Page 30 of Unbound

I’ve been sick and sleeping a lot and busy helping out with Lucas and Antonio and he’s been a wreck, trying to find his sister. It’s been awful. We haven’t made love in well over a week. And he’s grouchy.

So, I’d been thinking I’d try to help, entice him into a sexy game. But now my head was overflowing with memories of Mexico and the fact that he wants to take me to Vegas, which has some pretty rough memories, too, maybe even worse than Mexico, because I almost gave up on him, on us, while we were there.

Mexico was scary for me, but Tommy saved me from there. Vegas was painful for both of us and Tommy hurt me there.

I didn’t throw up. I’d just stood over the toilet for long moments, fearing that I would. Finally, I went back out and he was still talking on his phone, sitting on the edge of the bed, so I curled up beside him and put my head on his knee. He stroked my hair while he kept talking, discussing some construction job site problem with materials being stolen. I guess I fell asleep because I woke up a while later and I was still in bed but he wasn’t there.

I got myself mobile and started to pack for Las Vegas. I was looking forward to seeing Tess but I wasn’t looking forward to the rest of it.

I didn’t take the call when Leo Denarda called me again, this time using a phone that had his name on the caller ID. Ignoring the call would send a message and the message it sent was the message I wanted to send. He was not worth my time, and I had no interest in pandering to him.

I wanted him to see my sister on my arm and know that we’d gotten her back, despite his game. Nino was coordinating sneaking her in with Zack so no one would know she’d been retrieved.

While Tia slept, I got a few calls taken care of, including calling my brother-in-law Ed, and my top and most trusted muscle to set up a meeting at a quiet location where I’d besure there would be no bugs and where we could map out a few potential plans for how to handle Denarda after the Fete opening.

Someone was picking me up. We were all leaving our cars behind and taking burner phones. I didn’t trust that any of us weren’t being tailed. And for the shit that needed to be discussed, we needed complete privacy.

I was so relieved when Zack Jacobs got to Mexico to pick me up. I’d lost track of time but had to have been away for several days at least. I’d been in the dark for a lot of it, rooms without windows, boxes with air holes. It felt like a long time since I’d been home.

I had been safe since arriving at this place, but the first leg of my journey hadn’t gone as well.

Not nearly. I didn’t know if I’d be rescued. It certainly wasn’t looking good when I’d found myself up for bid at an auction.

After I’d been kidnapped, they’d drugged me and whatever they injected me with – it knocked me out. I woke up, groggy, in what looked like a cargo bay of a warehouse. My hands and feet were taped, my mouth was taped, and there was a guy standing over me, smiling a creepy, slimy smile.

He wore a shiny blue suit that was too large on him, not that he was a small guy. He was stocky, kind of tall. Big ears. Badhaircut. He had a 1970s mob movie vibe to him and he smelled like he’d bathed in both Aqua Velva and Polo cologne.

“She’s awake. Move her to that office over there,” he ordered.

My eyes were wide and I didn’t know what would happen next but two large men, one was for sure the one who’d jumped in the passenger seat of my car, hefted my top half and another guy got my bottom half and they carried me into an office as the guy who seemed in charge said, “On her stomach.”

They dropped me on a dirty sofa on my belly. I barely took in the room. Off-white walls, an old beat-up desk with papers all over it, brown corduroy sofa. My nostrils filled with the scent of stale tobacco and sweat mingled with that Polo cologne.

“Out,” the one in charge said and I heard the door click shut.

I felt the shift as his weight hit the sofa, but I faced the backrest and I didn’t know if I should turn around. I was groggy. Disoriented. But scared.So scared.

Whatever drug they’d given me hadn’t fully worn off yet. My arms and legs felt like rubber bands. And being beyond scared, frightened out of my mind, I also didn’t know where I was, who these people were, or what they’d do to me.

“Your big brother needs a lesson, Contessa Ferrano Michaelson. You’re gonna disappear, pretty little thing. Jeez, you got pretty hair. Sweet ass.”

I felt a hand on my butt and my body went from shaking like a leaf to locked tight. He was laughing. He was laughing like he was the king of the world.

“You’re gonna make me a few bucks by disappearing. All I’ll say is that if you wanna survive, you’ll learn how to be an obedient little slave pdq. That’s down to you. You get yerself killed, that’s not on me.” I felt his breath against my ear. I smelled it, too. Garlicky.

He leaned over and said in a low and very sinister voice, “Before transport picks you up, I’m thinkin’ it’ll give me thatmuch more joy if I take a piece to remember you by before you go. Then when I see Tom junior’s smug mug at the Fete opening, I’ll look at it knowing I blew my load deep inside his sister.”

Vertigo descended quickly and everything spun in my head. As I went to struggle, he put his hands on me. My hands were taped tight, clasped together with my wrists bound so tight that I couldn’t unclasp them. Same for my feet. My ankles were hurting, because the one ankle was taped so tight against the other ankle that bone was rubbing against bone. I tried to roll after feeling the weight of him disappear from the sofa. I dared to flip over and saw him fiddling at the desk and he was holding up a box cutter.

“In case he ever gets you back. He prolly won’t. But if he does? He’ll know I was here.”

He made his way back toward me and then yanked my sleeve up, pried my left arm one way, causing pain but not separating my wrists, only making the duct tape stretch and cut in deeper.

I felt the cutting pain as he started to carve something into the underside of my forearm with the box cutter. I was screaming behind the tape over my mouth as I watched him do it painfully slow. I kicked and writhed until he looked straight into my eyes.

“Don’t move or I carve your face instead.”

I froze. He finished one last large circular motion on my forearm, which he was holding tight, by my elbows.

---