Page 16 of Taken By the Mafia King
SERA
Imulled over my options as I took a shower, washing the blood and grime and the feel of Gabriele’s skin from my body. Food had been laid out, but I hadn’t touched it. An assortment of cheeses, breads, and cured meats sat alongside freshly washed green grapes and dried apricots. The sort of meal I’d have ordered off a menu to share with a friend. Or with Jim on our date, had a date ever come to fruition. As soon as Jim’s name skittered through my mind my chest tightened.
Don’t think about him.
A nice older man, possibly a butler, had cleaned and bandaged my wrists and a few other cuts and scrapes on my head. I’d been worried about being alone with a strange man again, but he’d brought a maid with him.
He’d asked if I’d been… touched. I’d known what he meant. I only had the sense to shake my head and look down at the fresh, clean bandages covering the broken skin along my wrists as he gently told me I would heal. At least, my physical wounds would.
But my mind had been elsewhere. I’d been thinking about that door to the right of the bathroom. I’d been thinking about the phone and who I needed to call for help. I hadn’t done it yet. The stakes felt too high. I had to be smart about this and notdrag someone down with me. There were a lot of variables to consider.
I couldn’t call the police. That would be laughable. Most of them were tied to the mafia in one way or another. Syndicates had deep pockets and law enforcement was easily swayed to turn the other cheek, even when something as grave as kidnapping and torture was involved.
Dressed in the black sweatshirt and matching pants that had been laid out on the bed by whoever brought me the food, I stood in front of the phone again, my fingers curled around the receiver.
I couldn’t get caught. No one, as far as I knew, had been in or out of that little study since I’d showered and the butler had left. The door remained unlocked, the phone still connected as I lifted it up and pressed it to my ear. The dial tone buzzed, waiting for me to make a decision. Taunting me to act.
If anyone caught me, I was dead.
But then, I was likely dead anyway just being in Killian Ricci’s clutches.
I sucked in a breath and fumbled over the buttons, pulling a distant memory of a phone number forward. The number to my home, my father’s home, which I’d remembered from being a little girl. We’d had to memorize it for school, as well as our address. Many years had passed since I’d dialed it, but once my fingers started moving over the buttons, the rest of the number came to me from muscle memory.
“Hello?”
“I-It’s Seraphina,” I whispered, trying not to stumble over my words. “I need to speak to my-my dad, please.”
The woman who’d answered paused for a moment, then whispered something unintelligible to someone nearby.
An incredible amount of time seemed to pass but it could have easily only been a few seconds before my dad answered thephone, his gruff voice booming through the receiver and echoing off the walls. I flinched, covering the receiver with my hand.
“Dad—”
“What the fuck?” he said, his voice sharp with shock. “How the fuck are you calling me?”
“I-I’ve been kidnapped,” I said hurriedly, turning to face the door leading back into the bedroom. “I was taken to-to an auction and sold. I need help?—”
“I’ve been looking for you.” His voice sounded low, and I pictured him in his old study facing the rose gardens. His broad shoulders hunched. Head bowed. Brow furrowed as he contemplated the fate facing his only daughter. A lot had happened between us to make me leave him, but I prayed he still loved me enough to want to save me. “I need time to get you out, baby. And time is your enemy right now. You’re going to have to do what you must to stay alive. Please the old bastard. Do what you have to do.”
“How did you—” I paused, biting back my words. Old? How had he known whoever had bought me was old? Had he known because Mattia had tried to stop him from taking me? That had to be it, but why was he being so nonchalant about it? I shook my head as if trying to dispel what he’d just said to me—what he’d just told me to do. “I can’t. I won’t. Please.”
“Listen, baby,” he repeated. “I’m sorry this happened to you, butyouleft us. You took your ass to college instead of staying under the protection of the family. That’s how these things happen. I tried to warn you.”
“I was abducted and sold?—”
“Please the man, for fuck’s sake,” he growled, his tone making me flinch. “Do what you gotta do until I can get you out. I’ll fix it. Daddy always fixes it.”
“Gabriele De Luca bought me.”
“Yeah? Okay,” he said, like he knew that already, but his voice became distorted like he was talking to someone else and had pulled the phone away from his ear momentarily.
My heart thundered as I glanced back into the bedroom. “Dad!”
“What, baby? What am I supposed to do, call in the National Guard?” He laughed, the sound booming the line. “Just sit tight.”
“Gabriele De Luca is dead.” I closed my eyes. “I’m not with him anymore.”
Silence fell, a sucking, motionless silence that made me feel like I was underwater.
