“We all thought that and we were all hine with it. Have you heard about him when he gets pushed too far?” Ivan asked.
“Stephen? He can be pushed too far? Really?”
“He’s similar to your go ddamn prince. The bloodlust is almost as bad in Stephen. I’ve only seen it happen a couple of times, but there was no stopping him when it happened. I’m counting on it happening when they find us. They could just send him and your go ddamn prince in here and nobody would walk out of here alive. Doesn’t matter how many people are in this building with us.”
“I might enjoy seeing that,” I said.
We kept talking quietly for a while longer, just trying to pass the time. I needed to pee, after what I assumed to be a few hours of sitting in this chair. I groaned. “Shi t, I need to pee. Think they’ll let me use the bathroom?”
“If they do, use the opportunity to get a feel for where everything is. I know where the stairs are, where the elevator is. Look for things that can be used as weapons and distractions. Like fire extinguishers and paper towel dispensers in the bathroom, if they’re metal.”
“If they let me use the bathroom, then they’ll be more likely to let you use it too. Can you lift a knife off one of them if they let you out of the chair?”
“Possibly. You can too, princess. Use a distraction, like tripping and bumping into them to grab what you need.”
I chewed on my bottom lip, nervous about trying to lift something off of one of them, worried about what would happen to me or Ivan if they caught me.
It wasn’t very much longer and the same two men came back into the room. I told them that I needed to pee. They both walked to the chairs we were tied to. One of them pulled a gun and pointed it at Ivan. “You try anything and he dies,” he said, flatly. The other guy cut my restraints and pulled me out of the chair. He kept a tight hold of my arm the entire way to the bathroom. There was no way I was going to be able to grab anything off of him, so I looked around while we were walking. There was a fire extinguisher on the opposite side of the floor from the room we were being kept in. It was by the elevators.
Luckily, the guy didn’t follow me into the bathroom, so I had a chance to be alone for a minute. I took note of everything in the bathroom that we could possibly use to our advantage. I heard a beep in my ear. My earpiece. They missed it when they searched me. I pulled it out of my ear. I had no clue how it worked, but there was a blue light blinking on it. Normally, there was a blue light that remained on when they would hand it to me. It was never blinking. I looked it over, pressing the only button on it, just to see what would happen. It beeped quietly three times in a row, then went silent, but the blue light was still blinking. No idea what that means. I put it back in my ear, just in case.
The guy that escorted me to the bathroom stuck his head inside the door and yelled at me to hurry up. I quickly finished up and walked out of the bathroom. He grabbed my arm once more and practically drug me back to the room with Ivan. When we walked into the room, Ivan was bleeding from a cut above his eye.
“What the f**k? I didn’t do anything wrong. Why did you hurt him?” I asked, trying to appear as frightened as possible, rather than showing the extreme anger I was feeling.
“He has a smart mo uth,” the guy with the gun said. “Almost as smart as yours.” I glanced to Ivan as they shoved me back in the chair. He was totally fine. He didn’t look it, but I knew he wasn’t feeling like he just got hit with the butt of a gun.
They zip tied my wrists back to the chair once more. The guy with the gun put it back in its holster once I was secured to the chair again. He looked at me then punched Ivan once more before walking out of the room, once again leaving us alone.
“Are you going to tell me what your smart mo uth said to him?” I asked, trying not to smile.
“I asked him how good his English was. When he didn’t answer, I asked him if he wanted to d ie quickly or if he was okay with me dragging it out,” he said. “Then he hit me with the butt of his gun.”
“Rude. I knew their English was better than they were letting on,” I said. “I bet that was a test to see if I really could speak
Italian.”
“Which means it’s likely Sal that we’re waiting on. Armando knows you can understand Italian.”
“Is it wrong that I’m slightly disappointed it’s not Armando? I really want a definitive decision on that f**ker,” I said. “Maybe Sal just didn’t believe that I could understand Italian so he tested it just to be sure. It could still be both of them.”
We heard voices outside the door. More than just the two guys that had been watching us. “Looks like we might find out the answer sooner rather than later,” Ivan said.
Sephie
The door opened once more. The two guys who grabbed us walked in first, followed by Salvadori, followed by Armando. Oh, he’s dead. They glanced at Ivan, who had blood that was drying on his face, then looked to the two guys who had grabbed us. They just shrugged their shoulders like it wasn’t their fault.
Sal walked toward me. The look on his face was difficult to read. He looked happy, but he also looked angry. “You, my dear. You can’t keep yourself from killing my men. That’s not very lady like of you,” he said as he ran a finger down the side of my face and my neck. I felt nauseous at his touch. I could feel Ivan’s anger, much the same way I could feel Adrik’s, but it wasn’t quite as strong of a feeling. But I didn’t need to look at him to know he was not happy that Sal was touching me.
“Your men are anything but gentlemen toward me. Maybe if they weren’t constantly trying to harm me, I would be nicer to them,” I said, trying to move away from his hand as far as I could. Sal laughed, turning to look at Armando. “You were right, Mando. She is a firecracker.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Well, my dear, it started out innocently enough. You were going to be the bait to draw out Ghost so we could ki II him,” he said. I tensed at him mentioning Adrik. “But now that you’ve killed so many of my men, I can’t let that go unpunished. There’s the matter of my son, as well. You’ve made him look like a fo ol. You seem to be in my debt, you see,” Sal said. His fingers were still running down my neck. He caught the zipper of my shirt, unzipping it as far as it would go, which thankfully was only halfway down. He stood and stared at my bra for a moment, like it was the first time he’d seen a woman’s breasts.
“Is this your first time seeing bo obs?” I asked. I didn’t expect him to slap me, but he did. Hard. My head jerked to the side with the impact of his hand. Ivan threatened him, but Sal ignored him. “You do have a smart mouth. You’ll learn to keep it shu t,” Sal said.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.