Page 79 of Keeping My Girl

CHAPTER42

Selina

WE’RE NEAR THE water. I can feel the humidity in the air, and I can practically taste the salt in the air mixed with the coppery tang of my blood. It’s such a familiar, unwanted memory. Nausea wracks my stomach, twisting and turning painfully until I almost throw up. I manage to keep it down, swallowing hard and focusing on my breathing.

Aria groans from beside me, and a sense of relief floods through me. She had been screaming and kicking, so one of the guards knocked her unconscious outside of the club before they shoved us in the back of a black windowless van. I tried my best to wake her on the way here, but she never came to. Perhaps it’s better that way. The less she has to experience, the better.

We were taken to a large warehouse that houses boats and yachts. Four men strung us up on a rafter and left us alone. It’s been at least an hour since we arrived, and my arms and hands are numb from lack of circulation.

“Wh-what…where are we?” Aria asks, slowly coming to. She tries to move her arms, and then the panic sets in when she realizes our predicament. She struggles, her breathing picking up speed as she starts to wheeze and panic on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Aria, it’s okay,” I try to reassure her, but I know my words are useless right now. We’re screwed — completely vulnerable with no end to our torture in sight. It can only get worse from here. That has been my attitude my whole life, and nothing is going to change that now. But I have to be strong. For Aria.

“It’s not okay,” she whines, tears streaming down her delicate cheeks. “We have to get out of here, Selina!” she pleads as if I hold the key to our freedom somehow.

But even if we weren’t strung up like pieces of meat in this warehouse, there would be no easy escape for us. Constantine’s men are everywhere. And anywhere they are not stationed, I’m sure there are motion-activated cameras detecting every little movement and alerting his guards within a matter of seconds.

Constantine pays his men a lot of money to comply with his orders, no matter how depraved they might be. There is no leaving here on our own volition. At least not alive anyway.

Heavy footsteps echo in the warehouse, growing closer, and I quickly shush Aria. She’s still whimpering, but at least she has enough sense to not talk or struggle.

The biggest, most dangerous predators do not like their prey docile and compliant. They want their prey to fight for their lives. And that’s exactly how Constantine is. He enjoys delivering pain and causing fear. We have to make ourselves appear weak and vulnerable even if we’re not.

I close my eyes, and I know that it’s Constantine coming closer just by the sound of his footfalls against the concrete floor. It’s sad that I know him so well. I could pick him blindly out of a crowd just by his smell…and taste.

My body begins to tremble on its own accord. Perhaps it’s the coldness seeping into my bones. Or maybe it’s just the fear of the unknown creeping into my soul. I don’t know what Constantine is going to do to me for betraying him. And even though Nico is the one who killed Gino and kidnapped me, it will still be a betrayal on my part from Constantine. I will pay for Nico’s actions and sins that night. But as long as I take the brunt of Constantine’s anger and no one else, I’m willing to do just that. I’m willing to sacrifice myself for any of the Vitales, especially Nico.

“Hello, my little pet,” his deep timbre sounds from a few inches away as he stops walking.

I slowly open my eyes and face my tormentor. “How did you find me?” I ask bravely.

He seems taken aback when I speak out of turn, especially considering I didn’t address him properly. “I told you I would always find you, my sweet Selina.” He moves closer, walks behind me. Carefully, almost tenderly, he lifts my hair from my neck and brushes it aside. Feeling along my scalp, he stops when he reaches a bump. I’ve felt that bump a million times before. A raised scar from one of my many head wounds, or so I always suspected. I was always recovering from something or other, so it was hard to keep track of all my scars.

“A tracker,” he explains, debunking my theory, and my blood runs cold.

All this time he knew exactly where I was. But he knew he was no match for the Vitale family, so he came at me when I was the most vulnerable — when Aria decided to sneak out of the safety of the house and go to a club. He was there all along, waiting with bated breath until he could get to me safely and easily. And I stupidly handed myself over to him on a silver platter.

He releases my hair and walks until he’s standing before me once again. “I never lose what’s mine,” he tells me, his voice deceptively calm. “It just took a little while longer to get to you, but I knew I would have a chance eventually. You know how patient I can be.”

I swallow hard at his words. Yes, so very patient. Waiting hours, days, weeks, months, years to break me down. Grooming me to be his little pet.

Constantine moves closer until I can feel his breath on my lips when he requests, “I want vengeance on the man who killed my son. You were there long enough to know the schedules of the guards, the layout of the Vitale compound. I want to know the access points. I want to know when they’re at their most vulnerable. You’re going to give me every single thing I want.”

I’m glad that Constantine doesn’t know exactly who killed Gino, but I’ll never give him what he wants. I’d rather die than speak Nico’s name and give him up like a traitor.

Suddenly, his hand snatches out and grabs a fistful of my hair, bending my neck at an awkward angle and making me cry out in pain.

“Don’t touch her, you bastard!” Aria screams from beside me.

Oh god, I just want her to be quiet. Constantine releases me with a chuckle. And then he turns his attention to Nico’s sister. “And what should I do with my new little pet?” he asks out loud.

“I’ll never be your pet, you fucking psychopath!” Aria shouts.

I can almost see the wheels inside Constantine’s head turning. I can almost smell the arousal coming from him. I know everything Aria is doing right now — the screaming, the fighting — is doing nothing but turning him on.

He walks over to her and reaches out to touch her. She’s quick to kick out at him, nearly missing his balls and catching his thigh instead with her unsteady foot. “Don’t you dare touch me!” she screams.

“Oh, I’m going to do so much more than touch you, my little principessa,” he says through gritted teeth. “I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to bend you until you fucking break,” he threatens, sending another tremor through me. With a snap of his fingers, two guards come forward. “Let’s show my new little pet some manners. Cut her down.”

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