Page 19

Chapter Eighteen

Sophia

I practically skip as we cross the street, my fingers linked with Angelo’s. I look up at the evening sky. It looks like snow, and I grin. I love snow.

“I love snow,” I say aloud to Angelo as we walk toward the park. “It snows in the UK, but it’s not the same. Mostly it’s just gloomy and damp all the time. My apartment always had mold in the winter.”

I shudder. There were many things I loved about my life in the UK, but the never-ending wetness wasn’t one of them.

“I’ve only been there a few times,” I tell her, allowing her to swing my arm a little as she skips along next to me. “But it seems nice. I like the pubs.”

She chuckles. “Pubs are cool, I agree,” she says with a nod. “I feel like they appeal more to tourists than locals, but they are fun to hang out in.”

“When you did this in the past,” I say to her, glancing over my shoulder to make sure I don’t see anything suspicious going on, “did you go with your mother and your father?”

She nods. “Yeah. My dad was more involved when I was little. I’m not sure what changed.”

Angelo pulls his phone of out his pocket and I can see that Franco has texted him before he tilts the phone away.

“Everything okay?” I ask. My voice sounds tense, even to my ears.

He shakes his head and pockets his phone. “No, sorry. Just answering some business texts.”

I roll my eyes. “You don’t even take any time off, do you?”

He looks at me askance as we approach the skating rink. “That makes you mad, doesn’t it?”

I admire the twinkling lights and the festive air in this area of the park. It’s just as magical as I remember it being.

“Not mad,” I say slowly. “It just brings up bad memories. Before we…left…my mom and my dad were always busy with the business, the family, the emergencies. I didn’t get to see them very much. That’s why our nights in the park, or the rare times that we traveled for fun were so special to me.”

“I’m sorry that your childhood was so…eventful,” he says to me.

I laugh loudly. “That’s one way to describe it,” I say with a shake of my head. “Come on, let’s get our skates.”

I drag him toward the counter where he pays for our skate rental and a locker for our shoes. We get our skates on and I happily glide out onto the ice, the muscle memory from years past helping me to make slow, looping circles with ease.

“Come on!” I call as I twirl around a bit awkwardly.

“I’m working on it,” he says to me. He steps up to the edge of the skating rink and hesitates. I turn sideways to stop myself and smile at him. He looks…uncertain, and it warms my heart.

“Come on, scaredy cat,” I tease. “Get out here.”

“If I break my neck, you are to blame,” he says to me, wagging a finger in my direction.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Hurry up!”

I watch as he gingerly steps onto the ice, losing his balance a little bit, and sliding over to the wall.

“Here,” I say. “Do it like this.”

I start coaching him about how to slide across the ice, and he starts to get more confident and finds his balance. My cheeks are pink from the cold and the grin on my face practically hurts it’s so wide. I didn’t realize how much I had missed having fun like this. I feel lighter, happier, than I have felt in years.

“See? It’s fun!” I exclaim, doing a little swirl and then skating away from him for a moment.

“Come out here and dance with me!” I call to him as I skate backward and forward in the middle of the rink.

“Ummm,” he says hesitantly. He barely dodges some other skaters, apologizing as he stumbles his way out to me. “Easier said than done,” he grumbles as he draws close to me.

“Sure,” I say, taking his gloved hands and spinning us slowly around as I take the lead. “But worth it.”

We skate in lazy circles, his balance growing more certain as he allows me to take the lead. I love this about him, that he lets me be in charge when it’s only fair that I should be. I appreciate that he doesn’t try to tell me what to do, or who to be. It’s special, to be seen and treated like a complete human being. So few people in our lifestyle allow their wives or daughters to have any say in what happens to them.

“This was a good idea,” he says to me, his voice low and intimate.

I look up at him, and find that he’s gazing down at me with lust-hazed eyes. I lean a little closer and stretch up to kiss his lips. I already feel the hunger tugging at me, pulling in my belly despite the cold.

“Thank you for indulging me,” I say back as I draw away. I can tell we aren’t going to spend much more time skating. He clearly has other things on his mind and I’m not interested in arguing. Besides, we really shouldn’t stay out without a guard for long. I know it’s not safe, and I don’t want something bad to happen to us just because I wanted to feel free for a moment.

“You know what would make this little ‘honeymoon’ complete?” I inquire, my head tilted to the side.

A little smile tucks into the corner of his full mouth. “Nope, but you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”

I giggle. “Hot chocolate. To go.” I lean up and kiss him again, this time with more intensity, offering a promise of what is to come when we get back to the penthouse.

“Your wish is my command,” he says to me with a silly bow that almost makes him fall on his face on the ice. I help catch him with a laugh, and then pilot us toward the edge of the rink to collect our shoes and turn in our skates.

We get changed back into our shoes, and then wander through the park toward the collection of food vendors that have taken up residence not far from the skating rink. One of them offers a variety of hot chocolate, and we of course choose this food stand for our order.

“Mm, spicy,” I say with my eyes closed, taking the first sip of my spicy cinnamon hot chocolate.

He sticks out his tongue. “Ick. I can’t believe anyone likes cinnamon.”

I shake my head at him deploringly. “You yanks and your horrible tastebuds,” I say in my best, posh British accent.

He smiles at me. “Hey, you guys eat all kinds of boiled potatoes and stuff. Gross.”

I giggle in reply, then pass him my hot chocolate. “I need to pee,” I tell him apologetically. I feel like this must be part of my early pregnancy woes. When I’m not barfing my guts out, I’m peeing a hundred times a day.

