Nitty Ninez leads the pack and the others follow close behind. There is no way this skinny ass, wanna be gangster and his thugs jumped, transported and bound me while I was unconscious. His eyes are about to bulge out of his skull and his body shakes, the only thing big about this punk is the throbbing vein running down his tattooed neck. He’s dressed just like he was the first time I paid him a visit, baggy jeans and a white wife beater only this time a gun was visible in the front waistband of his pants.
“You fucking son of a bitch. Where is she?” I fight against the restraints. All my strength channeled into getting free and bashing this asshole's face in.
Nitty Ninez and his punks double over with laughter and I jump and tug, the legs of the chair rising slightly and inching across the floor. “Where is my daughter?”
He stops laughing at my struggle and moves closer. “I know nothing about your daughter, man. You were alone when Gino brought you here and now it’s my turn to treat you like a bitch.” He raises a fist and lands a blow to the side of my face. The crunching of cartilage fills my ears and blood pools in my mouth. I spit it out and he jumps back avoiding the splatter.
“Is that all you got? Untie me and let’s fight like men,” I taunt him, watching the fury flash in his eyes. He’s so fucking high, my only hope right now is to get him agitated enough he either unties me or his gun wiggles loose. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s stupid enough to leave the safety off and shoot himself in his tiny dick. He draws his fist back again and ploughs it into my stomach. The look on his face when he connects with my tight abs sends a smirk across my face. He shakes his fist and I laugh. I know that fucking hurt more than he expected. Punk. “What’s wrong? It’s not embarrassing enough that you couldn’t take me down yourself, you want your boys to see I bite even tied up?”
His eyes narrow and the throbbing vein in his neck pulses even more but he steps back and sizes me up, rubbing and sniffing his runny nose. His high must be wearing off. “Let’s see how long you have to stay down here before it’s embarrassing for you.” He walks up the stairs with his punks in tow. “Don’t piss yourself when the rats come out to play,” he tosses over his shoulder and closes the door, leaving me to the darkness.
Adrenaline courses through my body and I continue to fight against the ropes. The more I fight the more the rope digs into my wrist and ankles. Blood flows and stings the deep cuts left behind from the useless struggle. The throbbing in my head returns and I lose my battle with my stomach. The bile claws at the back of my throat and I lean forward letting the contents erupt from my bloodied mouth. The swelling on my face makes it hard to keep my eyes open and I succumb to the heaviness draining the fight from my body.
Several hours later my eyes open again, the left only partially. The only light in the room now is from the streetlight outside the small window. Night has fallen and my thoughts drift to Brie. By now she must know we are missing and be going out of her mind with worry. Somehow I have to get out of here and find Abigail. I refuse to die at the hands of this punk. I rack my brain for an answer. When I recall Ninez saying Gino brought me here, it hits me. Gino Moretti was one of Angelo’s men. Last I heard Angelo ousted him from the Bianchi crew for laying his hands on Brie. I guess he likes to be the only one who abuses his women. The thought of the two of them laying their hands on Brie sends a new wave of fury to a crest inside of me. There was no reason for Gino to make a move against me, Angelo’s biggest rival unless he was brought back into the fold or… buying his way back in. Either way, it means the odds of Angelo having my baby is pretty high and he won’t waste time using her to get to Brie. If I know Brie at all, she would sacrifice it all, including herself for the safety of her daughter. Our daughter. That son of a bitch has no right to either of them. I have to find a way out of here before they're both lost to me forever.
I scan the shadows of the room for something I can use to break free and remember a workbench and tools on the far wall. It’s too dark to see them but if I can work my way over there, I can use them to get free. When I thrust my body upward the chair lifts slightly off the ground and crashes back down. The loud thud of the chair under my weight echoes through my prison. I do it again but this time, timing the thuds with the loud noises upstairs. Several attempts later I move only a small distance. Not nearly close enough to reach anything useful. The noise above my head stops and I take a deep breath and wait for another opportunity to continue my efforts without drawing attention.
While I wait, the door at the top of the stairs slowly creaks open and a small figure appears. The room behind him is dark, so I can’t tell who it is. He moves through the shadows descending the stairs one at a time, pausing each time the wood creaks under his feet. When he reaches the bottom, he stops dead in his tracks. The street light shining through the window casts shadows over his face but he’s pale and his eyes are wide. He stands there staring at me like he’s frozen in time.
“Scotty?”
He raises his fingers to his lips to silence me and turns back to look up the stairs. He lets out a deep breath and slowly crosses the room to the workbench I was trying so hard to reach. He picks up a small jab saw and moves behind me. Despite his small size he has quite the strength. He cuts at the ropes around my wrists until my arms are free. I shake the numbness out of them and lean forward to work at the ties around my ankles. When I’m finally free I stand and look at him. His small body is trembling, clenching the saw in his white knuckles.
“Thank you.” I reach out, taking the weapon from him.
He turns it in his fingers and hands it to me, handle first. Keeping his voice low he whispers. “There’s five of them but they are all passed out in the living room.”
