Page 76 of Stolen Vows
I survive.I don’t know how.Adrenaline pumps through me, heightening my reflexes and giving me extra speed.
The moment I step onto the sidewalk, gunshots sound behind me.A woman screams and shoves me in her haste to escape.Pain lances through my hip and palms as I hit the ground.The crowd stampedes.Someone steps on my hand.I scream and fight my way to my feet.A glance behind me reveals Mario dropping another man with his rapid aim.Bodies lie strewn over the concrete around him.
Two men dart through traffic toward me.
I weave through the panicked crowd.
With my arm outstretched and my hand less than a foot away from the door to the convenience store, arms close around me from behind.A needle pricks into my side and everything goes dark.
I wake in a shabby apartment tied to a chair in the middle of the chipped linoleum floor.My head pounds and eyes refuse to focus, but I take in my surroundings as best I can.
A stained, ripped couch, cheap coffee table, and tiny TV sit on one side while a disgusting kitchen takes up the other half.I sit facing the front door.I crane my neck and see a hall with a bathroom and two bedrooms.
The toilet flushes.Broad shoulders fill the doorway, and for a moment my heart leaps, but he’s not my husband.
He’s my husband’s brother.My father’s most brutal soldier.My ex-best-friend’s father.Alessio Luciano.
The front door opens.My head spins when I turn to look.
Dark brown orbs glare at me as my father slams the door behind him.
“You betrayed me, Valentina,” he says.
He locks the handle, deadbolt, and slider.
My heart cries out for Mario to rescue me.
“Did I tell you what happens to those who betray me?I don’t think I did,” Pietro murmurs.
He drops a grocery bag on the counter and saunters to the cabinet.
My purse and knife sit on the counter.
Pietro scoffs when he sees the direction of my eyes.
“He won’t find you.I destroyed the trackers in your purse and dropped your phone in the street.You’re all mine, baby.”
Horror settles over me.I test my restraints, but the chair is sturdy and the ropes are well tied.My fingers and toes tingle from lack of circulation.
I close my eyes.The tears welling behind my lids are real, but my father always says I’m pretty when I cry, so I try to use them to my advantage.
I wait until the first few trail down my cheeks before I lift my lashes.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
I want to scrub my tongue raw, but I push through my disgust.
“You saved me.I didn’t want to go with him or say those things, but he made me.I—”
“Ha!See, I told you she’d say that.Don’t fall for her tricks, Pietro,” Alessio says as he stomps into the living room.
He picks up a pack of cigarettes off the coffee table and pushes the garbage around until he finds his lighter.
I’d rather burn the entire place down than suffer the wrath in my father’s eyes.
“You’re right.She has her mother’s blood,” Pietro says as he shrugs off his suit coat and hangs it on the hook by the door.“She can’t help it.”When he turns toward me and begins rolling his sleeves, bile climbs up my throat.I know what he’s going to say, since he’s said it before.“But I can.I can help you, Valentina.”
I shake my head.
