Page 16 of Married to the Mafia

I run over and look in the back, and that’s when I realize what’s happening. It’s so fast. That’s the problem. I don’tget time to think. One minute I’m walking down the street, the next several pairs of hands are grabbing me and pulling me into a black van.

At once the doors slam shut, and a bag goes over my head. I get a punch to the stomach as I scream, and it knocks the wind out of me.

I’m gasping, my mouth sucking in the bag’s fabric, and I think I’m going to suffocate. “Shut up,” a man’s voice hisses in my ear. He’s got a thick accent. Italian maybe.

The engine starts and we’re rolling along the street already. I don’t know how many people are in there with me, but I count at least three by the different voices yelling at me to stop fighting. What the fuck is going on?

I’m too angry to be scared. It’s like this time I fell off my bike when I was about eight. That was a year before mom got diagnosed.

I was out on my own and I had spent ages trying to build up to riding Death Hill. So called for the steepness and the way it ran straight out onto the road at the bottom. A length of grass and one track of mud worn away from generations of kids riding and sledging it.

The trick was to turn at the last possible moment before you race out into the traffic and get smooshed.

I sat with my bike on so many occasions I lost count until I finally went for it. I rode straight down and was going far too fast to turn at the end. I hit the brakes and went straight over the handlebars.

I flew like Peter Pan over a couple of cars and then landed on the road with a thump. The air flew out of my lungs and I was just gasping like a goldfish out of its bowl.

I didn’t feel pain then. I didn’t feel fear as a car came barreling toward me. I just felt anger. How could I havedone something so dumb? It stopped, and I lived, but I was pissed, not scared.

That was how I felt when I nearly got abducted a couple of years back. Angry, not scared.

That’s how I feel in the van. How did I fall for it? Blacked out vans are almost a cliched method of abducting women, and I walk straight over like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Fear creeps around me as time passes. They have bound my hands, my ankles too. I’m rolling on the bed of the van and the men are saying nothing. I’ve stopped moving so much. I’ve got my breath back, but whenever I try to talk, someone puts the boot in.

We take lots of turns and then there’s a squeal of brakes and a crunch under the tires.

The back door swings open and light gets in, shining through the bag enough for me to know it’s still sunny out there. I’m outside. That’s something.

I’m dragged out of the van and then dumped on the ground. Someone is walking toward me. I can hear their footsteps on the gravel. Then a shadow over my face and a voice near my ear.

“Where’s the chip?” The voice is oily, faux friendly. The guy’s breath is bad enough for me to smell it through the bag.

“Who the fuck are you?” I ask.

A hand grabs my right tit through my sweater, squeezes it hard. “There are four men here not including me. “If you don’t answer me, I’ll let all of them fuck you, and then I’ll ask again. So if you don’t want that, you better be honest with me. Where’s the chip?”

“What chip?”

The hand grabs my tit again. I try to shove it away, buthe laughs. “Nice and ripe,” he says. “Bet you’ve never been fucked.”

“Fuck you.”

He slaps my face through the bag. “I’m getting bored with this, so I’ll explain in a way a child could understand. You have a casino chip that belongs to me. I want to know where it is. Where is it?”

His hand is moving to my throat, choking me. I’m gasping for air, fighting to get free, but other hands are on my limbs, holding me down on the ground.

“My house,” I get out. “It’s in my room.”

“Good girl,” he says, his hand moving down between my legs, squeezing hard. “When we’re married, I’ll enjoy doing this again. I like the sounds you make when you choke.” He lets go of me and stands up, his voice further away. “Go get the chip and bring it back here.”

“What about her?”

“Oh, I’ll keep her company for now. Don’t you worry about that.”

There’s the slamming of doors and then the van moves away, leaving me alone with whoever the fuck that is out there.

“Let me go,” I say.

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