Page 75 of Mafia Mistress

Chapter Nineteen

Francesca

I wascertain I would die that night.

For the first few hours, I explored the yacht. The ship was amazing, with no detail or expense spared. I saw all the bedrooms, the living areas, the bathrooms. Only one room remained locked, and I assumed that was Fausto’s office. The crew nodded politely, and I came to quickly realize they didn’t speak much English. When I asked for a snack, they brought me more prosecco.

I ended up back on the pool deck where I found bottles of water in the mini fridge. They brought me dinner, which was some amazing shrimp and lobster pasta dish that I wanted to eat every day for the rest of my life. Then I watched the sunset over the water, wishing I had a phone to call my sisters.

Wait, there had to be a phone on the boat, right? Fausto had taken a call at one point.

Wandering to find a crew member, I asked about a phone, holding my hand to my ear. He shook his head. “No, signorina. Sta nell’ufficio.”

“Ufficio?”

He waved me forward and led me to the locked door near the master suite. Fausto’s office. Shit. “Grazie,” I said, inwardly sighing. Then something else occurred. “Television?”

“Ah, sí.” He nodded and motioned for me to follow. In the master suite, a television was hidden in a cabinet. I clapped my hands, beyond giddy to be saved from total boredom.

“Is there a remote?” I moved my thumb to mime a remote.

He lifted his hands and shrugged, his expression saying he had no idea. Then he pointed to a drawer under the television. Ah, that made sense.

I pulled open the drawer and I found a remote there, along with stacks of DVDs. Old movies? I examined the titles, hoping to recognize at least one.

They were all Italian porn.

Jesus Christ, Fausto. One track mind much?

At least it would save me from silence...and maybe help me learn Italian. Especially dirty Italian, the kind Fausto would like. Not that I cared what Fausto liked at the moment, that asshole.

I chose one featuring two men and one woman. The slot for the disc was on the side of the TV. It took some time to figure out, but I finally got it playing. The production values were hilarious, the plot ludicrous. Nice to see that Italian and American porn were similar in that regard. It wasn’t particularly arousing, so I wondered what Fausto liked about it.

Then the men began to dominate the woman...and it all became crystal clear.

Of course, he liked watching her being tied up and held down, flogged and teased. I added the captions and tried to study the words, but I found my eyes fluttering. I fell asleep to the sound of moaning.

A jolt woke me sometime later.

The TV had turned off, so the room was pitch black, and the wind was howling. The yacht moved as though we were at sea, and my stomach lurched. Had we left the inlet while I was asleep?

Someone pounded on the door. “Hello?” I called.

It opened and one of the crew members peered inside. I could barely see his face, but his expression did not reassure me. “Signorina, si fermi qui.” He gestured to the bed. I understood the word here, and I assumed he was telling me not to move.

“Are we in danger?”

He gave me a helpless shrug that said he didn’t understand. “Si fermi qui, per favore.”

“Okay,” I said, practically being drowned out by the sound of the wind and waves crashing outside the yacht. The boat rose and fell, and I dug my fingertips into the mattress as best I could. Holy shit. Were we going to sink?

The crew member disappeared, leaving me alone in Fausto’s big bed. Rain pelted the glass, sheets of it coating the deck beyond. The wind was louder than I’d ever heard, a fierce roar so strong it was a wonder the roof didn’t blow off. I didn’t have any personal experience to compare this night with, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a tropical storm. Worse, a hurricane?

Fear turned my blood to ice. I couldn’t move, my body frozen in dread as the waves rocked the yacht. Should I be searching for a life preserver? I stared out at the black water and shivered. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a great swimmer. I certainly couldn’t swim to shore, which meant I’d either drown or become shark food if the boat sank.

Oh, God.

The waves seemed to be getting larger. Angrier. I tried to think of it like a roller coaster, a ride I had to endure for a little bit, but it didn’t work. The longer it went on, the worse it became. At one point, my stomach revolted and I had to rush to the toilet to vomit. I had no one to hold my hair, no one to tell me this was all going to be okay. I was in the middle of a terrible storm all alone in a place I barely knew. If we died tonight, I would never see my sisters again. I would slip under the waves and disappear.

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