Page 93 of His Savage Ruin
I try to focus on his face, try to tell him I've been drugged, that someone put something in my drink, but the words dissolve before they reach my mouth. My vision narrows to a pinpoint of light surrounded by spreading darkness, and I can feel myself slipping away even though I'm fighting it with everything I have.
No, no, no this can't be happening.
But my body doesn't care what I want. The darkness swallows everything, and I fall into it like dropping into deep water with weights tied to my ankles.
My head is splitting open—that's what it feels like when consciousness drags me back up from nothing—like someone took an axe to my skull and is still hacking away at it. My mouth tastes like copper and chemicals, and it’s so bitter that my stomach heaves.
I try to move but something holds my wrists in place. The realization cuts through the fog still clouding my thoughts—I'm restrained.
My eyes won't open properly at first but I force them apart through sheer willpower, and the world that comes into focus is wrong in every possible way.
This isn't Matteo's bedroom. This isn't anywhere in his estate that I've seen before. The walls are bare concrete, gray and water-stained, and the only light comes from a single bulb hanging from the ceiling that swings slightly even though there's no breeze. The air tastes stale and damp, like being underground or somewhere that hasn't seen fresh air in a very long time.
I'm sitting in a chair, my wrists bound to the armrests with something that bites into my skin when I test it, probably zip ties from the way they feel. My ankles are secured to the chair legs in the same way, and when I try to shift my weight, the chair doesn't budge because it's bolted to the floor.
My pulse hammers in my wrists where the restraints cut into flesh, and I can feel panic trying to claw its way up my throat but I force it down. I need to think, need to figure out where I am and who took me and how I'm going to get out of here before whatever's coming next happens.
The room is small, maybe ten feet square, with a metal door on the far wall that looks heavy enough to be soundproof. No windows, no other furniture except my chair. Nothing I can use as a weapon even if I could get my hands free, which I can't because whoever tied these restraints knew what they were doing.
I hear footsteps outside the door and my whole body goes rigid because whoever drugged me and brought me here is about to walk through that door and I have no way to defend myself, no way to fight back, nothing except whatever's left of my voice after being unconscious.
The door opens with a squeal of hinges that haven't been oiled in too long, and light spills in from the hallway beyond, silhouetting the figure that enters. I can't see their face at first, can't make out anything except their general shape, but something about the way they move makes my stomach drop through the floor.
The door closes, cutting off the light from the hallway, and the single bulb overhead swings enough to illuminate his face.
Lorenzo.
My dead husband stands in front of me, very much alive, with that smile I know too well curving across his lips.
"You've always loved to sleep,bambola mia.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Matteo
I take the stairs two at a time, my hand gripping the banister. I need to check on her, need to see for myself that she's still safe in that room where I left her.
My bedroom door is standing open when I reach the top of the stairs.
The sight stops me cold for a heartbeat before my legs start moving again, faster now because that door should be closed and locked. I told Romeo to keep it that way until I came back personally. My shoes hit the marble floor and the sound echoes too loud in the quiet hallway as I run toward the opening.
"Alessia?" I push through the doorway and my eyes sweep the room in seconds, taking in the rumpled bed where she was sitting earlier. Everything looks exactly as it should except for the one thing that matters. "Alessia!"
She's not here.
I check the bathroom even though instinct already tells me it's pointless. The light is off and the towels hang neatly on their racks. There's no steam on the mirror or any sign someone's been in here recently.
My chest tightens as I turn back to the bedroom, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing because this doesn't add up with the orders I gave Romeo this morning.
My phone is out and I'm dialing Romeo's number before I finish the thought. It rings three times and goes to voicemail. I try again because maybe the signal dropped or his phone glitched, but I get the same result and now my heart is pounding hard enough that I can feel it in my throat.
Romeo doesn't let his phone die on duty. He knows better than that, knows being unreachable when you're guarding something important is unacceptable in my organization and will get him killed.
I try Marco next and get the same result—straight to voicemail, no ringing, just the automated message telling me the number I'm trying to reach is unavailable. Both phones dead at the same time, both guards missing along with Alessia, and the sick feeling in my gut is getting worse with every second that passes.
A younger guard—Antonio—rounds the corner and stops short when he sees me, his eyes going wide like he knows something's very wrong and he's about to be in the middle of it.
"Don Romano, I was just coming to find you?—"
