I raced out to the front porch, trying to see who would be running a horse around like that at this hour of the evening. Several of my guards noticed me running outside and came after me. They assumed it had to be some kind of intruder and began to cock their weapons. But as I looked closer I could see the rounded belly on the rider. It was Alicia.
I flew up my hands and ordered my men to stand down as I raced out after her. I yelled for one of them to fetch me a horse from the stables. That would be my only hope in catching up to this rogue creature before it threw Alicia off. But until they returned, I ran out to keep track of where they were. Finally, one of my men returned to deliver a horse to me. I was able to jump on and ride up alongside Alicia’s out of control horse. I stood a good chance of catching up to them in time, but the horse was galloping at full speed toward the tree line. I didn’t think Alicia would know how to keep low enough to avoid all the branches flying by while also keeping her grip on the saddle.
I rode as fast as I could after her, yelling for her all the way. As I grew closer, she seemed to be encouraging the horse to keep going. She was stubborn as always. She didn’t understand the danger she was in, and seemed to think me catching up to her would be even worse for her and her baby.
6
Alicia
My eyes slowly opened and a terrible, pounding pain instantly swelled in my head. It was enough to make me close them again, but panic rose in my chest. My heart pounded. I didn’t know where I was or what had happened, but I remembered enough to know that I needed to be afraid. The more I tried to retrace what steps brought me here, the harder the hurt set in.
My body moved before I could open my eyes again. My intuition told me I needed to be awake and alert. I needed to get away. But away from what?
Slowly my lids separated, forming two swollen slits. I expected there to be bright lights shining down on me, but it was only the blur of a faint lamp in the corner. I was in a room like the one I had been staying in before, but it seemed smaller and emptier. There was no wardrobe or bathroom door. Just a bed and a table, and four walls that felt like they were closing in on me. The sheets were stiff and cold, dampened from my own sweat, and they were tucked around me tight enough that it made it hard to move.
As I tried to gather my strength enough to break free of them and sit up, the memories started flashing back to me. The basement filled with unclaimed, prohibited, and probably stolen goods. My mad dash to find more. The stables. I remembered climbing on the horse and then...gunshots. The horse took off, rearing out of control. I did my best to calm him down, but everything I tried only made it worse. I wasn’t used to riding a horse, and the horse obviously wasn’t used to me. It threw me off, and everything went dark.
The memories made my panic grow, giving me the motivation I needed to jerk away from the sheets and swing my legs around to the floor. I expected to feel the worn-down wooden boards I had grown used to, but instead, there was something colder and harder. It was concrete - a strange flooring for a bedroom. But as I studied the bare walls and absence of windows, I quickly gathered this wasn’t meant to be a bedroom at all. This was something else. A hospital room, maybe? But no such luck. I recognized the wallpaper from other rooms in the Milano estate.
All at once, the door handle clattered. It was being unlocked from the outside, and soon an old woman came marching in.
“Oh, good! You’re awake!” she sang out, seeming too cheery.
She immediately placed down whatever was in her arms. My vision was still too blurry to make out the contents. She began ripping the dirty sheets from the bed and soon vanished again, locking the door behind her. I was dizzy and my headache got worse as I cradled my forehead in my hands. The woman quickly appeared again with a fresh set of linens.
More memories started crashing over me while she worked. She shooed me away from my seat at the edge of the bed, barely giving me time to catch my footing as I stumbled to get out of her way. That’s when I felt it...or rather the absence of the feeling that I knew should be there. My throat all but closed up with the realization, but it took me a few seconds to finally be brave enough to actually look. First, I moved my hand down to where the prosthetic belly should have been. When I felt nothing, I forced myself to tilt my head down to see that it was actually gone.
I couldn’t hide my urgency. I gasped and began to look around for some way to flee. My fake pregnancy was the only thing that convinced Alberto to show me any mercy. Now not only was it gone, but he would know I lied.
“Ah, yes. That was quite a stunt you pulled,” the old woman cackled, noticing how I felt around my bare stomach. “I’ve seen many things in my days, but can’t say I’ve seen that before. A woman pretending to be pregnant...with a belly and all! Tsk, tsk.”
“What...what happened?” I asked, playing dumb.
I knew what had happened. I had been thrown from the horse, and now I was here. But I was hoping she’d reveal what happened while I was out. Did Alberto know? Was my secret completely out?
“It’s been quite the scandal around here,” she replied. “Not that we needed any more of that with the Milanos. It’s never boring. But this is...unique, that’s for sure.”
I stammered, unsure if it would do me any good to ask if Alberto knew. Of course, he knew. He had to. It was no use anyway. The woman in her apron had finished making the bed and was already shuffling back out the door.
“Wait!” I cried. “What happens now? Where am I?”
“Can’t say really,” she shook her head.
I raced over to grab her hand. “Please! Where are you going? When can I leave!?”
She whipped around and stared back at me, her face unreadable. But soon her lips curled into a big grin with a big, hearty chortle. “Leave!?” Her laughter was snatched up with a coughing fit as she yanked her arm away from me and continued out the door, once again locking it behind her.
