2. Elle

2

ELLE

The past tends to sneak up on you, and I’ve always felt mine lurking just out of sight, no matter how hard I try to forget it.

Today has been a particularly bad day. The paranoia tends to be worse when I’m sleep deprived, and I stupidly agreed to do two forty-eight-hour shifts in a row at the hospital followed by a colleague's birthday drinks.

It’s nearing midnight, and I’m almost a complete zombie.

But I don’t mind.

I love my work as a nurse and being this exhausted after a shift means I fall into bed every night too tired to even dream. My dreams always find a way of turning into nightmares.

The buzz from the three vodka and tonics is starting to wear off, and my eyelids are beginning to feel heavy, which means it’s time to finally call it a night.

While I wait for my work colleague, Alice, to get back from the bathroom I pull my phone out of my purse and order an uber .

My apartment is only a few blocks away, and I can easily walk home in fifteen minutes, but I don’t like to take any risks. I put it down to being a young female and the fact that it would be stupid of me to walk home in the dark. But in reality, it’s because I want to escape the feeling of being watched.

The feeling is always heightened when it’s dark, and the alcohol in my system will only make my paranoia worse.

This isn’t a new feeling. For years, my neck has been prickling. It’s like I can feel someone hiding in the shadows, just watching me.

It sounds completely insane, especially because I have no proof that it’s even true.

I’ve never caught someone lurking outside my apartment or following me to the subway, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that someone is always there.

The logical explanation is that I’m just exhausted, but I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry. So, I link with a driver who is ten minutes away and the anxious knot in my stomach loosens just a little. It might be just a feeling, but I’m not about to take any chances.

“Thanks again for coming tonight, Elle,” Alice says as we get our coats from the cloakroom. “I know it was last-minute, but I suddenly felt sad at the thought of not celebrating my birthday.”

“I’m glad you had fun.” I shrug my coat on.

Even though it’s the first week of September, the temperature in New York has significantly dropped, and I always find the cold so much worse when I’m exhausted.

“I did.” Alice laughs, tucking her hair behind her ears. “And it was a bonus to get a few numbers. I saw you chatting to some guy at the bar when I came back from the ladies’ room. ”

I roll my eyes. “Not my type,”

“Uh, since when is a tall guy in an expensive suit with a jaw that could cut glass not your type?” Alice narrows her eyes at me, and I pretend to adjust the belt of my coat to avoid her accusatory look.

“You know me, my work is my boyfriend.”

I don’t really date, and I say that it’s because I don’t have the time, but that’s not the real reason.

It’s because I don’t want to risk getting close to someone in case they leave, because that shit hurts, and I made a vow to myself a long time ago after my parents died that I would never let myself feel that sort of pain again.

So, I’m married to my work, and it fills the void. Most of the time anyway…

“Elle…” Alice sighs as she links her arm through mine. “You really should get out there and date. You’re hot, but your ass is only ever going to look this good once. After thirty, it’s all downhill. Literally.”

“Thanks.” I chuckle.

“You’re welcome.” Alice grins. “Now, let's hope my uber driver will want to stop for some cheesy chips on the way back to my apartment.”

Alice and I push our way through the crowd that is loitering outside the bar, and we scan the street for our rides. The moment I spot the silver Toyota Prius, I give Alice a quick hug goodbye and hurry over to the car.

“Elle Conti?” The driver doesn’t even glance at me as I slide into the back seat and buckle my seatbelt.

“Yes, 428 East 83rd Street.”

I dig through my purse for my phone.

Where is it?

The driver pulls away from the curb and immediately honks the horn as another uber driver cuts us up .

“Where the hell is my phone?” I start pulling out random items from my purse.

After triple checking the contents as well as patting down the pockets of my coat, I still haven’t found it.

“Could we turn around? I think I left my phone at the bar.”

My driver gives no indication that he’s even heard me. He keeps his eyes on the road, and the car lurches as he speeds up.

“Hello? I think I left my phone at the bar. I need you to go back.”

His hazel eyes flick to mine in the rear-view mirror, but once again, he ignores me as he keeps on driving.

I can’t stop the wave of panic that hits me.

“Stop the car?—”

His phone rings, and I grip the door handle as he answers the call.

Immediately he starts to yell down the phone, not in English but in Russian.

