by Theresa Papa
I nod my head in anticipation of being set free. But to my chagrin, she opens the drawer of the dresser and pulls out a bedpan like I’m a patient in the hospital. She won’t take any chances to untie me all the way. My shorts are off already, and she smiles at my humiliation when she pulls down my panties. I won’t give her any satisfaction, so I pick my ass up off the bed and piss in the pot. This girl doesn’t realize this is a piece of cake compared to what I’ve been through in my life. She’s the one who has to empty it, so who’s my bitch now.
She leaves me there half-dressed with a shirt thrown over me while she takes out the bedpan. When I look down, I’m in shock to see the initials DD on the pocket of the shirt. Where did she get a hold of one of Daniel’s shirts? A vague discomfort crawls up my chest and tries to strangle my heart at the thought of Daniel Dragonetti having something to do with my kidnapping. Could it be he needs the money to pay his student loans? Or does he want to get back at me for spying on him?
“Ugh! Why did I watch him with that girl?” I grunt to myself. Just for release, I kick my now untied legs in a mini tantrum. It brings the circulation back to my feet.
When we were younger, I had always heard rumors about Daniel being the black sheep, so to speak. One of my friends who slept with him told me he liked to play the predator who dominates the prey during sex. He stripped her and told her to run and hide. He enjoyed the hunt through the house and thrived on the anticipation. When he found her in the game room underneath the air hockey table, her heart was beating out of her chest. By the time he bent her over the Ping-Pong table and used the paddle on her, she was so worked up she’d experienced multiple orgasms for the first time in her life. She said Daniel was just kinky enough to rock her world. When he dumped her, she was devastated.
I know he’s attracted to me, considering how he’s flirted with me over the years. Could this be an escalated form of foreplay for him?
~~~
“Let me go in alone.” A male voice from hallway catches my attention. It’s not a familiar one.
“Make the bitch squirm!” Margaretta answers.
The man enters the room, and although his voice is unfamiliar, I recognize him. The question about Daniel being involved is answered immediately with the presence of this person.
“Elizabeth, we are finally alone together after all this time,” he says.
My stomach fills with nausea, and my fight or flight reaction kicks in to make me struggle with my bindings. I scream from behind the rag to, “Let me go,” and he just smiles sardonically and sits on the bed next to me. All my struggles have displaced the shirt from covering my underwear-clad body. His eyes roam my figure with licentious purpose, making my skin crawl. He traces my skin with his index finger from between my breasts down slowly to the apex of my thighs and up again to remove the gag from my mouth.
“Let me go, you pervert!” I scream.
“Too bad I don’t have the time to show you how much of a pervert I can be. You deserve to be taught a lesson after how rudely you treated me. But we must leave soon to catch our flight to Rio so you can reunite with Mr. Harrington, and he can pay me my money.”
“Please, let me go! I will give you the money from my uncle and my cousins. They will pay you to give me back unharmed. Please, it wasn’t my fault. I was forced to ignore you in high school. It was because my father never let me date or even talk to boys.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve already made my deal with Mr. Harrington for your delivery to him in Rio, and I like instant gratification, bitch. The fact that I can make you suffer a little is just the cherry on the proverbial sundae.”
He slides his hand inside my panties, then closes his beady eyes and smells his fingers like a creepy jerk. I struggle in my bindings and try to pull away from him. I attempt to knee him in the head, but he’s out of reach.
“Stop it, you perv! Don’t touch me!”
“Now, now, Elizabeth you must behave, and we will treat you well while you’re in our care. I’ve had Margy take good care of you so far, haven’t I? Maybe I should have told the boys to kidnap your boyfriend’s mother, too, so we had a tool to force you to play nice with us.”
“Don’t you dare touch her again! She has nothing to do with this!”
He chuckles while he throws his head back to flip his straggly light brown hair out of his face. Maybe if he had it cut regularly and combed it occasionally, the girls in high school would have paid him more attention. His dark brown eyes are small, and his skin color is pale, but he has a muscular body that might make up for the less desirable features in someone else’s opinion.
“The two of you had your sweet little talk by the lake. The mutual affection you have for each other was evident and convinced me that I could use her as a pawn to my advantage. It was a stroke of luck when the old bitch came downstairs in the middle of the night. We’ve watched and waited for the perfect moment to take you for weeks.”
The guilt of placing the Dragonettis in danger washes over me. Just the fact that they’ve been watched by these assholes, let alone threatened by them, makes me sick to my stomach. What was I thinking when I let Tony take me there? It was dangerous. I’m not worth any of those wonderful people getting hurt. Maybe it would be for the best if Tony just forgets about me. He continues. “Now it’s time for my goddamn payday. The pilot is a friend of mine. He’s going to be ready in an hour to take us to Harrington. All you have to do is cooperate with us, and this will be a fuckin’ piece of cake.”
The gyrating pulse of helicopter blades through the air rushes near the windows. He stands and leaves the room abruptly.
The shirt lies beside me in a crumpled mess when Margaretta returns. Of course, the DD on the shirt is for David Dunstan! I was an idiot to think for a minute that Daniel Dragonetti would ever do anything like this to me. Wait, my memory of his mother being bound on the dock returns. No way he would ever do that to her. His whole family would disown him. I’m slowly losing my mind.