Once her footsteps faded away, I rushed over to the door and began frantically pulling at the handle. My only saving grace was gone. My lie was revealed. I knew I didn’t have much time, if it wasn’t already too late. I had to get out of here. My eyes darted around the room. I grasped for some plan of how I might escape, but the only thing between me and the outside world was the very sturdy, locked door. I sunk back down to the edge of the bed with my heart pounding even harder than before.
There was no way to know how much time was passing. I was alone with no way to tell the time. It was like when I first arrived at the Milano estate, only this time my head injury clouded my perception, and I didn’t have the safety of a delicate condition to hide behind. Alberto wouldn’t blink an eye at killing me now. I wondered why he hadn’t done it already, but then a chilling thought crept it. He would probably want me to be awake for it, and he would probably do it slowly.
Being alone with my thoughts only made them spiral out of control more. I was in a total panicked frenzy that I did my best to contain when the caregiver returned, bringing me a tray of food. She plopped it down on the table without a word before turning to leave again. I was suddenly starving and eager to see what she had brought. I raced over and lifted the cover to reveal a bowl of slop and moldy bread. It was a far cry from the meals I had been served before.
I had been so caught up in trying to uncover something on the Milanos, that I hadn’t thought too much about my father since coming here. I imagined what it would be like when I could go back to him and tell him everything I learned. He’d be angry, afraid for something that had already passed, but he’d be proud. I had pictured him opening a bottle of wine and saying we had to celebrate. I’d tell him all the stories of my time on the Milano estate.
But the ending had changed for certain now. Now I was imagining much darker things. Like him hearing the news that I had been tortured or killed...or worse, years going by and him never knowing what had happened to me at all.
There was no way to know what time it was aside from the caregiver coming and going for meals. She�
�d bring in a new tray and carry out the old, each one containing new piles of inedible trash. By dinner the next night, I was starving. Surely this is not what Alberto Milano had planned for me. If he wanted me to starve, he wouldn’t bother sending in any food at all.
“I can’t eat this stuff you’re bringing me,” I protested firmly as she came in with a new tray.
She laughed again like she always did. She was surprisingly cheerful for someone with a job like hers, and she seemed so old that her body ached when she moved.
“No, really. I can’t. It will make me sick! Some of it’s rotten! Please, I’m so hungry. Couldn’t you slip in anything else? An apple? A piece of bread...that isn’t covered in mold?”
“I’m not a chef and this isn’t a fancy restaurant with a menu,” she huffed. “You’re lucky to be getting anything at all.”
“Then you have to let me go,” I argued more desperately. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, but you can’t keep me. This is illegal...To hold people prisoner like this.”
“I have it on good authority that you’re not being held prisoner. Mr. Milano bought you fair and square, and if you don’t like it...well, then you should have never gotten mixed up with that marketplace.”
“Let me go!” I cried louder. “I demand it! Right now!”
“Not until you’re recovered.”
“Recovered!? How do you expect me to recover with no sunlight or decent food!?”
But the door was already slamming shut in my face. I wanted to take some comfort in the idea that this was just temporary. Maybe I would be let go once I was better, but I didn’t know how much better I could possibly get in conditions like this. It brought on a sinking feeling in my gut. It wouldn’t be so simple.
Each time the caregiver returned with my meals, I pleaded with her again to let me go. She’d either ignore me entirely or laugh like a madwoman. I was beginning to feel like a madwoman myself. Counting the coming and going of the meal trays, I gathered I had been awake in there for five days.
Of course, I eventually caved and started nibbling on what little bit of the food I could stand, which became more as the days went on. Sometimes it made me sick, and the only place for me to go was the same basin I urinated in. The caregiver would empty that twice a day, sometimes only once. I guessed that was easier than the risk of giving me my own bathroom.
I was laying flat out across the concrete floor, wanting to feel the coolness against my skin. I also just needed something else to do besides pacing or being in the bed. But a startling noise began rattling the walls. It wasn’t the strange old caregiver’s feeble steps. It sounded like a whole army marching straight towards me. Their pounding boots could be heard from far away, getting closer and closer by the second. I leaped up and sunk down into the corner, knowing I had nowhere to hide, but for some reason that felt safer than being exposed in the middle of the room.
The door unlocked and flew open wide as a group of five or six, maybe more, big strong men came storming in to surround me. Two of them gathered on each side of me and lifted me into the air. The others stood in front and behind them as they headed for the door, ensuring if I did manage to kick and punch my way free, they’d be there to catch me. Of course, my fighting was even more useless than it would normally be up against a group of such burly men, thanks to the five days of near starvation I had gone through.
Before we reached the door, one of them tied a blindfold around my eyes making it impossible for me to see where we were going. As they carted me off, I wondered if Alberto was stalking from the sidelines somewhere, watching me be carried away by his orders.
This is it, I thought. If he was going to kill me, this is how it would happen. The only question was...would I see it coming? Or would I just feel pain and slip away into death, never seeing the light of day again?
