by Xavier Neal
It feels like forever before I find the device tucked away in his pocket underneath gum wrappers and loose dental floss. I dart across the space to the bathroom and secure myself inside. Unfortunately, there’s nothing in here to help barricade the door, leaving the lock as my only other line of defense. I take up a position on the opposite end of the enclosed area and lower myself to the ground.
Food Delivery Man’s phone – to my surprise – doesn’t have a passcode protecting it. Gratitude rushes through my veins of the small victory at the same time I dial Beni’s cell. The irritating can’t connect sounds have me frantically trying again.
And, again.
And, again.
Why would he disconnect his phone?!
Sounds of heavy footsteps in the other room propel fear back in place.
Why can’t my call be connected?!
What’s missing?!
All of a sudden, it hits me.
A country code!
The damn thing needs a country code!
There’s an idiotic jiggling of the handle as though I’m cunning enough to disarm a person but not smart enough to lock the goddamn door behind me. That’d be like being the dumb bitch who runs up the stairs in a horror movie knowing she has no other way down.
Miko has made a point over time to mention his love of that particular female in classic films.
It always has to do with her tits.
Hope that I’ll get to hear his asinine comments that often cause Beni to scowl has me wracking my brain over the right combination to dial.
There’s 0s in it.
I know that much.
Thumping against the door in an attempt to burst in begins; however, is quickly ceased.
I chalk it up to whoever else is out there reminding the one doing the thudding that I have a loaded weapon and am not afraid to fire.
How many 0s?
Two?
Three?
Attempts of both followed by what I believe to be is the right number that should proceed are hastily done in a suspicious silence. The fact they’re no longer trying to actively break in builds dread regarding the details of their next method for removing me from inside here. I fight past the fear, frenetically pound the keys, and am about to hit the talk button when the door is successfully broken down. There isn’t even time to lift my weapon and fire at a possible target due to the flash bang grenade launched inside. It goes off dangerously close to me. My handle on the phone is completely lost much like my hold on the gun. The light makes it impossible to see anything, and the sound impossible to hear more than a loud, ear-splitting ringing. Smoke invades my lungs, stifling my ability to properly catch my breath, rendering me completely defenseless like intended.
Thick fingers suddenly latch onto my hair and lug me out of the bathroom by it. In spite of my kicking and screaming and pulling, I can’t break free.
I can’t steal back the moment I had to make the call.
I can’t help save myself.
One of the less memorable crew members keeps me leashed by my locks and grumbles, “I should make you suck my cock while you’re down there.”
The comment ignites another fight response in which I swing my cuffed fists around to strike him in the same place I did his dead comrade.
He groans from the impact of me managing to clip his balls, freeing his hold on my hair, but any ideas of escaping are put to rest by Mathew McConaugnay who I don’t recall seeing when I was initially being dragged into this hallway.
His weapon is cocked and aimed for my stomach. “I only have to deliver you alive, sweetheart. No one said it couldn’t be in pieces.”
My hands lift up in a conceding fashion.
“Try to run off again, and I’ll shoot you in the leg. Got it?”
Him, I don’t doubt.
The air of authority he radiates indicates I should think twice about defiance in his presence.
I nod my understanding and swallow my frustration.
More lying in wait it is.
Who knows?
Maybe my next point of imprisonment will provide more opportunities for possible escape and communication rather than less.
Mathew McConaugnay grabs me by the bicep and pulls me past his groaning lackey for the back of the boat that connects to the dock. I don’t put up a further fight like instructed. Instead, I take in the settings the best I can. There’s still a slight burning to my eyes and a faint ringing in my ears, making proper observation difficult but not impossible. Ocean air surrounds us as we make our way from the ship down the wooden path. The water is much too blue and beautiful for us to be anywhere near the area I was taken from. Neon green foliage surrounds the path igniting ideas of a tropical paradise. Bright-colored birds flutter through the crystal blue sky reiterating the interpretation. Lack of roads being visible causes new waves of trepidation to tickle itself along my spine.
No roads means no cars.
No roads means no easy exits.
No roads means no outside help from good Samaritans.
“Boss,” Idris Idiot calls out as he comes jogging towards, “got her on the phone.”
Her?
Who the fuck is her?!
“Put it on speaker,” Mathew McConaugnay commands after cutting me a glance, “my hands are a little fucking occupied.”
And, if I thought I could use the distraction of the phone call to break free, take his gun, and kill them both, I wouldn’t hesitate to do so.
Unluckily for me, his diligence is on an expert level in comparison to theirs.
The way he holds himself reminds me of someone who once served their country but now serves the highest bidder.
Not that I’m hating on that.
Dad did the same.
Thoughts of seeing a bullet through his brain come barreling towards me threatening tears to showcase themselves at an inconvenient time.
