Page 17 of A Princess, Stolen (A Kiss of Revenge, Blood, and Love #1)
“ W ell, have a nice dream, princess? Maybe about a prince?”
I flinched in shock, which earned me several dirty laughs.
Uneasy, I turned my head. There must have been a few men standing around who had been watching me.
I had probably dozed off briefly despite panicking, now, however, I was sitting against the wall with my knees pulled up, and burying my face in the soft fabric of Belle, which still smelled slightly of my floral perfume.
I didn’t want these bastards to see how miserable I felt.
There was a disgusting taste in my mouth, I was alternating between sweating and freezing, and the dress clung to my body like a second skin.
Even though it was completely unimportant, I realized it was the first time I had worn the same thing twice in a row. I had never been tied up before either.
“Know what we do with you when done here?” I heard the man with the accent ask. I would have recognized him by his smell because he still stank of onions and cheap tobacco.
I shuddered. “Let me go,” I answered dully even though he sounded like he was leading up to something.
He laughed. “That what you think, prinsessa. Maybe we ship you to China on big freighter. In container with fish and crabs.”
I swallowed.
“Sometimes, those containers fall overboard,” another said, whose hoarse voice was new to me.
“You probably know that, don’t you? In storms, for example, if you don’t tie them down properly.
” The pungent smell of camphor filled my nose that I automatically associated with this man.
“The container would probably sink to the bottom of the sea.” Now they were no longer laughing and I became aware of the hatred emanating from the camphor man.
Whoever he was, he seemed to want to strangle me with his bare hands sooner rather than later.
“And then you’ll sit in your cold coffin miles down, waiting for death.
Do you know how dark it is down there? And how cold?
Or what creatures lurk there? And I’m not just talking about sharks… ”
I felt sick and cowered even more.
“Your father must pay,” the man with the accent continued, who, in my eyes, was still the murderer type. “I take photo for him now. Maybe you smile nicely.”
I sat there motionless.
“Come on, head up so your beloved daddy can see your face and recognize you!” the camphor man with the hoarse voice ordered. “Pan will take a nice picture of you. It’ll be really quick too.”
Pan—another name from Greek mythology. Since I didn’t want one of them to come closer and use force, I did what they asked.
“Good princess!” another man sneered, whom I had also never heard speak before, and strangely, I thought of Dad’s words again. Willa is a good child. Dreamy, absentminded, but easy to control .
There were a few clicks and I saw the brightness of the flash through the blindfold.
After that, everything was silent, and then another said, “Okay…that’s good…we got it,” as if this was a modeling shoot.
Footsteps moved away, but at least one was still standing near me, panting. “You!” Pan said, the accented man. “You have pretty face, but that not mean pretty heart. You be careful!”
Then he departed and I took a deep breath without relaxing. They could return at any time, torment me more, or do anything else they liked. She’s a hostage and she’ll be treated like it .
Time passed. I don’t know if it was minutes or hours.
The worst thing was not being able to see.
At home, I spent half the day painting. I needed my eyes to capture and reproduce reality, but now, there was only darkness.
It seemed as if the sounds of my surroundings were running through me like watercolors.
I shifted my weight, unable to find a comfortable position to sit so that nothing hurt when footfalls approached again. A mist of fragrant herbs drifted over to me. Mint and moss, the person had obviously just showered. And here I sat, freezing, sweating, and shaking for my life!
“Good morning, princess.”
Mr. Gang Leader himself. Sure. He has to come back to savor his triumph.
Since he had forbidden me to speak yesterday, I remained silent.
Instead, I sniffed the air like a bunny.
The scent of eggs and burgers mixed with the herbal aroma, and even though I was allergic to chicken egg white, I still loved that smell. My stomach immediately growled.
“This bacon burger tastes delicious. The bacon is juicy yet nice and crispy, and the meat is as tender as butter. Troy can really make a great burger.”
I heard him chewing loudly. It sounded as if he wanted to demonstrate to me how well he was doing unlike me. He was a real bastard; using the language of men. I would have found completely different words, but I didn’t want to stoop to that level.