Chapter 28
Tony Dragonetti
The helicopter ride back to my offices just outside the city is nerve wracking. If we are too late, I fear I will never see Elizabeth again. Charlie has everyone ready as soon as I land. When I exit the craft, he immediately brings me up to speed.
“The building is a forty-two story brand new apartment complex in Streeterville. We have men outside, and we are pretty sure we know which floor she’s on. The bracelet worked splendidly; it was a great idea.”
My mind goes to the conversation I had with Liz about the bracelet.
Elizabeth lies next to me as she holds her wrist in the air to admire her dragon charm on her bracelet.
“Liz, I have something to tell you, and I don’t want you to be upset. I realize when you told Nico to stop keeping tabs on you with his security detail that it was because you value your privacy. But I want to be honest with you. I would lose my mind if one of the kidnappers abducted you, and I had no way to know where they took you. For the sake of total honesty, I want you to know that I put a tracking device inside the dragon.” Our eyes meet with my brows raised, wondering what her reaction will be. Her face unexpectedly lightens up.
“That is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me! Thank you, sweetheart. It calms me to know I’m even more secure now. You’ve made me so safe here that I even forgot at times all the trouble that waits out there for me.”
“Really? You’re not upset? You were so adamant to Nico when he had the security detail on you, I was under the impression that this would make you angry, too.”
“That was a specific time in my life when I needed to escape anyone or anything familiar. I know you kept tabs through Nico, but even he didn’t see me in person all that time. I called once or twice, but I wanted no contact with anyone to be able to heal by myself. But now, this gesture you’ve made means the world to me. It tells me how much you care for me and want to keep me safe.”
“I can’t take a cha
nce on losing her, Charlie! I just got her back, and I refuse to lose her again.”
“Time is crucial. We need to leave now.”
He hands me my leather jacket and my firearm, which I don while I jog back to the helicopter. As we take off, he gives me the bad news.
“We won’t be able to land on top of the building like we do here. It’s within the city of Chicago limits. I have a different solution to get you into the building.”
He pulls out a harness connected to a winch that will lower me onto the roof from the helicopter.
“Charlie, I’m no James Bond. I hope we know what we’re doing. But I don’t care. If this is what I need to do to get there in time, I will.”
I slide into the harness and click the hook into place. For some reason, it sticks, but I force it closed. I’m ready.
“There’s the building right there. What the fuck! There’s a helicopter on the roof. I didn’t anticipate that because it’s not allowed in the city of Chicago since 9/11.” Charlie exclaims.
Quickly, I assess the structure. I can see it has many sections. Air conditioners and some firewalls create barriers where I can hide. If they set me down on the farthest section from where the action is now on the roof, there’s a good chance I won’t be noticed. Especially while their aircraft is still on and noisy.
“It’s a good thing that we are prepared not to land on the roof. Just drop me down on the other side, the noise of that copter will disguise the sound of ours so maybe they won’t see us if that craft is for the kidnappers.”
“Tony, are you sure we shouldn’t have called for help instead of you going in alone?” Charlie asks and shakes his head doubtfully.
“We don’t have time! They will take her out of the country where our law enforcement has no power to get her back. I have to try Charlie. She is everything to me!”
“All right, but I’ll call for the cavalry should things go south. Good luck,” he concedes.
I take off my headset, and Charlie motions to me that it’s time. I open the side door, and the winch lowers me onto the opposite side of the roof from where the other bird must have landed a few minutes ago. I try to unhook myself from the cable, but the latch is stuck. No matter how hard I try, I can’t release it. When I look up at Charlie, he motions to wait a second. He throws the cable down to disconnect me from the helicopter, and then they leave.
“Hurry up and get her out here! I didn’t want to have to wait,” the pilot yells on the other side of the roof. I realize they must have powered down their helicopter, and I hope it was after mine left. When I check it out from behind a half wall that hides the industrial size air conditioners, I see her. My Liz is bound with her hands behind her back, and she is dressed in baggy men’s jogging pants and a men’s dress shirt. They lead her toward the helicopter, so I have to work quickly. I don’t have the time to remove my harness. It’s now or never. I remove my firearm from my holster and get ready to count how many men there are. Looks like one guy unarmed leading Elizabeth from the door, two next to the helicopter armed, and the pilot. The adrenaline in my blood takes over when I rapidly take out the two armed guys first. They have surprised expressions on their faces; they’ll never know what hit them as they fall. Then I order the kidnapper to let my Liz go. He puts his hands up and smiles. Liz shakes her head vigorously to gesture toward the door behind her. She tries to scream something from behind the rag stuffed in her mouth. I run over to the rim of the roof to grab her when a blast of heat hits my body like a fireball. I’m lifted off my feet, propelled backward, and sent over the edge.
Chapter 29
Liz Pope
Even the rag stuffed in my mouth can’t muffle the blood-curdling scream as I witness Tony shot and propelled over the edge of the roof. The emotions that flash across his face are too much for me to bear. Surprise. Regret. Shock. Then love, when our eyes meet at the last second. I instinctively try to dive to the roof’s edge to no avail with David’s hold on me. When I kick and flail with all my strength, it doesn’t faze him at all.