Idris Idiot holds the phone out in front of him. “Your package is in the process of being delivered to the recipient's front doorstep.” His grip on my arm tightens at the same time he continues, “But, before I complete this delivery, I want confirmation of compensation for the additional complications this package has put me through.”
Again, I’d be flattered if I wasn’t a prisoner.
A woman’s voice is almost too faint to properly make, “The price-”
“Has doubled.”
This irks her enough to shout, “Doubled?!”
Huh.
I recognize that voice.
But, from where?
That question used to be less complicated before Beni had us traipsing all around the globe meeting everyone under the fucking sun.
“Yeah,” he callously states, stopping our movements at the base of a set of stairs. “She’s cost me two men on an operation that should’ve cost me none.”
“Whoa…Wait. That’s my problem?”
“It is if you’d like me to deliver her to the individual waiting instead of putting her back on the ship and returning her home on a first-class flight back into the arms of the person she was stolen from.”
His retort, while amusing, has me silently praying for the latter.
I don’t know how much I cost.
I actually never entertained the idea I would personally cost anything.
What decides one human’s value versus another?
Where does one even begin pulling such data for calculations?
Is it the amount of productivity you are capable of?
Status of your organs?
Use in general society or perhaps just direct function?
Regardless of how it’s decided or whatever the cost is, I hope with everything in me that doubling it is far too high of a financial price as opposed to letting me go.
“Fine,” the woman huffs in a pout. “Once it’s confirmed he’s received her, I will complete the transaction that will include the new negotiated amount.”
“Fuck me over on this, and you’ll regret it.”
She doesn’t say another word.
The call ends, leaving me with just the tiny bits to analyze over.
Her specific pitch is sticking out, which means at some point, she did something that triggered being worth remembering to me. It means we’ve crossed paths at least fucking once.
Mathew McConaugnay resumes his sharp pulling along while I return to pretending it doesn’t hurt. Upon our approaching the last stretch of path that circles around a courtyard that features a provocative woman fountain, three people exit from the home. Two of the individuals flank the pudgier one, indicating he’s head of the household.
He’s who I’m being given to.
Or, sold to.
Hard to tell the difference in this situation.
The very round man dressed in white linen lets his face light up at just the mere sight of me. “Perfect.”
Shit.
I know that voice, too.
My current captor firmly requests, “Please call and confirm your package has been delivered, Mr. Cobb.”
Cobb…
That last name.
It’s familiar.
“Angela,” he says to the young female over his shoulder, “be a lamb and reach in Daddy’s pocket for him.”
Disgust darts onto my expression.
“Don’t worry,” he slyly coos to me. “You’ll learn to call me Daddy, too.”
“No, the fuck I won’t.”
Idris Idiot helplessly chortles despite the disapproving look he’s tossed by his commander.
Mr. Cobb continues to hold my stare while she dives into his front pocket. He moans at the contact as if I’m the one touching him instead. Bile burns the back of my throat over the idea of being forced to do that.
To do anything like that.
I’ll break my own goddamn hands first.
The instant it’s in her grasp, he wheezes, “Be Daddy’s good girl and dial the number for me.”
That wheezing.
That tone.
That name.
Like a Rubik’s Cube only three moves away from completion it hits me.
This is the man I met in Switzerland!
The man Beni didn’t want anywhere near me.
The man who gave me the creeps that I would’ve happily stabbed for staring at my tits too long had my love willed it.
Okay, I guess a more accurate statement would be, if my future husband wouldn’t have stopped it.
He bought me?!
Of all the fucking people, he bought me?!
Did he orchestrate the whole thing, or is he simply just benefiting from it?
And, if it’s the latter, how did the Great White Dope know it was an option?
His muscled guard keeps his gaze pinned on the behavior of the man bruising my bicep, and I divert mine to the petite blonde female now pressing the phone to his fucking ear. Unlike Mathew McConaugnay, who took his call on speaker, Cobb confirms my arrival in a more private fashion, only allowing us to hear him talking.
Which I don’t need.
I’ve identified him.
I know who he is.
What I don’t know is where I know the woman’s voice from or why it still hasn’t hit me yet.
I sweep my eyes over the pig-tailed blonde, who I swear can’t be more than sixteen – if that – and try not to glare at the schoolgirl costume that belongs in a porn shoot, instead of out in the light like it’s a run of the mill, everyday outfit. When our eyes connect, it’s clear from the connection that she’s mentally checked out.
That her actions are empty.
Her spirit gone.
She’s nothing more than a shell of some poor young woman…some poor innocent child that is now serving a monster in ways that make me more murderous than I already was.
There’s no fucking way he’s turning me into some soulless sex slave.
Absolutely.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
I don’t care how hard I have to fight or how many people I have to kill.
I won’t become her.
I won’t stop fighting until I’m fucking free.
No. Matter. What.
