The Woman in the Trunk

by Jessica Gadziala

  Short, slight, she weighed next to nothing, but damn if she didn't make it as difficult as possible to move her, wiggling her body every which way, trying to yank her feet out of Anthony's grasp, arching upward, shrugging her shoulders.

  But with minimal effort, we had her out of my trunk and into Emilio's.

  Slamming the lid, I faced Emilio, whose brows were raised.

  "She's young."

  "I know," I agreed, feeling the same unease in my gut that I saw on his face.

  "If the order comes down..." he said, and he didn't need to say it. The order to take her out if Leon didn't pay, didn't comply.

  "That order can't come down," I told him, knowing down to my twisted, corrupt soul that while I could kill without blinking, while I had done so many times in the past, I couldn't kill some kid. That was not going to happen. Not even if family demanded it of me. It was damn near treason to even think that, but there was no denying it was the truth.

  "When you need me, let me know," Emilio said, and, again, I knew what he was saying. If Leon wasn't complying, we could work together to make it happen so that order never came down, so we never had to carry it through, or defy it.

  "Will do. Anthony, thank you for coming out. I'll remember this when the books are open," I told him, getting a grateful nod from him. "For now, this is between us. We don't need the other families hearing this shit, capisce?"

  "Capisco," he agreed, going back to the truck, grabbing some tools, and making his way back to my car.

  "Here. Get going. You got a stressful couple days ahead of you," Emilio said, handing me his key fob. "I'll handle the arrangements and send your details."

  "I appreciate it," I said, sighing heavily.

  "Oh, and my seats don't fold down," Emilio added, smirking.

  "Thank fuck," I grumbled, climbing into the driver's seat.

  The ride to Pennsylvania was uneventful even as the sleepless hours started to catch up on me.

  By the time we made it to the hotel, it was just about dinner time. My stomach was grumbling. My eyes were scratchy. And I was sick of driving.

  The motel was every bit as rundown and seedy as Emilio had warned—a simple L-shaped structure that had a total of ten rooms, all of which had their own parking spaces right out front of the doors.

  I pulled up to the one at the corner of the L, thankful for the shadows the placement allowed as I hopped out to make sure the door was open first, grabbing the comforter off the bed, going back to the trunk, tossing it over the girl, then hefting her into my arms and rushing inside, kicking the door closed.

  "Alright," I started when we were inside, placing the girl on the end of the bed. "Let's talk about this," I said, squatting down in front of her, working to undo her ankles. "I'm not going to hurt you," I told her, wincing at the black eye she had forming from her collision with the wall. "My job is to pick you up, bring you with me, and hold onto you. Not to abuse you in anyway. So this whole thing is going to be a lot easier if you stop trying to claw at me."

  To that, I got a pretty impressive eye roll, given the situation.

  "Yeah, can't imagine that sounds all that assuring, kid," I agreed, sighing, grabbing the folding chair from the other side of the room, dragging it between her position and the door, then dropping down on it. "Obviously, this has nothing to do with you. Your father fucked up. And, unfortunately, you got caught in the middle. All we can both hope for right now is that your father steps up, so we can get you back to your life. Hopefully back to your school before the new semester starts."

  To that, her brows drew together slightly, like something I said didn't make much sense. "I know, that's a few weeks away still. And it would not be something either of us wants, to have it last that long. But this all comes down to your dad. Now, we won't be staying here long. We needed a place to stop, use the bathroom, get some food. And then we will be back on the road. Once we get where we're going, I'm hoping I won't need to keep you bound and gagged anymore. So there is that to look forward to. Now, do you need to use the bathroom?" I asked, jerking my chin toward the space that was nothing more than awful dark blue tile and grout that looked like it hadn't seen a scrubbing since the eighties.

  To that, I got a nod.

  "Alright," I agreed, getting up, glancing inside, seeing a window too small to climb out of. "I'm not taking your cuffs off," I told her, shrugging. "You're just going to need to figure it out," I added, waving an arm toward the door.

