt road through nothing but farmland.

He pressed a few buttons and then said, "Yeah, it's me. You said your sister was drunk."

Called it.

He continued. "And that you didn't want your father to know before her trip to Abruzzo. She's saying you drugged her, and your father is going to be pissed at me."

Although I couldn't make out the words, I could tell my sister was yelling at him by the way he pulled the phone away from his ear.

He opened the front passenger door. "Where? In the glove box? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fine, but you better put out when I get back and I'm not talking the normal stuff. You know what I like. And make sure you get the cherry-flavored lube, not that strawberry crap."

Ewww.

He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the front seat. When he turned back to me, he held a syringe in his hand.

I backed up several steps, desperately searching for another car or perhaps a laborer in the field. "Please, you don't have to do this."

Tasso/Terzo/Tomasso shrugged. "I kind of do. You know what Toni is like when she doesn't get her way."

We circled around the car. "I can pay you. How much do you want?"

"Nice try. I know your daddy doesn't give you girls any money. Toni complains about it all the time."

Dammit.

I looked over my shoulder, further down the road.

"If you run, you'll only piss me off and when I get pissed, I punch."

My eyes widened as I continued backing around the other side of the car until we were almost back to where we started.

He held up the syringe. "We got at least another six hours of driving. You'd be more comfortable sleeping through it."

"That's not sleeping. It's drugged-out."

"Same difference."

Not really.

I raised my arms again. "Please don't do this."

"We're wasting time. You want it in the arm?" His gaze traveled down my body. "Or the ass?"

The thought of this man lifting my skirt to shove that needle in my ass was just the outrageous image I needed to throw all common sense to the wind… and bolt.

I didn't get far.

His bulk slammed into me from behind, pushing my face into the dirt. His weight pinned me down as he reached for the hem of my dress. The calluses on his dirty hands scraped my thighs as I struggled.

Cool air hit the exposed skin of my hip.

Panic blurred my vision, and all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.

It was strange how being in the situation with Matteo Cavalieri was somehow a taboo, erotic rush, and being in it with this man was a terrifying violation.

I looked over my shoulder in time to see him raise his fist.

Oh, God! He's going to punch me.

His other hand painfully squeezed my ass cheek. Then his arm came down to jab the syringe deep into my flesh. "Remember to tell your father you made me do this."

While my mind screamed fight, my body surrendered as the sedative took hold.

I was a limp rag doll when he lifted me over his shoulder and trudged back to the car.

Roughly tossing me across the back seat, he quickly shut the door. Seconds later, I heard as if through a long, deep, dark tunnel, the sound of the door locks tripping.

My eyelids were too heavy to lift.

Darkness descended as the car engine turned over.

Whirr. Thud. Whirr. Whirr. Thud. Whirr. Whirr. Whirr.