He reaches behind his back and swings his arm forward. The small beam of light reflects off the steel of a gun and I jump back a step, raising my hands in front of me. “Scotty Sloan, right? Don’t do anything stupid now. You remember me, don’t you? I let you go. What do you say you let me go and we’ll call it even?”
“We are even but if you take me with you and… kill those bastards upstairs, I’ll owe you my life,” his voice cracks and he chokes back a sob.
I study him for a minute in the pale light. He’s just a kid and as frightened as can be. “Is there a baby here?”
A puzzled look crosses his face confirming the truth behind his answer, “No.”
I nod my head, agreeing to his proposition and reach out for the gun. I motion for him to follow me upstairs, shielding him behind my body as we inch from room to room toward the front door. When we reach the living room, I raise the gun in my hand and stretch out my arm to keep him behind me. I study my path to the door and calculate the moves needed to take them all out and make it out the front door before anyone has the chance to fire back. I position myself according to plan, nudging Scotty along with me but before I can fire the sound of a gunshot pierces my left ear. Out of the corner of my eye I see Scotty, standing tall firing his own gun into two of the men sleeping on the couch to our left. No time to hesitate. I squeeze the trigger and fire a round into Nitty Ninez and three more into the remaining assholes. I grab Scotty by the arm and pull him out the front door. Once we reach the street I confiscate his weapon, put the safety on and holster them both in my waistband under my shirt.
“Don’t suppose you have a car or a cell phone?’ I ask him.
“I do,” he says tossing me a set of keys and pointing to an old beat up Mazda parked along the curb.
We climb in and the engine sputters before turning over. I pull away from the curb and take the cell phone from him. Lu answers on the first ring. “Lu it’s Cal. Send someone to Nitty Ninez trap house and burn that fucker to the ground. There’s five dead and my DNA all over it and where’s Brie?”
The hesitation in his voice makes my skin crawl and I realize as I’m driving toward the stash house, he never answered my question.
Chapter 21- Angelo
Movement on the security feed catches my attention
. I study the silhouette coming into focus on the screen. I would know that figure anywhere. She moves closer to the house in clear view of my cameras. Her long hair pulled up with loose strands dancing around her shoulders. The vision is like a dream. My Mia Bella has come back to me. My cock twitches in my pants at the sight. She pauses outside the front door and stares into the camera lens. A darkness is haunting her brown eyes and an intense scowl misshapes her luscious lips. My gaze travels down the length of her body and stops short on her flat stomach. She’s given birth but my baby is not with her.
She calls out to me but her voice trembles, “Angelo.” I’ve waited too long to hear her scream my name but there’s no passion in her tone, only a cold rawness that tears at me. “I know you’re in there and I know you can see me. I know what you did. Come out here and face me.”
I open the front door and her hand swings towards my face. I grab her wrist before she makes contact and pull her close, squeezing hard enough to make her wince. I wrap my other arm around her waist, excited by the fury reddening her face. She’s close enough to feel my tightness pressed against her and her breath comes out in short, deep bursts. Her body trembles in my grip. “Mia Bella, what is it you think I’ve done?”
The stream of tears flowing from her eyes, streaking the blush on her cheeks should cause my heart to ache but I find it strangely satisfying. And to think I might have missed it all, if I didn’t swing by the estate to gather some of my belongings. Just minutes earlier, I was ready to return to Ava at the beach house but now I might have to rethink that plan. Everything’s coming together. I can raise my children together with all that the Bianchi family name has to offer but they only need one mother. My heart already set on Brie. Not to mention what her name could do to my status as head of this family. There are only a few loose ends to tie up before I reign over it all.
“You know what you’ve done. The threats to implicate me in Detective Conroy’s death. Cal and my baby are missing. Just let Cal go and tell me where my baby is. How can you be such a heartless bastard?”
Heartless? I wasn’t heartless. My heart was just remnants of stone from years of it being slowly chiseled away piece by piece by the man I call father. He’s taken everyone I ever dared to love from me. His unfaithfulness was the reason for my mother’s suicide. He was responsible for the demise of my first love, the woman I would have married. And he was the one who brought Brie into Cal’s life, knowing fair well I deserved her and everything she stood to inherit. I am Angelo Deluca, grandson of Carmine Bianchi the heir to the dynasty of New York’s greatest crime family. No one deserves the power more than I do.
And here she is offering herself to me. She’s finally broken. She understands what it means to hurt. She understands the pain of having the one you love ripped from your reach and there’s nothing you can do about it. Even when I took Cal from her, she didn’t understand the magnitude of that agony. But now she does, now she understands that the only way to feel alive again is to sell your soul to the devil. I sold mine a long time ago and now I own hers.
I lower my lips to her ears and offer her salvation. “You can have your baby but it comes with a price.”
Her head drops to her chest and her body weakens, falling into my arms. “Anything,” she breathes out the word, knowing to get what she wants she’s agreeing to surrender herself. But it’s not just her body I want, it’s her heart and soul.