“NO! Noooooo let me go!” I groan, muffled by the gag.
“Now Elizabeth, how were you planning to protect yourself from face planting on the fucking roof with your hands tied behind your back? We can’t have you injured or marked in any way, according to my agreement with Harrington. Your dumbshit boyfriend is gone. Now get into the helicopter like a good girl,” David orders.
Tears torrent down my face as he drags me to the copter with my feet never touching the ground. He practically throws me inside. My legs feel like jelly now as the adrenaline wears off. When I look out at the stairway door, Margaretta stands there with a big ass gun in her hand that just took away my reason for living. She looks me straight in the eye from across the expanse of the roof and raises her head in triumph with a grin. Then she turns and runs. Margaretta should probably get her ass out of there before the police arrive.
David climbs into the seat in front of me next to the pilot after he clicks me into my seat belt and removes my gag.
“You bastards killed him! I’ll never rest until I fucking kill you! You ... you scum! I scream. Then I spit at him. I fail miserably to hit him due to the lack of saliva in my mouth from the cloth.
“Behave, bitch! Since we won’t be able to hear a fucking word you say on the flight, I said you could lose the gag. But it can always be replaced,” David threatens.
“I’ll kill you someday! I hate you!” But my words are swallowed up in the whir of the blades.
The sun has never shone itself today after the storm, as if the cloud cover barrier will shield the heavens from the catastrophe of what just happened here. When the pilot takes off, I strain to try to see the side of the building that Tony fell over, but it’s no use; he steers us in the opposite direction. I crumple back into the seat with a refrain swirling in my head.
He’s dead.
It’s my fault they killed him.
He’s dead.
The man I’ve loved since I was a teenager is dead because I didn’t listen to my own common sense. He never deserved this, and I was always going to protect him by keeping my distance. As soon as my heart took over and I let my guard down, he was forever lost. He died trying to save me, and I’m not worthy of his sacrifice. Any hope I had to live a normal life with him by my side vanishes like a ghostly apparition. Painful despair clutches my heart and squeezes it into a raisin. Nausea climbs from my stomach into my chest. Unable to control it, I lean forward and vomit all over David. I couldn’t clearly hear the obscenities he spewed, but I could read his lips, and he was angry. The pilot hands him a box of wet wipes, and he cleans himself as best as he can. Good! The bastard deserves it.
The helicopter lands on a remote airstrip where the cargo plane is located to take us to Richard. Every last shred of bravery I held onto at this point has flown away like a flock of birds reacting to an air horn. Melancholy has taken hold of me so that I feel like a zombie. My whole body feels heavy, and my hands are numb. Upon entrance to the aircraft, David heads to the bathroom to clean up after he buckles me into the seat. When he returns, he tells his three-hundred-pound bouncer to come over and help him make me more comfortable. In my crazy, mixed-up mind, I’ve nicknamed him Sumo. The guys bald head is as big and round as a basketball with rolls of skin at his nape.
At first, it crosses my mind that David’s going to make good on the promise to show me how much of a pervert he is. But I’m surprised when he just makes Sumo hold me down while he switches my hands from restrained behind my back to tied to the chair arms. Then they both leave me alone.
The picture of Tony’s handsome face as he fell plays repeatedly in my mind. I weep, the floodgates open with heart-wrenching sobs of loss. Grief has taken over my being to hallow out my soul. I cry first for the loss of my soul mate, the only person who ever truly loved me unconditionally; second for the destruction I have endured my entire life. I never understood the true meaning of love as a child. I was
never shown the parental love most people get from birth automatically. My aunt taught me a little, but it was gone too soon and replaced with the cold, hard fact of the evil parents I was given. The drive to please them was beaten into me. I was never hugged or encouraged unless my father was nursing his pedophile sexual perversion when he tried to make me agreeable with going to the Harringtons. The best parental example I’ve ever witnessed is the Dragonetti’s love for their family. I am extremely lucky to have been a recipient of that love and devotion even though it was only for a short time. It temporarily changed the view of my future and encouraged a self-confidence I have never experienced before. It spurred the metamorphosis I achieved when Tony proposed to me. Now all of that is invalidated by his absence. The empty vessel I was before, I am once again. My self-confidence evaporates, as I’m brought back to a time when unworthiness was my mantra. All the Dragonettis will hate me now that I’m the reason for Anthony’s death. My psyche goes back to the days before they saved me, except this time I don’t have the strength for revenge to consume me. Without it, or my Tony, I have no reason or will to go on. There’s only emptiness and resignation.
Chapter 30
Liz Pope
The touchdown of the plane jolts me from an unsatisfying slumber. When I open my eyes, David sits across from me. His head rests against the seat with his beady little eyes closed. The anger I still feel at the sight of him, no matter how violent, cannot ease the misery that dwells within my soul. It can’t quiet the mantra that swirls around in my head as I re-experience the horror of the scene on the rooftop. He’s dead! Tony’s dead.