by Cala Riley
You can do this. You have gone through hell and survived. You faced death and laughed in his face. You are a tough bitch. All you have to do is make it out of here.
After I repeat my pep talk a couple of times, I resolve to pull open the door. I know there will be noise so I make a mental map of how we got in here. I didn’t see anyone before so I need to make it through without being detected.
After taking a couple of steading breaths, I yank the door open. There is another wood splintering sound, but I quickly close the door behind me and dart down the hall. My heart is racing in my chest. I can barely hear over how hard it is beating. I press my ear to the next door down the hall and I don’t hear anything. At least, I don’t think I do. My heart hasn’t slowed yet. I try the handle and its locked. I take a couple more breaths and try the next door. This time when I try the handle it opens. I push in and close it as quietly as possible behind me.
“What do we have here?”
There is a man standing in the room and I react before thinking. I pull my messed-up metal weapon and run towards him. It catches him off guard as he tries to stop my advance. Before he can stop me, I swing my arm up and jab several times towards his neck. I feel it meet its mark, but I am so erratic that I don’t even know what I hit. Did I hit his neck? His hand? The side of his head?
I don’t stop stabbing until he falls to the ground, taking me with him. I look down and see blood pouring from his neck and hand. He is still breathing, but barely as his eyes stare up at me.
“Sofia?”
I swing around ready to attack again before I realize who called out my name. Sitting there, side-by-side tied up on the floor is Izzy and Mia. Each are looking at me with wide eyes as their gaze flicks between myself and the man on the ground.
“What are you guys doing here?” I half yell in a panic.
“Shhhs.” Izzy scolds. “Check his pockets. He has to have a knife or something.”
I turn back to the man and kneel down into the pool of blood that has started to surround him. I start to feel into his pockets. The first pocket has keys and a wallet. I shove those in my waist band the second pocket has a pocket knife. I breath out a sigh of relief. I continue to search his other two pockets and find a cell phone. I feel around the waistband of his pants and find his gun. I pull it out and take it over to the girls.
“Turn around.”
They each move to turn around and I use the knife to cut them each free. They stand and rub their wrists and turn to me. I hand Izzy the gun while I wipe my hands on my pants. The blood wipes off, but my hands don’t come completely clean. As I stare at them, they start to shake.
I just killed someone.
“Sofia. Come here.”
Izzy pulls me over to Mia and all three of us hug.
“You did what you had to do. Stop thinking about it. We aren’t safe yet. Break down later. Right now, we need to get out of here.”
Izzy’s words calm me. She’s right. I need to focus.
“How did you get here?” I ask.
“In the trunk of a car of course. This time with Mia shoved in next to me. I don’t know what is up with these gangsters and the trunks of their cars but the next one who tries to shove me in one is going to die.”
I snort. Thank God she is able to keep her humor in this situation. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t make it. The panic of seeing them is replaces with relief. While I wish they weren’t sucked into this mess, I am glad that I am not in this alone.
We all pull back.
“What do we do next?” I ask.
“Well what did you see? You were out there?” Mia questions.
“Not much. I was being held two rooms down. I did see the way out when Luca brought me in.”
“Luca? You mean your body guard Luca?” Izzy is pissed.
“Yep. Seems he doesn’t feel Bash is his boss. He wouldn’t tell me who his boss was though.”
“Fucking asshole. He is going to die today. No one fucks with my girl and gets away with it.”
“Whoa. Chill Iz. We need to make it out first.” I pat her shoulder.
“We need weapons.” Mia draws my attention to her.
“We have a knife, a gun, and my metal shank I made.” I point to the metal piece still sticking out of the man’s neck.
“That’s a good start. Who is the best shot?” She looks to me.
“I am terrible at it. Don’t look at me.”
Izzy sighs.
“I am a pretty good shot.”
“Good. You get the gun. Sof, you take the knife and your weird metal shank.”
“What are you going to use?”
She smiles. “Let me borrow your knife.”
I watch as she takes off her bra. Izzy and I share a look. Mia has gone crazy. She takes the knife and uses it to cut the fabric around the underwire away on each side. She hands the knife back as she molds the underwire around her hand so that the two ends are pointing out. She does the same with the second underwire. She picks up the knife and starts to carve at the ends. Within minutes, the ends are now jagged and sharp.
“Wow, Mia. That is brilliant.”
She smiles and nods.
“Want me to do the same to yours?”
“I’m not wearing one. I was in bed.” I reply.
Izzy laughs when she looks to her.
“You know I rarely wear one. Look at my breasts. They are barely a handful.”
It was true. Izzy often times wore shirts that were baggier around the breasts. She was always a little self-conscious about it.
“Well then let’s go.” Mia says as she heads to the door.
I lean down and grab my shank and hold it in my hand while I have the knife open in the other hand. Mia keeps one of her handmade toys in her hand while she puts the other in her pants. I look over to Izzy and she shoves the gun in the back of her pants and gives me a nod.