My heart rate spikes at the aggressive tone of his voice.

I might be half Russian, but it’s been so long since I’ve spoken the language that I can only decipher every third word or so.

My mother was adamant I learn the language as a child, but after my parents died and I went to live with my Italian grandmother, she didn’t let me continue my studies, claiming that the language was of no use to me now that my mother was dead.

How wrong she was…

I need to get the hell out of this car. Taking off my seatbelt, I pull at the door handle, willing to throw myself out of the moving vehicle if I have to.

But nothing happens. I’m locked in .

“Come on,” I groan as I pull on the door handle, but it’s no use.

I’m completely defenseless. I have no phone, no weapon.

My uncle used to insist I carry a small handgun with me at all times but after working in a hospital for the last two years and seeing countless GSW victims, I refused.

I was terrified I would accidentally set the thing off, so I settled for using a can of pepper spray, which I’ve left in my locker at work.

“Damn it.” I pound on the window. “Stop the damn car!”

“Calm down!” the driver barks at me over his shoulder.

My eyes swim with tears, causing his features to blur.

Throughout my life, I’ve been warned about what to do in situations like this. To look for defining features of your attacker, to remember license plate numbers or the color of a vehicle. But I was never warned about how you could become so paralyzed by fear that it takes everything just to remember to breathe.

I ignore the driver as I bang on the window again.

There’s no way I’m strong enough to break the glass, but I can’t just sit back and do nothing when my life is on the line.

“Calm the fuck down, or Lucia is dead!”

Lucia.

I freeze at the mention of my cousin’s name.

“What the hell are you talking about? Where is Lucia?”

My driver ignores me once more, and my skin breaks out in a cold sweat as I realize this is no random attack.

My cousin’s father, Massimo Conti, is an incredibly powerful man with many enemies that wouldn’t think twice about kidnapping and torturing a member of his family. They’ve already made that clear once after Lucia was kidnapped almost two years ago and her life as well as the life of her unborn child was threatened. If something has happened to her, or sweet little Vivi…

I swallow the bile in my throat as I try to calm myself enough to think rationally.

“W-where are you taking me?” I try to get a better look at my driver.

He looks like so many of the men who work for my uncle, with his cropped, dark hair.

“We’re almost there.”

“Are you taking me to Lucia?”

Silence.

Wiping at my eyes, I turn to look out of the window.

I don’t know how long we’ve been driving for, but my heart rate quickens when I realize we’re on the interstate heading away from Manhattan.

I press the palms of my hands into my eyes.

Stop, Elle. Think.

I remember checking the number plate of the car to make sure it matched the one in the app before climbing in, which means this was no accident. Whoever took me hacked the system to ensure that I would get in the car without raising any suspicion.

“Oh god.” I should have just gone straight home after my shift like I had planned. Not that the deadbolt on my apartment door would be enough to keep me safe from my uncle's enemies, but maybe they wouldn’t have gone after me there.

Wrapping my arms around my shaking body, I force myself to keep my eyes on the road rather than screwing them shut .

I can’t give in to the fear, not when any wrong move might cost me not just my life, but Lucia’s too.

When the car starts to slow and the sight of the run-down motel comes into view, my stomach churns.

It only gets worse as the driver throws open my door and half drags, half carries me out of the car and across the empty parking lot toward the only room with a light on.

Is this where they’ll find me?

I stumble at the thought, and the driver tightens his grip on my arm as we approach the door, my legs shaking so much I can barely hold my own weight.

“Stay quiet,” he growls before slamming his fist against the door.

I can barely hear him over the ringing in my ears.

My body feels painfully cold, as if all the blood has rushed to my head, and my knees keep buckling at the thought of what could be waiting for me on the other side of this door.

I’ve seen too many movies to know that whatever it is, it won’t be good.

When the door finally opens, I’m pushed over the threshold into the cramped motel room where two more men are waiting.

I cringe as the one holding the door open looks me up and down with a feral gleam in his eye.

“Where is Lucia?” My voice shakes.

I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and I turn to find another man stalking across the small room toward me with a face like stone.

“Now you die.” He pulls a gun out of the pocket of his jacket, putting a bullet right between the eyes of the driver.

I scream as he falls to the floor with a thud.

If I wasn’t freaking the fuck out before, I sure as hell am now.