Page 89 of His Puppet

It’s dark when I open my eyes.

My body lies on a hard, carpeted surface. My hands, bound behind my back, press against fabric. I crinkle my nose at a terrible odor and feel liquid soaking the carpet.

My mind swims, and I clench my eyes shut with a groan. I’ve never felt this groggy, but I try to push through the fog to focus on what’s happening, take in my surroundings, and try to form some sort of a plan.

I don’t let the panic set in. Not yet. Not until I know for sure what’s happening and who is doing this. Not until I hear his voice or smell his cologne or see his face. It isn’t over until that happens.

Tires crunch, and my equilibrium takes a moment to adjust when the world moves.

I’m in the trunk of a car that just made a turn.

Tape holds my ankles together, as well as my wrists, and rubs my raw skin when I try to move. I shift my body and feel something at my back. Not exactly hard, but not exactly soft. I feel it with my hands, and when I grab what I think is a hairy arm, I immediately try to roll over.

“Hey,” I whisper, trying to maneuver my body in the tight space to face the person. “Hey, wake up.”

I don’t have time to wonder who the person is, but I get a selfish kind of relief knowing I’m not alone. I manage to roll over and squint to make out the person with only a sliver of light shining from outside the car.

“Hey,” I whisper again, moving my leg to nudge them with my knee, but I don’t so much as get a groan.

Their back is to me, and their arm limply hangs over their side. Their hands aren’t tied like mine.

I shift and try to roll the person toward me with my shoulder, and it takes a great amount of effort, but I manage to get them on their back.

And I regret it instantly.

I don’t register the bullet hole in Aiden’s head, or even that it’s Aiden, right away. I just feel that something’s wrong. My eyes pick up on it and send signals to my brain faster than I can process it. But when I do, my eyes burst wide, and I shriek, getting as far away from Victor’s driver’s body as I can, shoving my back into the trunk lid.

I scream and thrash and kick at the lid with everything I have in me, my early determination to not panic completely gone.

“Let me out of here!” I scream, over and over.

The driver must not be worried about anyone hearing me because the car doesn’t stop. Not for a while, until my voice is hoarse and I turn my focus to breathing in through my mouth so I don’t have to smell the blood that I now know is what is soaking the carpet.

One of the car doors slam once we stop, and then another a moment later. Two men. Presumably the same two Victor and I met earlier.

Victor.

I close my eyes and allow myself to let out a small cry. He’s dead. He’s dead and it’s my fault. I shouldn’t care, with all the people he’s hurt, he probably deserves it. But I do care. I can’t get his amused smirk or his playful demeanor out of my head, and it’s now that I realize how right he was. I really do like him.Did.

The heartache comes with a twisted sense of relief that it wasn’t Blade who was with me. He’s okay. Not only that, but he’ll figure out who did this and he’ll get revenge. Whether or not it’ll be too late for me is the question. I have no intention of waiting to find out.

The trunk opens, and I glare up at the two men, still in their ski masks. Neither says a word nor shows anything in their eyes. Their lips are thin and straight as one holds up a burlap bag and pulls it over my head.

“Whatever he’s paying you, I can double it,” I say, my voice pleading as I’m lifted out of the trunk.

I don’t get an answer to that, so I try another tactic.

“You don’t understand what you’re doing. My fiancé is a capo in the Gruco Crime Family, and he—”

Gravity yanks my body down when the guy drops me, and I land hard on my back, my head knocking against earth. My mouth opens with a groan while I instinctively roll to my side.

I’m picked up again and carried as if that didn’t just happen. I keep my mouth shut while I’m carried inside my uncle’s house.

I don’t need to see to know that’s where I’m at. The classical music my aunt likes to play flutters from the dining room. The aura of the place sucks the air from my lungs. Goosebumps rise on my flesh. My body would know where I was even if my mind didn’t.

I also know where they’re taking me.

A door opens, the door to my room, or dungeon, depending on how you want to look at it.

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