I open the door a sliver and look out. I don’t see anyone so I open it a little bigger and stick my head out. I hear voices down the hall and shut it quickly and look to the girls.
“There’s someone at the end of the hall. The way we need to go. We can try the other way, but I don’t know where it goes. The hall splits off into two the other way. I know we are on the second floor so to get out we need to make it down to the first floor and find a way out. Once we get there, we will need to run a long way’s before we get to the trees. I don’t know what’s on the other side of it, but if we make it there, we might have a chance.”
“We can do this.” Mia gives a bright smile.
She is always the optimistic. I just hope we actually do make it.
I open the door again and still hear the voices. I slide out the door and make my way back towards my room. Once at the end of the hall, I turn and look back to make sure the girls are still with me. Once I see then, I quickly glance around the corner. One end side is a dead end. I pull back then quickly look out towards the other end. I smile when I see the stairs. I pull back.
“There’s stairs.” I whispered.
They each nod. I look back out again then head that way, walking as quickly and quietly as I can. Once at the top of the stairs, I inch my way down, my eyes constantly searching. After we reach the end, I see that we are in another large room. This time, the only light to guide us is coming from the hall above.
I reach hand back and grab Mia, who then reaches back and grabs Izzy. I angle my head towards the way I think we should go and they each nod. Then I start to head into the dark. The further we made it in, the darker it got. After a couple of minutes, my eyes adjust to the dark.
I keep walking until I hit a wall. I get closer to it and run my hand along it as I follow it down. About half way down, I feel a door. I put my ear to it, but I don’t hear anything. This door is steel instead of wood. I turn to Mia.
“I think this door goes outside.”
She nods and turns to repeat it to Izzy. She nods too. I take a couple of deep breaths and push through the door
. The rush of light surprises me and temporarily blinds me. I stumble through the door, Mia and Izzy behind me. I blink a couple of times and freeze. Instead of stepping outside, we stepped into a loading bay. While there is a huge opening in the wall, there are also about 10 men standing around smoking. At our appearance, each one pulled out their guns and held them up to us.
“Son of a bitch.” I hiss.
“What do we do?” I hear Mia whisper as the men start to crowd us in.
“I don’t know. We could try to fight them, but there are too many.”
“Keep your mouth shut, throw your weapons down, and get on the ground. Now!” One of the men hollers at us.
Izzy speaks up.
“Do as they say. Throw the weapons in your hand down. Get on the ground.”
She drops to the ground and laces her hands behind her head. Mia throws her bra shank down while I throw my own to the ground. Then we each mimic Izzy.
“Hope you know what you are doing.” I whisper to her.
I look over at her and she winks.
Once the men get to us, the same one orders us to get up. Then they walk us back through the door we came in. The man flips on a switch and I see that this is just a large empty room. He turns us to the left, away from the stairs we came down. We come to a door that opens into the room I walked through to get to the room I was kept in. The stairs are on my right while the empty tables are still lined up to the left.
At the end of the tables, there is a door I didn’t quite notice before. The men walk us right to it and one opens it while the others lead us through. Now, we are in the middle of a huge semi empty room with a desk and chair set up at the other end.
Behind the desk, I large, older Italian man sits and talks to a man whose back is to me. To the side, I see Luca standing guard, but as we walk closer his eyes meet mine. I see a panic and disappointment in them. His mouth is set in a stern line
“Oh good. The girls have joined us. Come closer.” The big Italian man says.
Once we are at the desk, I turn to look at the man sitting in the chair and I freeze.
Ryan
“Hello sweetie. It’s been a while. I am so glad to see you again.”
He gets up and walks to me. I flinch back when he hugs me and kisses my cheek. I feel tears prickle my eyes as my mind flashes back to our past.
I glance over at Luca and see confusion on his face. Did he really not know this was my ex? The same Ryan who beat me within an inch of my life?
“Ryan.” I choke out. “What are you doing here?” I play dumb.
“Looking for you, baby. You disappeared on me. I just love you so much and I know you love me too. I came to bring you home.”
I give a shaky smile.
“That was so sweet of you.”
“Now. You have your girl. You hold up your end of the bargain.” The man behind the desk demands.
“It’s already in motion. We have a mole inside his organization. By next week, they should have enough to take him down.”
“Well you can’t take her until we get what was agreed upon.”
Ryan slams his fist on the desk. “She is MINE. You will not keep her from me. You will get your position. If I am correct, he is on his way here now. If I were you, I would get out of here now before the FBI shows up.”
The man calmly stands.
“You better learn to watch your mouth, Pig. You might have brought me a deal I didn’t want to refuse, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change my mind. You are walking a thin wire with no net to catch you.”
Ryan scoffs. “Whatever. Just get out of here, I am going to wait until he gets here, then get Sofia and go.”
“What about the other girls?” Luca asks.
“Hopefully they get caught in the crossfire. If they don’t, then put two to the head and get out of here.”
Luca visibly recoils.
“We don’t hurt innocent women.”
“You really think they are innocent, Luca? You have seen them more than we have. They are intertwined with Bastiano’s crew. There is no way they are completely innocent.”
