Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
My mom was planning on leaving my father. She was going to leave Leander behind, take me, and run away, and if her careful preparations are anything to go by, she’d been planning this for quite some time.
But because of my terrible error in judgement, she died before she could be free. So I honor her effort. I honor her memory by becoming someone else. And then I do what she wanted us to do, what Dante forces me to do.
I run.
Chapter
Five
Tatiana, present day, age twenty-four
* * *
Bound and gagged, I sit in the center of an empty warehouse. My ankles are tied to the metal legs of the chair. My attackers, who dragged me from Dante’s car in the middle of a gunfight, put a bag over my head before bringing me here, so I have no idea in which part of the city I am. I only know we drove for a long time.
Up to now, they haven’t spoken to me. They haven’t told me why they took me or what they want. As Kent, one of Dante’s trusted guards, didn’t lift a finger to help me when my assailants struck, I can only assume he was in on the kidnapping. The attack on Dante’s convoy was a diversion.
I was their target.
Dante was taking me to the stolen diamond necklace. Or that was the idea. He was going to force me to tell him where I hid the priceless piece of jewelry. Bitterness pushes up inside me together with unwelcome tears that flood my eyes.
Just as he used me to kill my father, he married me only so he could lay claim to my company shares and ruin Leander. But his need to avenge the death of his brother didn’t end with killing everyone and taking every last penny that belonged to my family.
All along, he wanted the necklace.
What would’ve happened if I weren’t abducted? I suppose I would’ve told him what he wanted to know. Maybe then, when he’d amassed all he could and there was nothing left he could’ve taken from me, he would’ve finally let me go.
Yet there’s still Noah, my beautiful little boy, who he can take from me, and that’s the one thing I won’t survive. I’ll fight until my last breath. That’s who I focus on to give myself courage when terror creeps up on me again—my sweet, innocent Noah.
My surroundings don’t hold many clues as to where I am. The paint is flaking off the walls, and the room smells musty. Cardboard taped over the windows block out the light, but a few small holes let the sun rays through.
Those holes allow me to keep track of the time. It’s been two days since the men with the ski masks left me here without food or water. No one has been back. I’ve been forced to wet myself. The puddle that pooled at my feet has long since dried. Only the smell remains. From the stench in this place, I’m not the first person who’s been left here alone with nothing but my thoughts.
I wish I could shut them down—my thoughts. If I could turn off my brain, I’d be able to ignore the fear as well as the constant signals of hunger and thirst my body is sending. My arms and legs ache from the position into which they’re stretched, and my limbs burn from a lack of circulation. I want to cry with the need to move and relieve the pain.
During the night, a spider descended on a cobweb from a beam on the ceiling. I could make out the shiny thread in the light of the moon that shined like the beams of a torch through the holes in the cardboard.
The spider landed on my forehead and crawled over my face. Helpless to alleviate the tickle it left in its wake, I could only shake my head from side to side. The worst was when it walked on its hair-thin legs over my ear. I’ve never wanted to scratch an itch so badly. I tried to rub my head on my shoulder, but I couldn’t reach the right spot. So I had no choice but to bear the tickling and swallow my repulsion until the spider left to terrorize another prey or unsuspecting insect.
From time to time, I nod off only to be woken by strange noises. The scratching sound on the roof—I think it’s corrugated iron—could be a bird or, judging by how loud it is, maybe a pigeon. The faint scurrying and scraping coming from behind me could be a rat.
I occupy myself with a guessing game, trying not to think about how my stomach seems to gnaw on itself or how my tongue sticks to my parched palate behind the filthy gag in my mouth. I try not to think how difficult it is to breathe around the gag. And Noah. God, my baby. At the thought of him, more tears run over my cheeks.