  Obediently, she stood, making her way toward the bathroom, giving me small eyes before moving inside, closing the door with her foot.

  I waited, hearing the flush, the water in the sink. I wasn't trying to invade some sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl's privacy.

  But then she did it.

  Pulled the tape off.

  Found a way to get the scarf untied.

  Sucked in a breath.

  And screamed.

  "Goddamnit," I growled, finding the door locked, needing to kick it in, rushing inside, clamping my hand over her mouth. "Seriously?" I asked as she shot daggers up at me. "I get it's your job to make this difficult for me. But now it's my job to make that harder for you," I told her, dragging her back into the main area, grabbing more duct tape with my free hand, cutting a piece off with my teeth, then releasing her mouth just long enough to slap it on. "Now you are going to have sore shoulders," I told her, uncuffing her bound wrists, dragging each arm behind her back, securing them there instead. Satisfied with that, I grabbed her ankles, tying them to the slats under the mattress, then made my way to the bathroom for a break.

  When I came back out, she was heaving hard, clearly having spent the couple moments testing the strength of the bed frame. For such a shitty place, the construction proved solid.

  With that, I went to my phone, ordering delivery, going outside to wait for it.

  When I came back in and set the cardboard box on the dresser, the girl's eyes followed my every move as I took out containers, pulled off tops, filled the room with the scents of baked macaroni and eggplant parm.

  "What do you say, hellcat? Want to call a truce for long enough to eat a meal? I can take that tape off if you agree not to scream."

  Her gaze went to me, then the box, then me again, giving me a defeated little nod. "One peep and the goddamn thing goes back on, and won't come off again, got it? I don't care if you're hungry."

  To that, I got another nod.

  And, it seemed, we had a momentary truce.

  Of course, it wouldn't last.

  The girl lived up to the nickname I'd given her.

  She was pure fucking evil.

  And determined to scratch and hiss every step of the way.

  And me?

  Well, I had to respect that, didn't I?

  Chapter Four

  Giana

  He thought I was a kid still.

  And, I guess, that worked in my favor.

  Even if it didn't stop me from rolling around in a trunk for hours, every part of me getting bumped and bruised. The skin under the duct tape was sore. And I had needed to pee for hours.

  Mix that with the fear of rape or other bodily harm, and I was ready to claw his eyes out when he dropped me on the bed in the motel room.

  In the daylight, I was annoyed to find him ridiculously good looking. Bad guys, in real life, were supposed to be balding and pockmarked with hangover waistlines and beady eyes.

  This man was nearly six-and-a-half feet of well-built handsomeness from his fit body to his sharp bone structure to his deep green eyes.

  The scar was maybe the only thing that gave him away as a bad guy. Not many normal people walked around sporting a scar that ran through their dark eyebrow, upper eyelid, and then about an inch under their eye. I couldn't think of an accidental way someone might get a scar like that.

  It made him serious and menacing.

  And, somehow, even more attractive.

  It took me an almost embarrassingly long time to put the pieces together.
The nice car. The designer suit, the expensive watch. The New York accent.

  In fact, I hadn't even started to put the pieces together until he started talking about who he was.

  Then it finally clicked.

  He was a member of the Costa family.

  And knowing what I knew about the mafia in New York City—which was a lot given that my idiot father was wrapped up with them—the Costa was the top family. Arturo Costa was the Capo dei Capi—the boss of all bosses.

  There were five New York City crime families. There had been for nearly a century.

  Each family had its own structure.

  Associates, soldiers, capos, underboss, and boss. Each family did their own hustles.

  But one always had slightly more power than the others.

  That family was the Costas.

  And had been since Arturo violently stole power as a young man.

  I wasn't sure if I should have been relieved that this wasn't some random rapist-murderer, or pee-myself scared that the Costa family was holding me hostage to get something out of my father.

  But, as the food arrived, I decided that making sure I was fed was going to help me keep my wits about me, which might help save my life.