I turned my head in another direction and the door squeaked. This time, no key had been used, so it must have been unlocked. No wonder since I couldn’t escape in my condition anyway and we were in the middle of the Atlantic.
“So quiet today, eh? Or do you have nothing to say to me?” When I heard the man approaching, I slid along the wall to the corner.
It was no use because a few seconds later, I felt his presence in front of me.
Something touched my dress, probably his legs.
I blinked frantically under my blindfold.
The smell of bacon almost numbed me as did his proximity.
Again, I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. I had so many questions.
“You said I shouldn’t talk,” I said at some point when I couldn’t stand the silence any longer. I sounded rough, not like myself.
He cleared his throat above me. “That was yesterday.” There was something guilty in his voice even though he said it roughly.
“The photos are for my dad, right? Have you contacted him?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It…it is my business.”
“The less you know, the better for you.”
“Does he know I’m alive?” I asked quietly.
The man laughed. “You look pretty alive in the photos.”
Dad would have a heart attack if he saw me tied up and blindfolded in this hole. “My dad…he’ll pay right away.” Maybe I could shorten those three weeks somehow.
The man carried on eating, unmoved. “We’ll see if he meets all the demands,” he said after a while.
“You have several?”
“A few.”
Something dark was forming in my mind. I couldn’t imagine what those demands would be.
I couldn’t think of anything except money.
Maybe Dad needed to transfer money to several secret accounts, to false names or with forged papers.
I didn’t know anything about these things, but a lot could go wrong.
“And if he doesn’t? If he tries everything but it doesn’t work?
What will you do to me then?” I held my breath in fear, which made his chewing seem even louder.
I heard the crispy bacon crack between his teeth and it felt like he was crunching my nerves.
“What do you think we’ll do to you then?” he asked after he had obviously swallowed.
I recalled movies about hostage dramas in which they severed fingers.
“Send you to your beloved daddy in small chunks?” He seemed to think so too.
I couldn’t fight the horror inside me. Intense horrific images illuminated my darkness. My chin trembled, and for a few seconds, it was just as eerily quiet above me as it had been hours ago when I had whispered the word said by Troy.
“Hey—you don’t honestly believe that, do you?” Now he sounded genuinely appalled and that shock slightly calmed me.
“Is that so far-fetched?” I managed to utter.
“No…well, yes! Damn it, we won’t do anything like that!”
I forced myself to take a deep breath. Would he be so confused by my fears if he were serious about it? But then I recalled the others’ comments. “They said when it was over…you might ship me to China in a container?”
“Holy crap… Of course not.”
“But, someone…”
“Pan and Sparta were joking.”
Sparta—definitely the camphor man.
“That was a terrifyingly mean joke,” I dared to say.
He just laughed, this time, it sounded almost amused. “We’re hostage takers, not saints, princess.”
I thought of Dad’s connections, which extended all the way to the White House. Help was probably on the way. “Aren’t you afraid that the Coast Guard will track you at sea?” I asked anyway.
The man continued eating. “Not if the transponders are turned off, besides, we’re merely a harmless fishing boat.”
“What are transponders?”
“Tracking devices. Never heard of Iranian ghost ships?”
“No.” I didn’t like his casual tone.
“Iranian ghost ships are gigantic tankers that try to evade regulations in American waters. They regularly turn off their transponders. They’re practically invisible.
” It sounded like he was smiling. “If such large ships manage to sail across the Atlantic undetected, it should be a piece of cake for our cutter.”
I swallowed hard and listened to him chew for a while.
Dad certainly wouldn’t think I was at sea.
When it comes to abductions, everyone automatically thinks of an underground dungeon or a remote cabin in the forest. No one had noticed where the taxi had taken me and Dad certainly wouldn’t be allowed to call the police.
On the other hand, Dad had other connections and he might not need the police at all.
He could hire hundreds of private specialists without their knowledge.
“Are you hungry?” the man above me asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“No,” I lied quickly as my stomach growled.