Captured by the Criminal (Taken)

He tightens his hold on me. “Have you missed me?”

Do I lie? A chilly breeze floats across my hot skin, causing goosebumps to cascade over me. “I, uh…” I pause for a beat before I finally whisper the truth. “Yes.”

“Good.”

Dressed in black, he looks like a dark angel.

Beautiful isn’t a word I’ve used to describe a man, but that’s exactly the word that comes to mind with Costi. The rugged angles of his face, accentuated by sumptuous lips, are breathtaking. He’s changed so much since I last saw him. I still remember the day he said goodbye. His black locks were longer on the top then and fell into his eyes as he stared at me too long. I liked when he stared. It made me feel special.

However, now when he stares, it scares me a little. Makes me feel alive. Something I haven’t felt in a long time… because part of me died that day.

The day he said goodbye. A soft breeze drifted in from the ocean, toppling his hair into a tousled mess.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, hugged him, and told him to write to me.

He said, “I promise you, I will.”

Well, he lied.

Once he left, he never wanted to come back.

Not even for me.

I wrote him letters daily. He sent none back.

He never cared.

I poured my heart out, and after a while, I stopped.

“You’re going to marry that guy?” Costi breaks the silence engulfing us, bringing me back to the present.

A gentle breeze from the ocean wafts around us, just like the one ten years ago.

“Yes.” I have no intentions of marrying Gino Valucci, but I won’t let Costi know that detail.

His lip turns up, almost like a snarl, at my answer. He still has his arm wrapped around my waist, the other holding onto the railing I’m leaning against. He’s close. Too close, yet I can’t move from this spot.

He doesn’t speak right away, most likely choosing his next words carefully. His brows draw together, and he finally says, “Over my dead body.”

This enrages me, and I push away. Who does he think he is? “I can marry whoever I want.”

He steps closer, erasing the distance between us. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“And who are you? You’re nobody important in my life.” I raise my chin. “Just a boy I used to know.”

He chuckles softly, rubbing his fingers across his stubbled chin. “That’s not true, and you know it.”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. More like scoff. “You show up here after ten years thinking you know me?” I park a hand on my hip. “Well, you don’t know me at all.”

He takes my arm, his nostrils flaring. “That’s where you’re wrong. I do know you. And I know you will not marry that asshole.”

He ushers me down the steps of the patio and across the brick path in the middle of the garden.

“Where are we going?”

He doesn’t say a word.

My heartbeat picks up as we move through the darkness. “Costi, let go of me.”

His grip tightens at my words. He leads me toward the rear of the hotel, toward an abandoned lot.

My eyes widen when I see a black van open its doors.

“What are you doing?” I can barely breathe. “Release me.”

He still doesn’t say anything.

Two men exit the van and watch as Costi and I draw closer.

“Cap, everything’s set up,” one man says.

Who’s Cap?

“Let go of me,” I scream, but it’s no use. There’s no one listening.

Costi lifts me into the rear of the van as one of the other men binds my hands behind my back.

The other man hops into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. “Let’s go,” he calls out to the other two.

Costi hops in the front seat and slams the door. “Move,” he says in the deepest, most sinister voice I’ve ever heard.

This isn’t the Costi I know.

This isn’t the Costi I once loved.

As the van pulls away, a man wraps his arm around me, brandishing a white handkerchief. He covers my mouth with it, and I fight the fog sweeping over me. I try to keep my eyes open, but it’s futile.

I’m out.

When I wake, I’m on a boat.

My temples throb and my teeth chatter uncontrollably as I scan the cabin and see Costi isn’t here.

“Where am I?” I moan out, my head hurting something fierce.

A bald man I don’t recognize eyeballs me like he doesn’t understand English.

“Constantine?” I ask, hoping he’ll recognize the name.

He doesn’t answer, a completely blank expression on his face.

My hands are no longer tied behind my back, and I try to sit up from the bed. My head spins like a merry-go-round as I move.

I feel nauseous.

I remember what the guy at the van called Costi. “Cap?”

Recognition dawns on the man’s stoic face. “Cap? You want Cap?”

I nod. “Yes, where’s Cap?”