“Who was wearing masks?”
“The people who took Natalia.” Her tears fall faster. “They threatened to hurt my grandchildren if I didn’t call and ask her to come into work. I did … and they took her.” Her words turn into sobs. “I’m so sorry! I’m a horrible person.”
I snap my fingers, trying to keep her attention. “Did you catch any names?”
She shakes her head.
“Male? Female?”
“Both.”
Francis starts untying Bonnie as I retrieve my phone from my pocket to update Benny on the situation. We need to find them.
My phone rings before I get the chance to hit his name.
Rocky.
I answer on the first ring. “Where the fuck are you, Rocky?”
“Hello, Cristian.”
My temples pulse, my nostrils flare, and the need for violence possesses me at the sound of the recognizable voice.
“Rocky is currently … incapacitated,” Vinny says with a deep chuckle. “You get to speak with me instead.”
“You motherfucker,” I bark, ignoring the stares coming from Francis and Bonnie.
Vinny snorts.
“Where’s Natalia?”
“With me.”
“You touch her, and I will kill you, slow and vicious.” Spit flies from my mouth with every word.
Bonnie whimpers as she listens.
“Natalia is mine,” Vinny says.
“Be a man and tell me where you are. Prove you’re tough. Let me come to you.”
He scoffs. “You think I’d do something so stupid, Marchetti?”
“Don’t be a fucking pussy. You want to be king?” My voice rises until I’m nearly screaming. “You have to take the king down.”
“I’ll take you down on my own terms. The first of which is taking Natalia.” He tsks me. “What I can give you, though, is the location of your rat. You can pick him up at Carmela’s and do as you please with him. I suggest you do so rather quickly—before he bleeds out.”
My mouth turns dry, and my pulse speeds. “I will grant you a faster death if you release her now.”
“Natalia is mine, Cristian.” He scoffs. “You think she’d want to go back to you after she learned you’d planned to use her to get to me? She wants nothing to do with you.”
“I will gut you, make you eat your own fucking flesh, and then put a bullet through your head.”
Vinny’s laughter is like one you’d hear from a villain in a damn comic book movie. “I have your girl. Prepare for me to take over your empire.”
CHAPTER 33
NATALIA
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
It’s the best way to describe Vinny.
When we first met, he had me fooled. He was charming, showering me with what I blindly believed was love. I knew he was trouble. The problem was, I was clueless on how deep his derangement was.
What I know now is that Vinny isn’t to be underestimated. If I want to make it out alive, I need to be smart about my approach with him.
“Consider this a message to Cristian that it’s never a good idea to fuck with me,” Vinny tells Rocky as he writhes on the floor in pain. “His men—and cunts he used to fuck—will die.”
He slaps tape on my mouth again, forces me toward his car right outside the home, and shoves me in the trunk of his BMW.
While in the trunk, I prayed I wouldn’t run out of oxygen. Thankfully, it wasn’t long until the car came to a full stop, and I was dragged out of the trunk and into another home.
Bad, bad, bad.
Everyone knows that once you’re moved to a second location, your chance of survival decreases drastically.
A sliver of my tension releases when I realize we aren’t in some dingy warehouse or somewhere he could easily bury my body. It’s the Lombardis’ two-story Cape home. Vinny’s mother will kill him if he gets blood on anything. The woman is a clean freak.
Vinny captures my elbow, holds a gun to my head with his free hand, and then guides me into the house. He shoves me into the living room, pushes me onto the leather sofa, and tears the tape off my mouth.
I cringe at the sting, twitching my lips, and then fuss with the zip ties around my sore wrists. “Vinny, these ties are hurting me. Will you please cut them off?”
Vinny’s face is filled with conflict as he stares down at me. “I don’t trust you, Nat.”
Now that we’re alone and we don’t have Rocky or Carmela with us, he’s calmed some.
“There isn’t much around us.” I tip my chin toward the front door. “It’s not like I can run off.”
His eyes bunch up. “Like I said, I don’t trust you.”
“You did once. Remember?” I lower my voice. “We trusted each other more than anyone.”
He drops his gun on the coffee table and retrieves a pocketknife from his jeans. “Then, you left me.”
During my time with Vinny, I learned his weaknesses. I need him to remember our good times, for him to believe that I love him and that he means everything to me. Vinny loves being loved and revered.
“I didn’t end things because I no longer loved you. I did it because you were breaking my heart.” I force my voice to crack. “I wanted you to only be mine, but you were with other women.” I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. “Because of how much I loved you, I refused to share you.”
“You don’t think you broke my heart when you ran to Cristian Marchetti?” He slams his hand against his chest over his heart. “Him out of all people!”
“I didn’t know where else to go!” I cry out. “I was alone, and he’s Gigi’s father. She’s the only reason I went to him. The whole marriage thing came out of nowhere after he almost handed me over. By that time, your father had made it clear that your family would kill me. I was backed into a corner of life or death.”
He reaches down, picks up the crystal coffee table bowl, and hurls it across the room.
“Vinny,” I whisper, my body shaking, “you’re scaring me.”
The desperation in my voice strikes him, and he drops his head.
“Nat, baby,” he says, his voice softening, “I’m sorry.”
My shoulders curl forward when he steps to me, gripping the knife, but I rasp out a breath when he shifts me and cuts off the ties.
I rub at my sore wrists. “I’m sorry too. I should’ve tried to talk to you.”
He sits on the edge of the couch cushion next to me, his gaze cautious. “But the pepper spray—”
“Shh.” I press a finger over his lips. “Let’s start fresh and put that behind us.”
“Has he touched you?” The vein in his forehead protrudes, and his face tics.
“Of course not.” I shake my head and frown. “I slept in the guest room. Everything he said was to get underneath your skin.”
“That motherfucker.” He tugs on his earlobe and jumps up from his seat. The man is at war with himself, his mix of feelings puzzling him. “But you still told him information. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have known all the shit he told my father.”