Page 31 of Dangerous Deception

A total and complete nightmare.

I close my eyes and the tears flow entirely unhindered. I can’t stop them. I can’t stop shaking, and when Geoff kicks me in the ribs, I can’t prevent the sobs from escaping me.

“Open your eyes, bitch. You’re not dead yet,” he spits.

I have no choice. I comply and find the camera back in my face. “Please,” I gasp. “Don’t do this, I don’t want this. Let me go, please let me go!”

“What do you think, guys? Should we let her go?” Geoff taunts, rocking back and forth with the camera.

“Bids are in,” comes Jim’s voice. “But I know you can do better than that. Show them what she’s really made of.”

“You wanna put on a show, Adelina?” Geoff sneers. “Come on, you were so into it last night.”

“I wasn’t,” I sob. “I wasn’t—this isn’t—no!”

My sobs give way to cries of terror when Geoff grabs the front of my bra and jerks back and forth. Within seconds, the fabric rips and one of the straps snaps. He tears the bra from my body and holds it aloft like some kind of prize while Jim laughs and jeers from the corner. Nausea jolts through my stomach like a molten-hot rod, and I gag on my tears, fighting to roll myself over and hide myself from view.

With the restraints so tight, I can’t go anywhere.

“Nice pair of tits on her,” Geoff says excitedly, and his meaty paw lands on my chest, painfully groping my left breast. “Keepya entertained for hours. But the real prize?” He drops to his haunches over me and his nails graze down to the hem of my panties.

“No!” I sob, tugging desperately on my bindings and praying to everything and anything that they will snap and release me.

Geoff hooks one finger around my panties and brings the camera in close. “This is the real prize you’re paying for.” He grins.

The door to the room crashes open without warning and a gunshot rings through the air, clear as a bell. Geoff freezes above me for a split second, and our eyes meet through my tears, then blood fountains from his mouth and sprays all over me. Then he collapses forward. His body lands on me, forcing all the air from my lungs.

Blood, hot and sticky, spreads across my body, and I scream in terror as his dead weight pins me down.

“Hey!” Jim yells. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I can’t see anything over the lump of Geoff’s body and my body locks up. My blood turns to ice, and every sticky splash of Geoff’s hot blood sends rolls of utter disgust up my throat. I gag, choking on the urge to vomit while struggling to get enough air in my lungs to do just that.

“Back off,” Jim yells again. “This shit ain’t nothing to do with you. This ain’t your business.”

“The fuck it isn’t my fucking business,” comes a voice so familiar that there’s nothing left to stop me from dissolving into desperate, rapid sobs. “You made this my business the second you drugged and kidnapped my wife!”

13

RAFFAELE

Adelina’s scream of terror cuts through me like a white-hot blade. My entire world narrows to that spot on the bed where she vanishes under that fucker’s body, and my heart claws its way out of my throat.

“Vito!” I yell, raising my weapon and aiming at the still-alive kidnapper in the corner. I squeeze the trigger, and the bullet thuds into his thigh. He crumbles down the wall with a scream, clutching at his leg while blood pours from the wound. The only reason he isn’t dead is because I need answers, but there will be nothing he can say that will save him from meeting the same fate as his companion.

Rage bleeds through me like lava, pushing through my limbs until even my fingertips feel like they are on fire. Leaping up onto the bed, I abandon my gun in favor of grasping the belt and shirt of the man covering Adelina. Her screams grow hoarse while I haul the dead body off her and let it roll to the side. It’s no longer my concern.

The moment he’s gone, my heart stills in my chest like the cold grasp of death has just made contact with my skin.

Adelina is covered in blood. It stains her skin, splotches her face, and soaks into the mattress beneath her. She gasps wetly, desperate sobs pouring from her open mouth, and in the half-second I pause to quickly glance her over for injuries, I’ve never been more relieved or panicked to see someone alive.

“Adelina!”

She gurgles slightly as her screams taper off into broken wails of pain. I drop to my knees beside her and my hand hovers near her face, aching to soothe her, but her head snaps away from me as she thrashes back and forth in her binding.

“Vito!” My head snaps around to him the moment he sprints into the room. “Give me your knife!”

He obliges instantly, and I slide the blade as carefully as I can through the rough rope binding Adelina’s wrists to the metal headboard. It’s difficult to keep her safe from the blade while she struggles, but the rope quickly falls away from her wrists. As I turn to do the same to her ankles, both of her hands claw their way across my back, and she grips my shirt so tightly, it’s a wonder some of the buttons don’t pop. I cut her ankles free and abandon the knife to Vito, who stands over the injured kidnapper, then swivel back to face her.

---