“I never said I was. I said I accept it. I loved my mother to no end. I hate her choices, but my love for her will always be there.” His jaw tightens. “I wanted to kill your father when I realized it was him who killed her. I wanted to end him. But it would achieve nothing for me. She is dead and gone, and I’m still here. There are things I want. Things I’m owed. Things only he can give me. You do what you have to do, Sis, to get what you want. You suck up shit feelings of remorse and anger, push them aside, and don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. That is what I’m doing.”
“Let go of me! Get your hands off me!” I cry, trying to free myself from his grasp.
“No, I’m afraid I can’t do that. You’re needed as payment. Part of the grand plan. There’s one more contract for you to sign. Cross me, and you’ll end up like her,” he jeers, flipping me around.
He forces me to walk around the counter. I scream when I see Priscilla lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Bullet holes riddle her body.
I scream and cry, shaking my head.
“No! How could you? How could you do this to her?”
“Save your tears, Emelia D’Agostino. There’s worse to come. Wait until you see what I did to Massimo.”
Terror claws its way through me when he laughs, crude and hard.
I’m taken away, taken off the property, and no one says anything. Of course, they wouldn’t. I’m with Andreas. Massimo’s brother, one of the most trusted people who could come and go as they please.
Vlad disguises himself with a large pair of Oakleys and a hooded sweatshirt. He slips into the back of the black Sedan quite comfortably. Any of the guards or soldiers who saw him wouldn’t have seen his face properly, but again, they wouldn’t dare question Andreas.
When Andreas tells the men at the gate that Massimo asked him to take me to see him, no one questions him. It makes sense that I would be with his brother. That he got his older brother to escort me with his guard.
I keep wondering where the guards on surveillance are. Who’s watching? Then it hits me that Andreas could have easily done something to the stop anyone from seeing what he was up to. That’s the only thing that makes sense. It will only be when someone discovers Priscilla’s body in the kitchen that they’ll know. Even then, they’ll never guess that Andreas could have killed her. I’m still in shock. People I get close to keep dying. I can’t take it anymore. What will I do if something happens to Massimo?
That’s why I keep quiet as Andreas leads me out. I’m too afraid to breathe. The leverage they have over me is death. Not to me. No, they have plans for little old me, so I mustn’t die. They’re threatening to kill Massimo. I don’t know if they even have him, but I comply because I can’t go on what I don’t know. I have to take this risk, throw myself in harm’s way to make sure nothing happens to him.
We drive off the property easily. I’m quiet for the whole journey, trembling under Vlad’s stare as he looks at me the whole time.
I endure two hours of his leer. Him looking at me, licking his lips as he stares at my breasts, undressing me with his eyes. He says nothing the whole time. It’s when we pull up outside the entrance of an old mine shaft when he suddenly grabs my arm and pulls me to him so he can smell my hair.
“I’m going to have so much fun with you, my pretty,” he says, licking my ear. “I will fuck you all six ways to Sunday on your knees. I’ll fuck every hole in your body and make sure that pretty little mouth of yours is always full of my cock, and whoever else I tell you to suck.”
I shake and try to hold back tears.
It’s him who practically drags me out of the car. We’re near the mountains, but I don’t know exactly where we are. There’s a sign ahead saying Danger Keep Out, yet they both usher me inside the mouth of the cave.
While the outside of the cave looks like it should be deserted, I see that a whole operation is set up inside once we move deeper inside. We walk through a metal door. There are men everywhere. Some sitting at computers, others milling about. Everything so organized. They look like they’ve been in this hideout for months.
I’m led up a set of stairs and into an office space. The man who wears the face of my father stands by a bookcase and turns around to look at me.
He smiles. I shake my head at him.
“Welcome, my daughter. I told you I was working on a way to get you back. Good news, here you are,” he declares.
“You evil bastard!” I scream. “I can’t believe this is you. What happened to you?”
He laughs. “Nothing, my child. Nothing happened to me. I haven’t changed one bit. I guess maybe I was different when it came to you. But needs must. Being successful means knowing when you have to make certain sacrifices to increase wealth,” he explains, as if that’s a good enough explanation.
“So, you wanted to sell me to this madman,” I snap. Vlad tightens his hold on me.
“Watch it, girlie. You don’t know who the fuck you’re dealing with. I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it to you,” Vlad threatens.
Andreas chuckles and walks inside to grab a drink of scotch.
“Emelia, you will do as I say. I’m lucky to have found a buyer for you who won’t mind that you’ve been defiled by that scum,” Dad says, and my heart squeezes. “I trust you’ve met your brother,” he adds, as if we’re talking about the weather.
Andreas tips his head and knocks back his drink.
When I don’t answer, Dad pulls out a contract from an envelope on the desk and holds it up. When Vlad marches me over to him, I see it’s a copy of the contract I saw the other night.