Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 80550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“It won’t hurt.” Lucio smiles. “Maybe just a little.”
“No, no, no!” I shriek, louder each time as he lowers the syringe toward my body.
My breathing falters as my lungs constrict, just as they did way back when.
Not now, please, I can’t have a panic attack now.
I roll around the car, trying to evade Lucio, but eventually he grabs my thigh and shoves the needle right into my skin.
“NO!”
Fuck. He’s got me.
I don’t know what in there or what it’s going to do to me. Within seconds, my body heats up, as my eyes grow weary and my heart rate slows. The world begins to spin, and slowly, the light is overtaken by darkness.
Lucio grins. “Sleep tight, bitch.”
When I wake up again, my head is roaring, the headache so harsh that for one second I doubt if I’m actually still alive.
What kind of drugs did he give me?
My eyes slowly open so I can inspect my surroundings, while I make an effort not to groan so no one hears I’m awake. I don’t know where Lucio has taken me, and I don’t know if it’s even safe for me to be awake.
Beneath me, the thing I’m lying on dents in.
A bed.
A hand slithers up my waist.
“Finally, I have you back again.”
The hand slowly slides down my thigh.
“I should’ve drugged you much sooner. This is far easier if you’re not aware enough to protest.”
His hand slips down lower and lower, and I grind my teeth and gather all of the energy I’ve regained before I abruptly turn around and slap him right in the face. “You b-bastard!” I lisp.
My body feels like a limp noodle, but I still manage to swat his hand off my body.
Suddenly, Lucio grabs my throat with his left hand and crawls on top of me, and I gasp for air while staring right into his face as he crushes my windpipe.
“You should’ve apologized and begged for forgiveness when you had the chance,” he growls. “Do you know what your stunt fucking cost me?”
He holds his right hand in front of my face, showing the remaining stumps after Matteo cut everything off, most of it still in bandages. “Everything!” he spits in my face.
I turn my head, not wanting to look at him.
“Yeah, that’s right, you look away, you bitch.”
He slaps me again, but I force the tears to stay at bay while he’s still choking the life out of me, my feet scrunching up against the bed in an effort to fight him off. But the medicine he injected is still coursing through my veins, and I’m not nearly as strong as this wretched man is.
I bring my hands up to his face and poke at his eyeballs to make him stop. “Let. Go. Of. Me.”
He roars in pain when I shove my thumb into his eye, and he jolts up, so I kick him in the balls to get him to back off. Once his fingers unlatch from my throat, I suck in the dry air, my lungs expanding rapidly to oxygenate my body.
I cough and turn around on the bed to take a few more deep breaths while my heart tries to cope with the panic constricting my lungs again, but suddenly he’s on top of me again, squashing my body with his weight.
“You fucking bitch!” He rips at my hair to make my head tilt up until my gaze meets his one open eye. “Look at me! You won’t ever get out of my grasp. Your marriage with Matteo will be annulled, and I will remarry you and impregnate your body and make you carry my child. After I’ve shown the baby to your father and he’s finally given me the money I’m owed, I will drown that kid.”
I shudder at his cruel words.
“And then I will kill you, and I will take my fucking time.”
“You monster!” I yell.
Suddenly, a loud bang reverberates through the entire house, making the furniture shake, and Lucio stops moving entirely.
Another bang follows, and a ruckus explodes downstairs.
Someone has made their way into his house.
“WHERE IS MY WIFE?”
His voice booms through the hallways, and I shriek as loud as I can, “Matteo, up here!”
Lucio punches me again, and I sink into the mattress. “Keep quiet, and stay here!” he hisses, and he crawls off me to signal his guards outside. However, the moment he opens his door, someone bursts inside, topples the guard over, and slams him to the floor.
I look up to see what’s going on, but I don’t recognize the man even though that scruffy face and those brown eyes look very familiar for some reason. The man shoots the guard point-blank, but another one of Lucio’s guards catches him off guard and throws his arm around his neck, choking him out.
Lucio snatches the gun off the dead guard’s body and aims it at the man who raises his hands.