I was harshly thrown against something cold and hard. Stone...wet, dripping stone. Before I could even try to scramble away, they grabbed both of my hands and placed them in metal shackles that hung just low enough for me to almost be able to sit on the ground. When they finally removed the blindfold, I saw nothing but gray darkness...even darker than the windowless room I had been in before. This was the torture chamber I had heard rumors about. I could tell that I was buried deep underground, and with all that stone around me, no one would ever hear me scream.
I heard clacking shoes coming from the darkness. It wasn’t the same sound as the boots that had been pounding around me moments ago. The caregiver’s face appeared once more. She walked over to look at me, then nodded her head and turned her back.
“Wait!” I sobbed. “Could you at least tell my father where I am!? Bring me a message from him!? Next time you come! To bring food! Will you tell me if you’ve spoken with him!?”
“Next time!? There won’t be a next time!” She walked away as her wheezy laughter set in.
7
Alberto
I despised the looks on Pablo and Felix’s faces as they stared me down in my study. They were smug, vindicated, but also panicked. It was the worst thing to sense in the men that followed you and looked up to you. Not only had their own suspicions and fears been proven right, but they had lost some of their faith in me in the process.
It was too unsettling to bear. I stood and went over to toss some more logs in the fire and stoke the flames...Anything to avoid their judgmental silent expressions.
“She never should have been allowed to stay,” Pablo fumed. “Giving her a job like that...letting her roam around the property....,” he shook his head as he watched me, but quickly grew irritated with my back being turned to him. “Leave that! One of the workers can come in and tend to it.”
“Mind your place!” I shouted, quickly spinning on my heels with the metal rod in my hands. “She wasn’t allowed to roam freely. She was closely watched. I made sure of it.”
“Not closely enough, apparently,” Felix grumbled to himself.
“She’s Don Martino’s daughter! What did you expect?”
I didn’t honor their disrespect with an answer. I tossed the hot rod to the floor with a loud echoing crash. The last thing I needed was to have to submit to their questioning when I already felt duped enough. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so enraged and out of sorts. I kept thinking - this is what happens if you allow yourself to take pity on anyone. That’s why I was known as being so ruthless in the first place. One moment of softness could only ever cause messes like this one.
“I expected that she was actually pregnant,” I huffed, reminding myself as much as them.
I could see another rebuttal quickly forming on the tip of his tongue, but one of our men came barging into the room to interrupt.
“Have you forgotten to knock!?” I fumed. It was like everyone was forgetting their place now.
“Forgive me, Mr. Milano. It’s just that...Julian and Javier have arrived.”
“Perfect timing,” Felix huffed.
Our half-brothers had come to check in on a number of ongoing business matters, including the most recent land acquisition that resulted from our dinner the week before. We’d have to speak to them regarding the shared land with the Mendoza cousins as a bargaining chip, and there was a list of many other issues to resolve.
I sighed and rubbed my temples, lamenting over just how very little time I had to be dealing with spies who weaseled their way onto our property - especially young, mischievous women like Alicia.
Our worker stammered to speak again, knowing it was a sore subject. “And...and the Guevara woman. She’s been moved down into the cellar and is ready for you.”
Pablo stood and motioned for Felix to follow him. “We’ll tend to our brothers,” he decided out loud. “You go take care of this.” He started towards the door, but paused by my shoulder and spoke to me in private. “She must know something. That’s why she was racing off on that horse like that...to run back to her father and report whatever she dug up.”
“I am well aware. Send my r
egards to Javier and Julian.”
They left me alone to wallow, but there wasn’t any time for that either. I was eager to face Alicia again and see what she had to say for herself. I had kept her locked up in a room on the farthest corner of the house for days until I could stand to look at her again. If I had seen her a moment sooner, I knew I would have lost it and done something irreparable.
I stormed through the manor, making my way down to the cellar. She had turned me into a fool...manipulated me just as easily as a little child. I was not about to let our whole business be put at risk over some woman. She would have to tell me what she knew and account for this whole charade. I didn’t intend for it to be a pleasant experience for her. She would have to suffer for the embarrassment I was facing.
The guards let me into her small, damp, and dark room where she was chained up against the wall. I nodded for them to raise her restraints to force her onto her feet. She didn’t speak to me at first. That was good. If she had started running her mouth from the moment I walked in, I knew I wouldn’t be able to restrain myself. It seemed she had finally been taken down by a healthy amount of fear after what she had done.
Once she was forced into a standing position, I nodded for the other men to leave us and began pacing in front of her. She watched each step I took carefully as she waited to see what I would do next. I let the uncomfortable silence hang there on the off chance that she might just start sounding off everything she knew without being asked. She should have been desperate enough by then without sunlight for over five days and only having been served food that was barely fit scraps for the hogs. When she started squirming in anticipation for what I might say or do, I finally opened my mouth to speak in a low growl.
“Well...it seems you were honest about one thing at least. You are a whore after all...just not the kind I thought you were.”
Sold To Mr. Milano (Evil Empires Book 1) Page 5