I brush her trembling lips with mine and demand her submission with more than her words. I need it from her body. My tongue dominates her mouth and her whimper vibrates through me sending shock waves to my center. It’s all I can do to restrain myself when she breaks away.
“I won’t submit to you sexually until after I have my baby back and I’m healed from giving birth, at least another four weeks. You can check with my doctor, if you don’t believe me.”
Four weeks. Four weeks to get her to forget about Cal and fall in love with me. If I want her to stay, without forcing her, I must make her see the side of me I let show two years ago on that beach. That’ll be easier to do once we’re out of the country and he can’t come looking for her.
I loosen my hold on her body and extend my hand. To my surprise, she takes it and I lead her inside. She follows me into the den and sinks her body onto the chaise lounge. Pouring two glasses of bourbon, I hand her one. It takes one swallow to finish mine, and she’s barely raised her glass to her lips to sip. Tears have swollen her eyes, and she’s growing heavy from exhaustion. Her face expressionless. I set my glass down and move to her side. With one hand I remove the band from her hair, letting it tumble along her back and with the other, I tip the glass to her lips so she drinks it down. When the glass is empty, I take it from her hand. “Sleep now, she’ll be with us soon.”
I sit by her side until her eyes flutter shut, and she gives herself over to sleep. The alcohol and powdered sleeping pill I mixed in her drink when she turned her back was enough to put her out, despite her grief. Her purse is lying by her side, so I gently inch it away from her body and snoop through it. I retrieve her cell phone and hack into it, scrambling the signal so no one can track her and slide it back in place. I’ll let her keep the phone and the cash as a gesture of peace but there’s no way in hell she’s keeping the gun. She looks like an angel but she has an evil streak a mile wide and I know she’d use it. I could watch her sleep all day but I rise and reach for my phone. After several long rings, my contact on the other end answers but doesn’t speak.
“It’s time. Bring me my baby,” I order.
I pace the floor trying to keep my anger from surfacing and waking Brie. If I let on there’s been any deviation from my promise, she will bolt. The plan was foolproof and the last play I had to bind her to me, willingly. I replay the phone conversation over and over in my head.
“I don’t have the baby,” the voice on the other end said, “someone else must have gotten to her first.”
Who the fuck has my baby and how the hell am I going to keep Brie here without her. I could compile a list of enemies but it would be long. Besides, I can’t be sure this has anything to do with me. It could very well be someone out for Cal or looking to hurt Brie. She has enemies she doesn’t even know about, yet. I lower myself into a chair and stare intently at the ceiling, as if the answer would suddenly appear. Brie’s words run through my mind, “implicate me in Detective Conroy’s death” yet I’ve done no such thing. Besides Brie and I, Franco and Lorenzo were the only other witnesses and Ava who knows too much of my business. Lorenzo is dead and Franco and Ava wouldn’t dare cross me. Would they?
I jump to my feet and rush upstairs to my bedroom. My fingers run along the mahogany frame of my desk until they hit the hidden latch. I had the desk designed for security. Unless you know what you’re looking for or smash it to pieces, no one can find the secret compartment. The trap door opens and I reach in removing the small wooden box from its hiding spot and sit it on top of the desk. It takes a lot to make me nervous but I take a deep breath, hoping I’m wrong and unlock it. My face burns and I slam my fist down on the wood. The box is empty and my list shrunk immensely.
Chapter 22- Cal
I burst through the door of the stash house with Scotty at my heels. I’m so lost in my head that I forgot the coded knock causing everyone to jump to their feet, guns drawn.
My hands shoot up in front of my face in defense. “Just me.”
The tension is high and they eye my shadow suspiciously. Some swarm me with a million questions about what happened and where Abigail is. I can’t give them the answers they want and when they realize the baby isn’t with me, their silence says they understand the gravity of the situation. Others turn their attention back to what they were doing, to avoid the heightened emotions in the room.
I know they want answers, so do I but right now there’s only one thing on my mind, well two… my girls. “Where’s Brie?”
By the look on their faces, I’m not going to like the answer. Their eyes dart to th
e floor or around the room, everywhere but on mine. Carra is the first to break the silence. She draws in a deep breath and brushes my hair back examining the bruise on my face and my swollen eye. “Thank god you’re alright.” She lets the air out of her lungs through tensed lips and steps back, knowing she can’t avoid my question. “She couldn’t make the ransom drop and got impatient. She went after Angelo.” She inhales another deep breath and lets it out. “Alone.”
“What the fuck do you mean, you let her go after him herself?” Desperation and anger taint my voice.
“What was I supposed to do?” Carra asks, “She wouldn’t listen to reason. She’s armed, has plenty of cash and I’m tracking her phone.”
“Then where is she now?” It shouldn’t surprise me Brie would take matters into her own hands on the heels of our disappearance. The thought of her with him sends pulses of anger ripping through my tense muscles and my fist clenching at my side. I want to hit something or someone but that won’t help matters.
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