Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
His smirk is straight out of hell. “Who said I was going to touch you? There are much better ways I can force you to walk the same steps as your best friend, and there isn’t a single fucking thing the Carusos can do about it.”
His chin barely jerks when something sharp jabs into my neck. It didn’t come from the jeweler. He’s passed out cold on the floor with lifeless eyes.
Gasping, I spin around and throw my palm into the nose of the brute who stuck a needle in my neck. Blood gushes out of his nose, but before I can pull his head down to knee him in the face, my legs go numb and buckle beneath me.
Through the haze, I see Dante charging across the street. He draws his gun and fires at the window of the jewelry store, but the bullets ricochet off the glass.
He screams my name as I’m dragged behind the counter by my hair, and then everything goes dark.
Something sharp and chemical burns under my nose, forcing my lungs to seize and my eyes to water. I jerk awake with a gasp but can’t rub the sting away. My wrists and ankles are bound to a large, rickety chair, and something tight and scratchy is curled around my breasts.
It’s unnecessary for me to open my eyes to drink in my surroundings. I can’t close them. My reflection on a large projector screen announces that they’re held open by metal prongs that eye doctors use during surgery.
My lashes twitch uselessly against the cold metal as panic claws up my throat. Although the sun peeks through dark blackout curtains, the room I’m in is dark. Black sheets hide artifacts that might reveal my location to whoever is watching the livestream a masked man is recording.
I try to warn Antonio that he will regret this. Matteo will burn the world down to find me. But before I can form a word through my scratchy throat, something is shoved between my teeth.
A thick gag deeply lodges in my throat, almost asphyxiating me.
I stop working my throat to bring it forward when Antonio’s silhouette blocks the projector screen.
“What’s the matter, princess? Accommodation not up to your standards?” He snickers evilly when I glare at him. “You always were dramatic.”
I continue to glare at him, unable to blink or look away.
He crouches low, then shuffles in. “You want the truth? Fine. I’ll give you the truth.”
With one snap of his fingers, someone places headphones over my ears, and the projector switches from footage of my captivity to a scene my mother forbade me to attend.
Maybe she knew something I didn’t.
A professional did not take the footage from Hattie’s wedding. It’s too shaky from a handheld device. Hattie is glowing in a way that hurts my heart. She looks so beautiful and happy. This is the Hattie I remember.
Seconds into the footage making me weepy-eyed, the music abruptly shifts. It changes from the soft serenade of a string quartet to a heavy rock ballad that rattles my bones.
I wish a poor choice in music was the worst of it.
It isn’t.
Far from it.
The footage also changes to match the vibe of the music, and the death metal singer’s growl can’t mask the screams that arrive with it.
Hattie is crying, being hit and held down by several men.
I try to look away when one man rips off her underwear and stuffs them into her mouth to muffle her screams, but I can’t. Not only are the prongs holding my eyes open, but my skull is locked into place as ruefully as my ankles and wrists.
As my best friend’s screams for help rip through my ears, tears spill down my cheeks, blurring the edges of the screen.
The footage is horrific. They literally tear her to shreds, and not a single one of the many spectators comes to her aid. They watch while stroking themselves through their clothes, before they inevitably remove the dicks from their trousers to stain the floorboards around her with the evidence of their enjoyment.
I choke on the gag when no number of tears hides how badly they brutalize Hattie’s body and soul. In minutes, she stops fighting and stares at the person capturing a woman’s worst fear in the flesh. I can’t hear what she says to him. My pulse is too loud. But whatever he replies shatters the last of Hattie’s soul.
Quicker than I can snap my fingers, the life in her eyes vanishes, and she is tossed from man to man to man like a rag doll.
My lungs finally answer the pleas of my head when the footage cuts again. They don’t take in air for long. Hattie is on the roof. Alone. She wears the same nightgown from the footage where they treated her worse than an animal. It’s ripped and hanging off her frame, and her steps wobble as if she’s drunk.