Page 74 of Bossy Ex's Brother

It was Lorenzo.

TWENTY-NINE

JANE

I was quiet as the men drove, trying to take note of anything in my surroundings that would give me a hint of where we were going.

They’d blindfolded me right after tossing me in the van. The last thing I remembered was the three of them driving up to Felix and me. I felt someone grab me, but before I could even scream, someone slammed their fist into the side of my head, and the world swam. By the time I got my bearings, I was blindfolded in the back of a moving vehicle, completely disoriented.

“Don’t scream,” somebody said at the back. “We’d hate to have to kill a pretty girl like you.”

I immediately panicked, started struggling, and tried to scream, but a hand slapped over my mouth before I could. Then someone in front said, “Gag her,” and that was precisely what they did. They held me down and stuffed a dirty cloth into my mouth as fear spiraled through my body.

“What do you want?” I tried to ask, but it was muffled by the gag.

“Relax,” someone said. "We don’t want to have to knock you out again. But if you don’t comply, we might have to.”

Terror instantly had me freezing. I didn’t want to get knocked out again. My head still hurt from the first time, and I didn’t want to be unconscious with these guys.

“Good girl,” one of the men said, and defiant stray anger went up my spine at the term, but I didn’t have time to be angry. I needed to figure out how to get out of there.

I tried to keep my ears open, but I couldn’t determine anything. I wasn’t James Bond. I knew we had turned five times since I realized what was happening, but I had no way of knowing how long I had been out. One of my captor’s heavy hands remained on my back, and he began rubbing in circles. I shivered in fear. I wanted to shrug his hand off, but I was scared of it escalating. So I simply stayed there, unmoving.

Eventually, the van stopped, thankfully. The doors opened, and before I knew what was happening, I was yanked out of the van. The blindfold was ripped from my face, and I blinked at what was in front of me. It was a shack in the middle of nowhere. I glanced around rapidly, trying to note any landmarks as they dragged me inside, but there was nothing I could see except trees. All I knew was that I was terrified of what was to come.

The minute I entered the shack, I smelled smoke. I noted more men there than I’d ever seen before in my life, and their eyes scanned rovingly down my body. I saw interest flash while revulsion and fear fought for the first place inside me.

“This is her?” one of the men, a tall, slender one in the middle, asked. He was the only one who seemed more calculating and less interested in my looks.

“Yes, boss,” he said. “According to our intel, this is Rossi’s missus.”

Luca. Suddenly, it all sank in. All of this had to do with Luca.

These were probably people that had it out for him and had kidnapped me for that.

Anger suddenly spiraled through me. He’d gotten me involved in this. And then he hadn’t even told me what was going on, didn’t give me the information I needed to be able to protect myself.

And it was all Luca’s fault. God, how could I have ever fallen in love with that man? Why did I think he cared about me? He was just a selfish bastard.

And now I’d not only endangered myself but my siblings too. I thought about Felix. Oh God, what had they done to my brother? Was he okay? Did they kill him?

The despair threatened to overwhelm me, but I fought against it. I had to keep my wits if I had any hope of surviving this.

“Hmm,” the thin man muttered as he brushed his beard. Then he gestured with his chin to the corner. “Put her next to her sister.”

My sister?

As they dragged me toward the corner, I saw Bethany looking terrified out of her mind. Her mascara had run down her eyes, making her look like a crazed raccoon. She had her hands tied behind her, and she was gagged too.

She started making anxious sounds and bouncing in her seat as I approached, and they pushed me down to her side.

“You can take their gags off,” the thin man commanded. “Those sounds are annoying.”

“But what if they—”

“They what? Scream? There’s nobody around here for miles.” He eyed me, and I could see the evil glinting in his eyes. “Plus, they wouldn’t do that, would they?”

This man wasn’t human. Despite his mild tone, I could sense the cruelty emanating from him.

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