Page 37 of The Italian Reckoning
But he very well may be the only chance I have at getting real advancement on this case. My department has closed ranks, my captain has put me on leave, and my old boss is surely one phone call away from alerting my old therapists.
As I arrive at the parking lot, defeat settles deep in my shoulders. Going to Rocky for help is astupididea. That definitely should get me several sessions with my therapist.
“Fucking hell, Sarah, when did you become such a headcase?” I mutter to myself, stepping off the sidewalk.
Only, I keep falling as something heavy and solid collides with the back of my skull and my world sinks into darkness as the ground rushes up to meet me.
Restrictionaround my wrists sends a jolt of panic through my sluggish thoughts as I regain consciousness sometime later. Pain throbs like the beat of a drum at the back of my skull and my mouth is so dry that swallowing immediately enhances a tickle in the back of my throat. I cough, struggling to suck air in through my gagged mouth, and cough again. Then I open my eyes to darkness.
No. Not darkness.
I’m blindfolded.
No… not again. This can’t be happening again!
I lift my head from my chest and try to move any other part of my body, but restrictions around my ankles keep me securely bound to what feels like a chair. Panic grips me like the rapid chill of flash ice. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. My heart is pounding out of my chest with such force that I can almost see flashes of pulse against the back of my eyelids.
Panic quickly gives way to terror and a cold sickness churns in my stomach as my chest grows impossibly tight.
This can’t happen again!
15
ROCKY
Great idea, Rocky. Kidnap the woman of your dreams to keep her safe.
Calling her and warning her would have been too easy, and she never would have believed me anyway. But kidnapping her and dragging her across the city? Great idea.
Great fucking idea.
It was a splendid idea until Sarah woke up and now she’s freaking out, like insanely freaking the fuck out to the point that I’m actually concerned she’s going to seriously injure herself. One moment she was motionless, unconscious in the chair, and the next she’s thrashing back and forth and making such terrified, desperate sounds that it’s like she’s suffocating right before my very eyes.
“Fuck!” Lunging up from my seat, I stumble toward her and immediately rip off her blindfold in the hopes that seeing where she is and who she is with will calm her. Wild, terrified grey eyes blink owlishly up at me, flooded with tears.
“Sarah! Calm down, for fuck’s sake!”
She doesn’t calm. When she looks at me, it’s unclear whether she even sees me with how violently she’s fighting the bondsaround her wrists and ankles, and she still sounds like she’s suffocating around the gag. Untying it as quickly as I can, I pull it free from her lips and a fearful, desperate wail escapes her.
“What the fuck!” she screeches. “Let me go, let me go, you fucking psychopath. What the fucking fuck is wrong with you? Let me go! Let me go, let me go!”
She’s… terrified.
Her tears are as real as the panic in her voice, as the pain in each sob that tears past her red lips. My heart immediately crashes into the pits of my stomach.
“Sarah, listen to me. I know this looks bad, but I did this for your own safety, okay? This will all make sense if you just let me?—”
“HELP!” She screams at the top of her lungs, throwing herself back and forth against her bindings. “HELP ME!!”
The guards at my father’s casino have heard a lot worse coming from these rooms so no one will come and help her, but she’s missing how I’ve done thistohelp her. I’ve saved her from my father’s assassins in the only way I knew how, which looking back could have been executed a lot more smoothly, but I was a desperate man with little time.
My father put a bounty on her head and I can’t keep her safe from everyone with just a text message.
“I’m going to untie you, okay? Just hold on. Hold on!” I try not to yell, but it’s the only way I can get her to hear me over the loudness of her panicked yells and screams. Darting around the side of her chair, I swiftly cut away the bindings tying her ankles to the chair. She kicks out at me but misses, and as I unknot the rope binding her wrists, guilt warms my chest at the sight of her red, raw skin from her struggles.
“Okay, Sarah, I need you to listen to me!”
The second she’s free, Sarah lurches upward with a sob and then roundhouse kicks me so hard in the head that I swear I hearbirds and see stars. I collapse backward just as a nearby vase of flowers and water smashes on the ground next to me, very narrowly missing my face.
