Captured by the Criminal (Taken)

Dean leads the charge, and I want nothing more than to get to Bianca.

I should have known the meeting with him earlier was too weird. He acted like a man who had nothing to lose. I never trust a man who acts like that.

With our guns up, ready to fire if the situation presents itself, Ranger picks the lock and we head inside.

“Near the south end,” Ranger says, holding his gun a little higher. “Do you hear that?”

We stop, straining our ears to hear whatever Ranger’s talking about. Voices. I hear them.

We move quicker now, practically sprinting across the dusty terrazzo floor. We turn a corner, and it takes a minute for me to accept I was right about everything when I see the woman standing in the back of the large space, Bianca at her side.

My mother. Alive and well.

“You’re just in time,” Bishop says, standing on the other side of the room.

My eyes clock Bianca, looking for any harm these motherfuckers may have caused her.

“Constantine, long time,” my mother says, her voice softer than I remember.

Maybe it’s her age. It’s been so long since I’ve laid eyes on her. And no matter how much I’ve tried to prepare myself for this moment, I still lose my breath at the sight of her.

Wrinkles crown her eyes, but other than that, she looks the same.

“I thought you were dead,” I say, stepping closer to Bianca, checking her out to make sure she hasn’t been harmed.

The dusty warehouse is empty, and soft light from the setting sun filters through the windows high above our heads. Our footsteps echo with each step we take into the room. We’ve got ten men, but Bishop seems to have double that, all standing guard around him.

Bianca sits duct taped to a chair in the center of the action with her hands bound behind her back. Her emerald eyes find mine and I try to silently reassure her.

“There seems to be a lot of that going around. Isn’t that right, Dean?” Bishop cackles and strides across the floor, all in black, raising an eyebrow as he moves toward Dean.

The tension in the room is thick, but even with all the testosterone floating on high alert and guns aimed all over, Bishop moves around the space without a care in the world. Like no harm could ever come to him.

Motherfucker.

My mother has the same air of confidence surrounding her. Like her being dead for so many years didn’t completely fuck up her only son.

“Costi, come give your mother a kiss,” she says with a little sneer.

“No, thanks,” I say back, moving slowly toward Bianca. “Why did you fake your death?”

She doesn’t answer right away, just studies my face like she’s trying to figure out if I’m really the same boy she left over ten years ago. “I was getting very close to being figured out.”

I raise a brow. “What do you mean?”

She sneers. “I did something. Something I don’t regret and Don Amato was getting very close to figuring it out.”

“Stealing money from him?” Bianca says.

My mother chuckles. “Money is a powerful drug.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Money is a drug? I have tons of it as well, but I’m not obsessed with it. I don’t need it to breathe.

I’m not addicted.

Not like her.

She stares at Bianca, moving closer. “It means when you want something bad enough, you take it. You make it yours.” Her voice grows louder, more confident.

“That doesn’t sound like the mother who raised me,” I answer.

“I’m not the same woman I was before.” She runs her fingers through Biana’s dark tresses, and I raise my gun.

“Don’t touch her,” I warn, moving closer.

“I can see the love all over your face, Costi. But she’ll never love you. She’s just like her father.” My mother spits on Bianca. “She’ll reject your love and marry another. The Amatos aren’t good people.”

No one speaks as my mother continues on about how she never gained the affection of the one man she loved more than anything—Don Amato.

“He loved that whore,” my mother hisses. “That woman, and you’re just like her,” she says, leaning over Bianca, addressing her.

“You’re wrong,” Bianca shouts. “I love him.”

“The Amatos don’t know how to love. Don never saw that I’d loved him for years. He chose that whore over me.”

Bianca struggles against her ties. “Stop talking about my mother that way.”

My mother leans closer, yanking Bianca’s hair in her fist. “Or you’ll what? Kill me?” My mother narrows her eyes, pure evil emanating through every molecule of her body. “I’ll finish you the same way I did your mother.”

Tears fill Bianca’s eyes as my mother goes into detail about how she killed Bianca’s mother, and made it look like a mafia hit. Bile rises in my throat at ever once having loved this woman.