  So I agreed to a truce with the devil.

  In doing so, he moved over toward me, freeing my sore wrists, making my shoulders cry in relief. He even reached up and carefully peeled away the duct tape.

  "Do you have a name?" he asked, offering me the folding chair, taking one of the containers with him to sit off the edge of the bed.

  "Gigi. Giana," I corrected immediately, not sure I wanted this stranger to use my nickname, to be allowed to have that kind of intimacy with me. "You?" I asked, taking a set of the plastic utensils and cutting into the eggplant parmigiana.

  "Lorenzo," he offered, surprising me.

  Lorenzo.

  I knew of a Lorenzo thanks to all the mafia research I had done.

  "Lorenzo Costa?" I asked. The son of the most violent mafia boss since the seventies.

  "Yes. And you're Leon's daughter."

  I just barely held myself back from saying "unfortunately."

  "Why wasn't he in the beach house with you? Who leaves their kid in a house all alone all night?"

  "I'm not a kid," I objected before catching myself. It was a knee-jerk reaction from having people confuse me as younger for so long.

  "Yeah okay," he agreed, rolling his eyes. "Where is Leon?"

  "At the bakery right now, I imagine."

  "Hopefully earning the money he needs to get you back."

  That was unlikely, but I kept my mouth shut about it.

  "This is the part where I'm supposed to beg for my life, right?"

  "I imagine so. I don't exactly kidnap kids on the regular, so I'm not sure how all this plays out. You can roll your eyes all you want, Gigi, but the mafia usually doesn't deal in children."

  "Gee, lucky me, then," I mumbled, lip curling as I took a bite of the eggplant parm that had clearly come from a frozen patty.

  "I know. Not great," Lorenzo agreed. "One positive to getting back to where we need to go is the food will be good. And the bed will be less dubious under a blue light."

  I felt a chuckle build, but forced it back down, refusing to find my kidnapper a little charming.

  "How's your head? I can probably scrounge up some aspirin."

  I hadn't given my head much thought. The constant, skull-piercing throbs had long since become tolerable. I imagined if I could get some sleep, it would be almost normal again. I'd gotten a look in the grimy bathroom mirror, seeing the black eye there, testament to my own idiocy.

  "It's tolerable," I said, shrugging. "What?" I asked when his brow furrowed. It took a second to think that maybe I wasn't speaking like he expected. Maybe if I was seventeen, I would have said 'it's fine' or something like that, not that it was tolerable. I needed to be careful with that. Being seen as underage seemed like it was going to work in my favor with this family. Or, at least, with this man in particular. "Kinda hurts still," I added, going ahead and doing a pout as well.

  "You went down so fast. I couldn't grab you in time."

  I couldn't trust myself not to sass him about wanting me unconscious, pliant, so I focused on choking down the crappy food, washing it down with one of the bottles of Coke he'd had them add on the order.

  "After we eat, we need to catch some sleep before we're off again."

  "Are you going to stick me in a trunk again?" I asked, glancing at him sideways.

  "I dunno. Probably. Maybe. Depends."

  "On if I am a good little victim or not?" I asked, chin jerking up, something that got a lip twitch from Lorenzo.

  "Something like that. Little bird is telling me your ass is going to be rolling around in the trunk again," he added, smirking.

  Knowing me, I probably would.

  But I was going to try to be quieter, bite my tongue, play my part. The less I fought, the more he would trust me. The more he trusted me, the more likely I was to catch him off guard and get away.

  I will admit that my chances weren't great. And even if I did get away, where the hell would I even go? My father couldn't—and possibly wouldn't—protect me. And what was my other option? To go to the cops? That was a surefire way of getting a bullet in the back of my head.

  I had no idea what the best play was. But I knew I couldn't just sit idly by and be an obedient victim until my father possibly saved me.

  I knew better than anyone else that Leon Lastra was not exactly the savior type. I'd been saving his ass since I was still a kid.

  So, this time, I would just have to save myself.