The man waves off Luca as he prepares to leave.
“You promised that Sofia wouldn’t be hurt.”
The man turns around and backs Luca against a wall.
“I said she would be safe if she complied. What do you think that is on her hands? It’s blood. I would say one of my men’s blood if I had to venture to guess. The other one, you told me yourself, acted as doctor for one of Bastiano’s men. The third one used to date Giovanni. Do you still think they are so innocent?”
My eyes volley between the scene before me and Ryan. I can’t lower my guard against him.
“Why would you hand her over to him? You promised me I could keep her.”
Ryan scoffs.
“You can’t keep what isn’t yours kid.”
Luca snarls at him. The older man pats him on the arm.
“We will find you someone better. Now enough questions. We need to go.”
Luca turns towards me and gives me a sad look. Then, out of nowhere he moves faster than I thought he could. He grabs the guard standing to the man’s right and stabs him in the side with a knife.
“Run, Sofia.”
I turn to move, but Ryan grabs me.
“I don’t think so darling. You are staying with me.”
I turn back just in time to see the older man pull a gun and put it in between Luca’s eyes before pulling. The next thing I know, Luca is laying on the ground and tears fill my eyes. He betrayed me and Bash, but in the end, he also tried to save me. He might have been wrong, but that last action redeemed him in a way. I really hope he finds peace on the other side for his poor, misguided heart.
“Danny, my son.” The older man is crying out as he tried to put pressure to the man’s wounds.
“I can help.” Mia speaks up. “As you said, I am a doctor. I could save him.”
I narrow my eyes at her. Why would she offer to save a man who is content with our deaths?
“Yes. Fine. Come quick.”
She rushes over to them as Ryan drags me to the other side of the room.
“DON’T YOU MOVE ANOTHER INCH.” The older man screams. “You are staying here. You can have her when it ends. Don’t disobey me again.”
Mia is working on the man in front of her as Ryan pulls me back to Izzy.
“Don’t worry.” He whispers. “I will get us out of here. Right after I put a bullet in that man’s head along with that fucker you have been slutting yourself around with. Oh yeah I know about him.”
The pressure his arm is putting on my arm is getting tighter and I yelp out.
“Shut up, you little whore. Stay still.”
I didn’t even realize I was angling away from him.
“What are you doing to my son?”
“Chill. I am checking to see if there is any internal bleeding.”
“You have your whole hand in him. Is that necessary?”
“Are you going to let me do my job?”
Another man pops in the door.
“We need to go. Now. Bring that one with us.” He points to Mia. “Those two as well. Go.”
His men move as he orders them. The next thing I know Mia is out the door with her patient, while several men are walking our way. Before anyone can react, a large explosion knocks us all down.
My vision blurs and there’s ringing in my ears. I look over towards Izzy and find her passed out.
What the fuck just happened?
Bastiano
“Everything in place?”
“Yep. We are sure this is the place. The guys already checked the other places. Fat Tony set the explosives outside the back wall. Hopefully that will distract them and allow us to sneak in that door there.”
He points to the door out front. We have been watching for a while and saw a car head towards the back.
“Let’s not wait any longer.”
Lo nod then gives a signal to Fat T
ony who is a little way’s up with the control.
Next thing I know, the warehouse explodes on the side. I pray that Sofia was nowhere near it. Once the building goes up, we run to the front of the building while Fat Tony runs to the back. Lo and I stop beside the door and nod to each other. Then Lo kicks the door in. My men rush in with us bringing up the rear. They fan out checking every area of the building. I follow Lo and head towards the end of the hall. Once there, I have to make the decision which way to go. Right leads to a door. To the left are stairs. Many of my men head up that way. Straight ahead there is a door as well. I imagine it leads to the back where the explosion was.
“Which way boss?”
I think over the options then trust my gut.
“Right.”
I turn and head towards the door. Right before I get there, it flies open. A man is standing there holding a knocked-out Isabella in his arms.
I point my gun at his head.
“Put her down.”
The man thinks over his options then shakes his head no as he attempts to back into the room. I don’t hesitate. I pull the trigger. Lo rushes forward as the bullet hits the man in the head and he starts to fall towards the ground. Thankfully, the man falls backward and cushions Isabella’s fall. Lo picks her up and rushes back towards me. I can see the war in his eyes. He wants to save Isabella
I stop one of my men walking by.
“I need you to take Isabella back to the house. Go straight there.”
He nods and takes her from Lo before nodding to his partner and heading out the front door together.
“Let’s go, Lo.”
I inch forward and look into the room. I see several bodies lining the floors. It looks as if someone had shot them all. One of the men I am surprised to see is Luca. I didn’t expect to see him lying there in a pool of his own blood. Anger rising within me. I wanted to be the one to kill him.
I push that aside as we clear the room. There is no one there. I hear gun fire from the back of the building and immediately turn and head towards it. Once I reach the door that was straight ahead, I poke my head though. To my right the building is burning. To my left I see a man dragging a woman by her hair.