Chapter 4
“Benicio Antonio Bennett, mangiare.”
Eat.
I pull my attention away from the plant I had been aimlessly staring at to meet her gaze across the table. “I’m not hungry, Mamma.”
“I didn’t ask if you were.”
Her retort receives snickers from my best friend, who is shoveling away mouthfuls of homemade lasagna.
Against my own volition, I pick up the fork beside my plate to return to poking my food.
It should be easier to eat now that I know Chantal will be found.
It should be easier to sleep knowing my pregnant fiancée will be back in my arms within the next couple of days.
It should be and yet…it’s somehow harder.
Trading one life for another that matters to me is not like an unwise deal that I made in a boardroom.
The stakes are higher.
The consequences are more severe.
The outcome…outrageously atrocious either direction.
My hold on the fork tightens in hatred and heartache and hopelessness, hunger being the furthest thing from my mind.
“Mangiare,” Mamma repeats at the same time she pushes my plate closer to me. “You need your strength.”
The kind I need won’t come from food.
“Have you not been feeding mio povero nipote?” Her eyes playfully cut to Miko as he uses his end of bread to soak up some red sauce. “He’s eating like he hasn’t seen a decent meal since summer.”
We were here.
Visiting.
Laughing.
Drinking.
Cheering.
We were here out of tradition then, not overhead instruction.
Shay insisted we wait somewhere less eyes could be watching our every move but would still look natural enough. Visiting our family in Florence accomplishes both of those things, plus it allows my cousin a chance to see them for what could very well be the last time outside of the states.
The idea of taking away from him the one request he had for our future sends a surge of my vomit towards my slightly parted mouth.
“He’s starving me, Aunt Giavanna,” Miko whines prior to contorting the last of his breath into his wide mouth. “Affamato.” When he’s finished chewing, he turns his playful expression my direction. “I said it in both languages. Makes it extra fucking true.”
Our running joke – one we share with a smart-mouthed bombshell it’s apparent we both miss – sends the boiling bile back to the base of my stomach, allowing me to offer him a crooked grin. “How is that helping?”
“It’s not my job to be helpful here unless it’s time for me to do the dishes.”
There’s no stopping my eyes from rolling.
Mamma shoots him a sweet smile. “And?”
“Largest helping does the largest helping,” Miko rattles off the old saying. “I know my place, Aunt Giavanna, even when Beni forgets his.” He reaches his fork over to pick at my food. “Didn’t she tell your ass to eat?”
“L'ho fatto.”
I did.
Her scolding tone has me glaring his direction; however, it’s cut short due to his phone unexpectedly ringing. He does an impressive juggling act of holding onto the stolen piece and retrieving his ringing device that would receive an applause if it weren’t for the fact it’s my dinner he’s pilfered.
An irritated groan is given, followed by him quickly inhaling the bite. “Mi scusi, Aunt Giavanna. I…have to take this call.”
“Of course,” she politely retorts. He prepares to stroll off towards the opposite end of her back patio prompting her to remind, “Leave the fork, nipote.”
We’re tossed a small cringe of clumsiness that she banishes with a loving wink.
The hazel eyes I inherited hit me the moment we’re alone. They’re swarming with love
and levity.
I find myself immediately jealous of her, too.
Of everyone who doesn’t bear the Bennett name – a name she gave up the day after he died.
Those without it seem to naturally have more hilarity and humility.
Those without it seem to live fuller.
Perhaps longer.
A name which possesses so much power in a world that is endlessly hungry for it is also painted in pain.
Sleepless sorrow.
It leaves me pondering over Shakespeare stanzas and returning to the key question that seems to shape my entire existence.
Is the Bennett name truly a blessing because it can open doors that very few others can, or is it a curse because the doors we subconsciously want opened are locked, preventing us from ever embracing what would give our life more meaning?
My fork hovers over the cooling pasta. “Mamma?”
“Hm?” she hums while dusting away a leaf that’s blown too close to my plate.
“Does love make you weak?”
“Love doesn’t make you anything.”
Her response has me lowering the utensil back to the table as I stare on for additional commentary.
“Our feelings are often just thoughtless reactions to our situations.” She plucks away another fallen piece of greenery that cascaded to the wooden table before meeting my gaze again. “It’s what we choose to do with them, mio figlio, that gives them their labels of good and bad or weak and strong.”
Perhaps she is the roots of my philosophical nature.
This isn’t the first time she’s given me such a poetic answer for such a seemingly straightforward question.
A follow up question energetically springs off my tongue, “Did you love Father?”
“Sì.”
Shock from the response pushes me back in my seat. “Verità?”
Truth?
“I wasn’t in love with him, Benicio, but yes, I did love him.” Her wine glass is transferred from the table into her grip. “And, he did love me. Did it feel that way? No. It felt…It felt…”