  However I had to do that.

  "I can see those gears turning," Lorenzo said, cutting into my swirling thoughts. "Don't get any ideas. You're not going to get away from me when I'm asleep," he said, and I hadn't even thought about that.

  One bed.

  Two people.

  My stomach twisted, a knee-jerk, involuntary reaction.

  "Relax," he said, voice softer. Well, as soft as someone with a deep, rough voice like his could be anyway. "I told you I'm not going to hurt you. I meant that. I don't put my hands on women if they don't want it. And I never fucking touch kids. So don't look at me like I'm a wolf about to rip out your throat."

  Nope.

  Just a guy who was going to hold me hostage until my father paid up. And who knew what would happen to me if my father didn't.

  After dinner, I was un-cuffed long enough to be able to go into the bathroom, splash some water on my face, roll my sore muscles.

  I was cuffed to the bed again while Lorenzo took a turn, then came back out, pulling off his rumpled suit jacket, hanging it over the chair, then staring dubiously at the bed.

  "What are the chances this place has bed bugs?" he asked, looking a bit sick to his stomach at the prospect.

  "Lift the mattress and check," I suggested, standing there while he did it.

  "Don't see anything," he said, shoulders relaxing.

  A big, bad mafia underboss was scared of little bugs? It was so ridiculous that it was almost funny.

  But there was nothing to laugh about when, a moment later, he un-cuffed the bracelet from the bed frame and lifted it up, clamping it around his own wrist instead.

  "Sorry, hellcat, can't have you trying to get away while I try to sleep," he said, shrugging, reaching up with his free hand to undo two buttons before giving my arm a little shake as he sat down on the edge of the bed, then started to inch up, bringing me with him, willing or not.

  Lorenzo settled, then sighed out his breath.

  "What?"

  "Are you going to behave or do we need to get up so I can duct tape you and bind your other arm to the headboard?" he asked, not sounding too thrilled at the prospect.

  Sleeping with my arm forced over my head and something over my mouth sounded miserable. Besides, this kind of place didn't seem like the kind of place that cared about screaming. After all, no on
e had come when I had cried out earlier.

  "I won't scream," I offered as he reached out toward the nightstand with his free hand, turning on the TV, turning it up almost painfully loud, some old sitcom from the nineties playing.

  "Good." He sighed again, something clearly weighing on him. And I wasn't generous enough of spirit to feel bad for my kidnapper, so I forced my lips shut, watching the characters that were vaguely familiar to me move across the screen. "Get some sleep, Gigi," he suggested what felt like a lifetime later, so long that I figured he'd already fallen asleep.

  Eventually, with no other choice, I did.

  —

  I woke up to a very serious, very loud voice in my ear.

  "You need to get off of me, Giana," Lorenzo's voice called, sounding sleep-rough, which was an entirely too good sound. And I was just barely conscious enough to appreciate that. "Giana, get off of me," he demanded again, voice more forceful.

  That seemed to penetrate the curtain of sleep.

  Get off of him?

  As soon as the words sank in, started to make sense, it all came to me at once.

  His breath on the top of my head.

  His hard body underneath mine, stiff as a board.

  His chest rising and falling under my cheek.

  Oh, God.

  God.

  I'd crawled up on him in my sleep.

  That was, well, completely humiliating.

  I threw my body backward like he'd suddenly caught flame, feeling the cold of my side of the bed, realizing I must have been passed out on him for a while before either of us woke up to notice it.

  "I... I never sleep on my back," I told him, embarrassed, needing to explain. "I'm a side sleeper. I... I'm not used to having someone next to me."

  "I'd hope not," he agreed, voice tight, reminding me of my role. Sweet, innocent, high school senior.

  "You don't have to be all pissy. I didn't mean to do it," I said, giving him the kind of sass I had been known for in my teens.

  "I'm not pissy. It's just... never mind," he grumbled, folding upward, reaching into the nightstand to produce the handcuff key, freeing his wrist.