“The left side,” she said immediately, putting the clip in my right hand.
I began moving my right hand, bending the paperclip as much as I could. I felt for the lock, shocked by the lack of feeling in my left hand. I couldn’t consider that right now, though. I had to get this lock opened, and Bria’s panicked breathing wasn’t helping the situation.
“Did anyone hurt you here?” I asked, trying to distract her.
She came to my side and leaned onto the back of my chair. “No, they just put me here. But I am hungry,” she admitted.
“When was the last time you ate?”
“The night they got me.”
“Honey, when did they get you?” I asked. We’d left Italy three days ago, and she’d been there. She was safe and in bed that night. I remembered Dante tucking her in before we went for our private dinner.
“After Uncle Dante put me to bed. It was starting to be light outside when two big men came into my room and took me. They said they left a note for Uncle Gabe and promised they wouldn’t hurt him if I listened.”
The thought made me sick.
“They said Uncle Dante took you, and I tried to tell them that you were his girlfriend, but they didn’t believe me. They said that as long as Uncle Dante didn’t hurt you, I’d be okay. I knew I’d be okay because he loves you like a girlfriend. Right?”
I pushed the pin into the lock and began moving it around. This angle was too weird to do it quickly, so I bit my lips as I twisted. “Something like that.”
“They gave me a sandwich on the plane before we got here, but it wasn’t very good, And I got a bag of chips a day or two ago. They give me water, but I’m super hungry.”
I tried to put all the pieces together with the information I had. I figured that when Dante had brought me back home, Valentino assumed I’d been caught. He probably took Bria as his own leverage to get me back.
But would he have gone to those lengths to save me? He didn’t seem relieved or bothered when I walked into his office.
And he’d been more than willing to torture me for my betrayal. If he was willing to do that, I couldn’t imagine him caring.
“Honey, did Valentino tell you anything?” I asked.
“He never talked to me. Just some other big men.” She paused. “They said that they were supposed to take you out of there. But since they couldn’t get you, they’d take me instead.”
It had probably been the crew Valentino had sent for me—the ones I was supposed to meet after killing Dante. I shook my head in disgust. How had they thought taking achildwould be good leverage?
I took a deep breath as I felt the small divot in the lock that I needed. I pressed into it, and the metal unclicked from my wrist. As it fell away, it scraped the metal of the scalpel, and I opened my mouth in a silent scream as I whipped my hand in front of me.
He’d embed it through my wrist entirely.
I knew how precarious the blood vessels were there, and as I looked behind me, I saw proof of my blood loss coating the entire ground. Bria was right. Ihadlost a lot of blood—too much blood.
“Okay,” I said, steadying myself. My mind drifted to the baby in my womb, and I hoped that after all of this, it would survive. The babyhadto survive. This was a shitty situation, but I was strong enough to get us out of it.
“Bria, we’re going to get out of here, but you need to listen to me and doeverythingI say. Do you understand?”
Valentino brought us here because it was essentially a bunker. There was no way in or out without explicit permission, and I’d be the only one able to do this.
I only hoped my injuries wouldn’t incapacitate me.
I grabbed the handle of the scalpel lightly, knowing I’d need to do this quickly. I couldn’t let myself pass out from the pain or anticipation of what I was about to do. “Grab me a hammer. The one with the wooden handle.”
Bria looked confused but did as I asked. I put the handle between my teeth and closed my eyes.
Then, I yanked it from my arm.
My vision went dark as an all-consuming pain blinded me. Every ache and pain in my body became secondary to the scalpel leaving my wrist, but I didn’t allow myself to scream. I bit the handle of the hammer and threw the scalpel to the floor. I tore a scrap of already slightly torn fabric from my shirt and worked to tie it around the burning area of my wrist. Every jostle of the broken arm sent flames igniting through me, but I pushed through.
“Now, we wait,” I told Bria as I stumbled to the place behind the door and scooted down the wall there.