Page 30

Bella

The car I’m in smells of alcohol breath, sweat and several types of musky cologne that don’t mask any of the other stenches. Dawn is rising outside, fast, turning greyness to light, but there is no light in my heart or my thoughts.

My mind is racing, remembering the last time I was shoved into a car against my will and taken away from Blade. Not knowing what happened to him. Not knowing if he was alive or dead. Not knowing how to save him.

History is repeating itself.

He’s in a different car. I’m stuck in here with Dante and two of his guys.

He’s talking to me, but I don’t hear a word he’s saying.

Because I’m not here, I’m in a car with my brothers and father after they’d just beat up Blade to get him away from me.

I fought them off and jumped out of the car, so in my mind, I’m now running up a hill, trying to find a phone to get help for Blade.

But then I’m in a car with a stranger who pretended to be a friend and then I’m chained up in a dank dark basement, face to face with death and everything is dark.

Darker than any night. But then I’m free and nothing is the same, everything is wrong.

People I love are dead, people I love hate me.

I was saved from that nightmare. I survived it.

And here I am again. Back at the start of it.

“Is she simple or something?” Dante’s goon asks from the front seat. He’s turned around, the suit he’s wearing stretching across his bulging shoulders and arms, looking at me like I’m a freak.

And I am a freak. Just not the kind he’s thinking.

I tug on the door handle and to my surprise the door actually opens. But we’re going like a hundred miles an hour, I’d never survive the jump. Nevertheless, it’s Dante’s firm grip on my arm that prevents me from tumbling out of the car.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dante asks, panting as he pins me under his huge, heavy body so he can close the door.

Him, the driver and the goon all look scared as shit once he finally manages to do it.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I snap at Dante. “What use do you have for me? I don’t want you. I never did and I never will.”

Dante laughs, his cronies join in. But they still look and sound a little scared.

“You never did understand your limitations, Bella. You always were stuck up and acted superior to everyone,” Dante says. “A bitch, in other words. But I’m gonna teach you humility. Someone’s gotta.”

“Yeah, I’d like to see you try,” I say and lean back in my seat, crossing my arms over my chest.

That makes all of them laugh again. I hate having these men laugh at me, just like I always hated it when my father and brothers used to do it.

“I’ll do what you want if you let Blade go and leave Rogue Angels MC alone,” I say. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want, huh?” Dante has a sick, evil glint in his dark eyes.

I don’t even have to know what he’s thinking to know he’s imagining making me suffer in ways normal people can’t even think of.

But whatever it is, he’s wrong. The worst torture I can think of is putting Blade and all my old friends in danger. Again.

“Yeah, whatever,” I say.

Truth is, I’ve died inside a bunch of times already.

In that dark basement, on the streets of New York, in prison.

If it weren’t for my art, I’d just be a shell of my former self.

And if it weren’t for Blade coming back to me, showing me I’m still worth loving…

well, then I wouldn’t feel a damn thing anymore.

“You can’t, boss,” the big guy in the front seat says, sounding like a little kid. “You promised the dudes from Hydra.”

Dante cringes and mutters at him to shut up.

“Promised them what?” I ask, but I get no answer.

I ask it again and again, to the same result.

And I’m not gonna get my answer. We’re passing through the gates of the Moretti Mansion. The garden is overgrown and looks like something from a children’s storybook meant to scare. The grey walled four story mansion they live in is no better. Something way worse than evil witches live here.

Evil men. Who think they have the right to take whatever they want.

The other cars arrived before us. And I see just a shadow of Blade as he’s dragged into the house via a side door. My brother is there, slamming the door after them.

I never hated my brother Matteo. I couldn’t. He was always good and nice to me.

But at this moment I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my life. More than I hate all of them combined. He betrayed me to Moretti. All I wanted was to talk to him, reconnect, ask for me and mine to be left in peace.

And this is his answer?

I should’ve known.

I know fighting and screaming is useless, but I do it anyway. It takes three of Dante’s cronies to carry me into the house and up the stairs to a dark, cold bedroom.

I screamed and ranted, but not to get my way. I never get that anyway. I did it because it might be the last time anyone’s ever gonna hear my voice.