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Chapter Fourteen
Skylar
Running had seemed a grand idea, until the gunshot had gone off.
I didn’t want to die.
Not today.
Escaping seemed the only option when faced with exploitation. Why had Enzo betrayed Jayden and me?
He’d handed me over to the enemy without a second thought.
My fingers grazed the ribbon that Enzo had tied into my hair. It had been a strange gesture. I yanked it hard, wanting no evidence of him on me.
The dress I wore, he gave me that too.
My stomach sunk. I was going to be sick.
I couldn’t disrobe. I had nothing else to wear.
Had Enzo intentionally been trying to mark me?
Claim me? Show me that I belonged to him?
In the back of the SUV, I pulled my hair down, letting the long locks fall around my face. The bobby pins and clips I dropped on the floor.
Inside the red ribbon had been the tiniest message, meant only for my eyes.
Get information if you want to survive. You work for us now.
I was furious.
Had Jayden been in on the scheme, or had it been Don Ricci’s idea? Jayden hadn’t so much as mentioned it, and he had looked pretty shaken when he’d been detained, and I’d been thrust in front of the crowd.
If I wanted to survive, I had to obey Don DeLuca’s every command, at least until help arrived.
Would someone come and save me?
Jayden wasn’t my fiancé, not really. We had pretended to be married, and that had been short-lived. Sadly, it lasted longer than any of my real relationships.
Pathetic, I know.
Jayden’s backup plan for me to flirt with Dante was moot. Angelo DeLuca had dragged me out of Enzo Ricci’s home.
Angelo’s fist gripped my neck, reminding me that if I didn’t do as I was told, I was as good as dead.
I couldn’t let anyone see the ribbon. I secured it back up into my hair, making sure that I’d dispose of it properly later. No one could find it. If they did, they’d think I was a spy.
* * *
I’d been alone, with only a cot in a cold and moldy basement.
There were other girls. I’d seen them when I’d first been brought down to the basement, past their prison cells.
But I hadn’t been able to talk to any of them.
The prison in DeLuca’s basement had been quite large, bringing me to another area, away from the girls who had been locked up together.