Page 30 of Forgotten Comeback (Parisi Family #5)
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Taylor
The car lurches to a stop, and the trunk pops open. Gavin lifts me and places me gently on the gravel. We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. It’s either sunrise or sunset; having lost track of time, I’m not sure which.
Gavin cuts off the restraints and rips the tape covering my mouth.
So many questions are swirling in my head, but what comes out of my mouth is simply, “Why?”
Gavin doesn’t answer, hustling to the trunk and lifting Kat, placing her on the gravel. He returns to the car, appearing again with my purse and Kat’s phone.
Both get tossed at us before he cuts Kat’s restraints. “See you around, ladies.” He hops in the car, kicking gravel behind it as he tears off.
“Let’s don’t and say we did!” I shriek as Kat tears off the piece of tape from her mouth.
Silently, she scrolls on her phone, bringing it to her ear. “Fabio, I’m okay.”
Who the hell is Fabio?
“Gavin let me and Taylor go, but I don’t know where we are.” There’s a pause. “Hold on, there’s an abandoned gas station up ahead.” Kat takes off running, and I trail along behind her.
See, I’m back to running, all thanks to Gavin fucking Web.
Reaching the defunct gas station, I unceremoniously take a seat on gravel, my chest heaving. Ah, so it is sunrise. The sky’s streaked with lovely shades of pink and orange, the stark abandoned gas station a jarring contrast. I snap a mental picture; the scene begging to be explored…
Wow, I haven’t had an artistic thought since, well, it’s been a while.
Kat takes a seat beside me, and I turn to her. “What the hell just happened?”
She wraps her arms around her legs. “I’m sorry you got dragged into the middle of this.”
“I’m still not sure what exactly this is.” Remembering I have no home to return to, I let out a strangled cry. “Oh my God, Gavin killed Dominic and blew up my house.”
“Hey, we’ve got to be careful talking about this in the open,” Kat says, looking around.
“How the hell are you so calm?” I wipe my nose on my shirt.
“One of us has to be. Yin/yang. Good cop/bad cop. Responsible friend/drunk friend getting us kicked out of brunch,” she tells me, and I let out a punch-drunk laugh.
A blacked-out SUV turns into the parking lot, and Kat rises, holding out her hand. Accepting a hand up, I dust the gravel from my ass.
The window rolls down, and a man in his thirties leans over a pretty teenager in the passenger seat. “Ladies, get in.”
I wake in a panic, sitting up so fast my head spins. Or is my head spinning from being drugged? Because pretty sure after we got to their beach house, Kat’s new husband Fabio slipped something in my drink before he interrogated me.
Her new capo husband. The boss of AC.
Kat’s cousin, Darius, is hooked up with the mob, but I always thought she wasn’t interested in that life. Boy, was I wrong.
And how does Gavin fit into this?
Other than eating my pussy and playing me for an idiot and kidnapping me and murdering Dominic and blowing up my house…
Fuuuuuck.
I’m spiraling. This is a spiral.
Grabbing my purse from the nightstand, I find my prescription bottles. Wait, I didn’t put them in my purse. Come to think of it, I was kidnapped without my purse, which means Gavin grabbed it for me, along with my meds.
A bitter laugh escapes my lips. How noble of my kidnapper to care about my mental health.
I open the correct bottle, popping the pill in my mouth before grabbing water from the nightstand. Tipping my head back, I swallow the pill and chase it with the water.
Getting up with a groan, I lift my sore arms over my head before trudging to the en suite bath. I take inventory in the mirror of all the bruises and red marks from being tossed like a ragdoll in the trunk of Gavin’s car.
Gavin.
My God, how did I misread the signs? I knew the man was a player, but it never crossed my mind that he was truly a psychopath!
After using the restroom and splashing some water on my face, I venture out in search of Kat. “Hey, there you are. Do you want coffee?” Kat asks, hopping down from the kitchen stool.
“Did your husband drug me?” I demand.
“Let me explain—”
“It’s a yes or no question.” I cut her off.
“Yes, I drugged you.” Fabio appears, dressed in an Italian suit and with an emotionless expression. “Sodium thiopental. More commonly known as truth serum.”
My skin prickles, and I fight the urge to run back to the guest room and slam and lock the door. Instead, I cross my arms and stand my ground. “And you see no problem with that?”
“My wife was kidnapped from your house; I had to make sure you weren’t involved. I apologize for my methods, but not for my motive. I will do whatever it takes to keep Katerina safe. Which now includes her not leaving the house without her security team.” He says the last part to Kat.
“No arguments from me,” Kat tells him.
“Will someone please tell me why Gavin kidnapped me and Kat?” I ask.
Fabio and Kat exchange something silently before he reaches into his suit jacket pocket. Producing a thick envelope, he tosses it on the counter.
I grab it and peek inside, my eyes going wide at the thick stack of hundreds. “What is this for?”
“You keeping your mouth shut,” he says coolly.
My eyes narrow to tiny slits. “So you’re buying my silence?”
“I could kill you, guaranteeing your silence.” It makes my blood run cold how this man speaks so casually of my death.
“Fabio,” Kat chides.
“But that would make my wife unhappy,” he concedes. “If investigators come calling, you were here at the beach house with Katerina and have no knowledge of the fire.”
“But it’s more than a fire,” I point out. “Dominic’s body was at my house.” And I don’t feel too bad about it; the man would’ve raped me, but for a certain psychopath…not that Gavin’s absolved of his crimes. “Or what’s left of his body…”
“The family will take care of everything,” Fabio says.
“What am I supposed to do? I have nowhere to go,” I say, hating the desperate edge to my voice.
“Stay at my condo until everything’s sorted,” Kat offers.
“What is everything?” I grit through my teeth.
Fabio taps the envelope. “That is everything you need to know.”
And with Kat’s nod of affirmation, that is everything I need to know.
My friend is part of the Parisi family, and I’m not.