Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

Fairy tales are the stories we tell ourselves when we need them. They serve their purpose. Hope. And I need all the hope I can get right now. I was raised a mafia princess, bred to marry a king. That makes me the queen, and I’ll be damned if I let Juliette ruin my ending.

“Now,” I whisper.

I go for Juliette’s hair, yanking hard. She screams, the gun clattering to the floor and sliding. I dive for the gun and grasp it, but she’s already on my back, clawing me. I get in a hard elbow to her stomach, and she falls back with a thunk on the metal bench. In the space that follows, I grasp the gun—ready to shoot the man at the back door.

Except he’s already on the floor out cold. Maria stands over him, hyperventilating.

“Wow,” I say, impressed. “You can fight.”

“Learned,” she says, panting. “Can’t breathe.”

“Okay, okay,” I try to soothe her. “Nice and slow. Focus on me. We’re going to get through this.”

The brakes slam on the van, and we all slam into the divider. So much for nice and slow.

We can hear the front doors open and shut, footsteps around the side. They’re coming for us. “Lock the doors,” I tell Maria.

She locks them just as the handle creaks. Someone bangs hard on the outside. “Open the fuck up!”

“They’ll get the key,” I mutter.

This is a problem. I have a gun now, but so do they. I doubt Juliette or this unconscious guy would make a valuable hostage to them. Our best bet is staying out of their hands.

A whistling sound fills the air while Maria pulls the belt from the guy’s slacks. She wraps it around the double handles with cold efficiency and pulls tight. More banging from the outside, but the makeshift lock seems to hold.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” I tell her.

“They’ll get in eventually.” She looks deathly pale now, leaning against the wall of the truck.

I dig in Juliette’s designer clutch and pull out a cell phone. What would be really handy right now is Giovanni’s cell phone number, but I don’t see it listed in her contacts. I do see Romero. My heart squeezes, remembering him lying on the floor. Maybe someone in the mansion has found him? They might be able to patch me through to Gio. But we only have minutes, s

econds. Think, think.

I dial a cell number I’ve called multiple times a week.

My sister’s voice feels like a cool mist on a scorching hot day. “Hello?”

“Honor?”

“Oh my God, Clara! Is that you? Are you all right? Where are you?”

I laugh, a little watery, at the rapid-fire questions. “Kind of in a tight spot, actually. Don’t suppose you’re anywhere near the mansion?”

“No,” she says. “Oh no. Juliette said you were in New York. That the family had you for ransom.”

A very terrifying burning smell seeps in through the cracks around the door. More banging on the metal. “Better come out,” a voice says.

“Don’t believe anything she told you,” I say.

“She said Giovanni is alive, that he kidnapped you.”

“Okay, that part is true. But he’s also the only one who can help me right now. I need you to get ahold of him and tell him to look for a white van that left through the supplies entrance. Preferably as fast as possible.”

She speaks rapidly to someone else.

Maria huddles on the hard bench, having gone from pale to faintly green. “They’re burning the truck,” she says. “They’re burning us. Alive.”

I have to admit, it looks bad. Little tendrils of black smoke sneak in through the bottom of the doors. “All we have to do is hold out until Giovanni comes. Which will be soon.”