He frowns a little. “I’ll come over there with you. I don’t want you to walk all by yourself through the park.”

I sigh and put my hands on my hips. “The public restrooms are just over there,” I say, pointing to the small building that’s just beyond the food trucks. “Don’t baby me. I’ll be right back.”

I turn, my scarf flying, and hurry toward the bathroom. It isn’t very far away, and I also really don’t want to pee myself in the middle of the park.

I hustle into the relative warmth of the bathroom and pee, then wash my hands with the freezing water coming out of the tap. I go to push back through the door I used to come in, but realize that it only opens one way. Rolling my eyes, I walk to the other end of the building and push open the “out” door. I step around the door and start to head back around the building, when a hand clamps down over my mouth.

I instantly start struggling, trying to make noise, trying to get free. This was a mistake, I see that now. I should never have convinced Angelo to come out here into the park without the guards. I was a fool.

I bite at the hand holding my face, but the person who grabbed me is wearing gloves. They are also quite large, and I am finding that I can barely move in their grip, let alone get any effective blows in that might free me.

“Stop struggling, little dove,” a voice hisses in my ear, and I freeze.

Little dove . My father called me that. No one but my mother knows that this was what he always called me…except for…my heart turns to ice in my chest. Guiseppe.

I feel a hardness pressed against my side and I realize that he probably has a gun in his pocket. Resentment twists in my gut. He’s like some kind of fictional mobster. He makes sure to use all the moves that you’d see in something like Peaky Blinders . But apparently, those moves work, if my current situation is any indication.

“Don’t fight me,” he hisses in my ear. “I don’t actually give a shit about you, or your claim to your father’s power. I want to kill Angelo, and you will lead him right to me. You’re the perfect bait, little dove. How stupid of you to think that I don’t have my men following you both at all times.”

I want to say so much to him. Poisonous thoughts tumble through my brain and I wish that I could scald him with the violence of my anger like a hot kettle on bare skin. To think that this man watched me grow up, was my father’s right-hand man, and yet doesn’t care about my existence at all.

He starts rummaging through my pockets, and finds my phone. He drags it awkwardly out of my pocket with one hand and I hear the screen smash as he stomps on it. I want to cry with frustration. Angelo and I had talked about getting bracelets that looked like real jewelry but had tracking devices in them. I had reluctantly agreed to wear one, but he hadn’t pressed me on the topic. Now I felt like a damn fool for not immediately putting one on.

“We are going to back away from here now, so that lover boy doesn’t see us leaving.” He tugs on me, forcing me to back up. I start to struggle again, and he grips my face more tightly, causing me to squeak in pain. I taste blood on my tongue.

“I hear congratulations are on order,” Guiseppe says to me, his lips touching my ear. I shudder with revulsion. “Married so quickly. It must be true love.”

I try to throw my elbow back into him, but he pinches my face so hard that my eyes water.

“Remember that I don’t care what condition you are in while you are in my care, dove. I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to make your stay with me comfortable.”

I feel a twinge of nausea and I suddenly remember that I’m not alone anymore. My heart clenches in my chest. The baby . I relax in his grip, allowing him to drag me through the tree-lined park planters toward the street. My moment for a surprise escape is long over, and anything that I do now to thwart him could hurt the baby.

Angelo! I think, wishing that I could connect with him telepathically. Please come looking for me. Please come to see if I’m okay.

I strain my eyes to see if he has come toward the bathrooms, but it’s getting hard to see the little building through the vegetation all around us. I finally lose sight of the bathroom structure and my heart sinks.

Guiseppe hustles me into a black SUV and the driver immediately takes off. He pulls the gun from his pocket and points it at me.

“Don’t try anything foolish,” he orders me. “Not if you want to get out of this in one piece. You will see that I can be merciful. I have a plan that will allow you both to be together…so long as you meet my demands. It would be a shame for you to be disfigured because you fought against my good will so hard.”

I look at him with disgust. He’s still handsome, in a dissipated way. I remember a couple of the other girls that I grew up with thought he was dreamy and it makes me feel sick. There’s something utterly terrible about the face of evil being beautiful. I’m glad that he’s starting to age enough to make his outward appearance a fair warning for his inner ugliness.

I try to keep track of where we are going, but suddenly, someone leans over the backseat and yanks a sack over my head. It smells strongly of cologne and I gag immediately. My stomach roils with pregnancy nausea and I try not to breathe through my nose.

Pay attention to sounds and feel the turns of the car , my mother and father had told me when I was little. At the time, I had thought that they were being worrywarts. Who would kidnap me with our large security details, bulletproof vehicles, and fenced compounds? Now, however, I was grateful for the advice that they had drilled into me during my childhood. It was coming in handy now as I tried to ignore my raging nausea and pay attention to where we were going.

I thought that we might be heading toward the port. The direction of each turn was correct and despite the heavy cologne smell from the bag over my head, I caught a strong whiff of fishy sewage at one point when someone in the car rolled down the window to throw out a cigarette.

I tried to remember where Guiseppe’s holdings were at the port, then my blood ran cold in my veins. What if he was going to put me on a ship? What if he was going to take me somewhere else? I knew that Angelo was exploring rumors that Guiseppe was involved in human trafficking. If that were true, he could send me anywhere and I wouldn’t be able to escape.

I fight against my panic, willing myself not to freak out yet. Angelo would probably have noticed I had vanished by now. He couldn’t be far away.

I will keep you safe, little one , I think to the tiny life nestled inside my body. I feel tears prickle at the corners of my eyes. I needed to think of both of us and I needed to make a plan as quickly as possible.