I attempted to take the phone in my hand, but he swatted my hands away, holding the phone to my ear. “D-d-dad?” I shivered, unable to help my chattering.
“Sofia, are you okay?” His voice was wrought with concern, making my chest constrict with the desire to run into the safety of his arms.
“Yes-s-s-s, but I l-l-lost my n-n-necklace, I’m s-s-so s-s-sorry.”
Sal yanked the phone away from me, narrowing his eyes as he studied the angry red mark on my neck. I could imagine he was wondering if it had been there before and whether it had been pulled off when he transported me or if I was trying to pull a stunt.
“That’s enough,” he spat into the phone. “Your daughter is a little cold right now. You’re going to want to follow my instructions or this could go very badly for her. I’ll send you instructions on where to find her, but only once I’m safely out of the country. You lay a hand on me until then, and she’s dead.” He ended the call, his eyes gleaming with victory. Without another glance at me, he left the freezer, slamming the door behind him.
Until he left the country? How long would that take?
I wasn’t sure how I’d manage an hour, let alone a full day or more.
Unable to lean against the cold wall, I curled into a seated ball, my arms hugging my legs to my chest as best as I could without the zip ties cutting off circulation to my hands. The room was eerily silent once my frantic thoughts finally calmed. Maybe it was good that I couldn’t hear a compressor pumping in more cold air, but it was hard to see any bright side to my situation. If watching a pot until water boiled slowed time, sitting trapped in a meat locker made it positively endless. It was just me and each of my frozen breaths puffing out in little while clouds.
Okay, Sofia, not helping.
I shook myself mentally and struggled to my feet before hopping over to the door to verify the lunatic had indeed locked me in. The heavy metal wouldn’t budge. Though it had been a long shot, it was worth checking. Trying not to be discouraged, I reminded myself to keep moving. My dad would find me, and I needed to be alive when he did.
I hopped for a bit, but the zip ties began to cut painfully into my ankles, so I resorted to closed-leg squats and yoga sun salutations. I alternated sessions, doing fifty of one exercise, then resting for a bit. When my teeth began to chatter again, I’d get up and do fifty of the other movement.
Over and over.
For what had to be hours.
Sal never came back, and the room never got any warmer.
It was impossible not to let the shred of hope I’d been cultivating slip through my frozen fingers. Fear was insidious—like a cockroach, it was impossible to kill and thrived in the worst conditions. The what-ifs played endlessly on shuffle in my head, a twisted soundtrack of questions and doubt.
The stabbing pangs of hunger were the final straw. I hadn’t cried since I’d been there—I’d teared up, but never allowed myself to fully let go. After doing hundreds, if not thousands, of exercises and sitting through yet another round of painful shivering just to add hunger to the mix, I finally broke.
I lay my head down on my arms, legs pulled to my chin, and I sobbed.
I cried until my ribs ached and my throat burned from the heaving sobs. As the tears began to dry on my numb cheeks, a bone-deep exhaustion crept over me like I’d pulled an all-nighter studying or taken a slug of cough syrup. It was probably a bad idea to sit still for long, but I was so incredibly tired.
If I just rest my eyes for a few minutes, maybe the time will pass faster. Maybe by the time I wake up, Daddy will be here to rescue me.
It was just too tempting. The discomfort and fear were such a drain, and the promise of sleep’s oblivion too enticing to ignore.
Just a few minutes…
They say fate was fickle, but time was just as unpredictable. What seemed like a few minutes could be hours, and what was supposed to be days might feel like minutes. I had no idea how long I dozed, but it had been long enough. When I roused from sleep, I felt excruciating stiffness in all my joints, frozen in place while my muscles trembled uncontrollably.
I needed to get up and move—to get my blood pumping through my body—but I couldn’t even get to my feet. Repeatedly I tried, only to lose my balance or have my body cave under the pressure.
How long had it been? Would my dad come through that door any minute, or was my rescue still hours away?
I’d never make it.
I was so cold, and I couldn’t imagine I’d ever be warm again. More tears threatened, but I was too tired for sobbing. All I could do was lay on my side, my hair the only barrier between me and the frosty concrete. My top shoulder rocked me, just an inch or so of motion, back and forth. It was soothing, like being in someone’s arms.
Nico’s arms.
I’d only just got him back. Would I ever get to feel those strong arms wrapped around me again?
All those years, the only place I could see him was in my dreams. I became proficient at designing and manipulating my dreams to keep Nico in my life. I had known it wasn’t healthy, but I didn’t care. It was the only way I could have him, so I took what I could get. If sleep would give me a reprieve from the misery of my situation, then that was what I would do.
I closed my eyes and escaped into my dreams.
Chapter 25
Nico
Now
“What do you mean she’s in danger?” I shot back at Enzo. Terror narrowed my focus to the sound of his voice, everything else fading into oblivion.
“Sal has her. I’m not sure what shape she’s in, but she could hardly talk she was shivering so badly. I don’t think we have long. He’s demanding we allow him to leave the country—says he’ll give us her location once he’s free. I’m gathering as many guys as we can to start looking for her in the meantime.” His tension was audible in the tight strain of his voice.
“You talked to her?”
“Only briefly. She mentioned losing her necklace, but I have no idea what she meant. I’m not sure if she was out of it or trying to tell me something—that mean anything to you?”
Her necklace—Paris. Sal wanted out of the country, so she wasn’t in Paris. When I’d given her the necklace, she’d told me she would be happy staying on Staten Island as long as we were together. “She’s on Staten Island.”
His deep exhale made a whooshing sound across the line. “Okay, that’s good. It’ll help narrow the search. We already had guys watching his house, so we know he’s not there. I don’t know where he’s hiding, but we’ll find him.”
“Let me know if you hear anything else.”
“I’ll check back with you shortly.” The line went dead, and I stared at my phone in desperation. How the hell were we supposed to find her in a city of millions? “You hear the conversation?” I asked Michael.
“Yeah, you have any inkling where he might be hiding?”
“I can’t imagine he’d be holed up anywhere near our people.”
“Where else would he be on the island? You Italians practically run the place.”
What he said was true. Staten Island was predominantly populated with Italians—not necessarily mafia related, but Italians, nonetheless. We bred like rabbits. It was hard to run into someone who didn’t know you in a roundabout fashion.
Think, think, think.
Enzo said she didn’t have long. I need to figure out where she is and do it fast.
“He said she was shivering so bad she couldn’t talk,” I mused, thinking out loud. “So maybe she’s being kept in a fridge or freezer.”
“What, like at a grocer or a butcher?”
“Something like that, but who knows where.” I searched the street helplessly, frustration and despair attempting to put a stranglehold on me. “Fuck,” I hissed, trying to keep from crushing my phone in my clenched fist.
“Grocers tend to be larger operations—more employees and complications. My money is on a butcher. I say unless we have a better plan, we just start checking butc
hers. We can start on the north end of the Island and work our way south.”
“Works for me,” I muttered. “I have nothing better to suggest, and I don’t want to just sit on my ass doing nothing.”
“Let’s go. I’ll drive.” He turned and sped down the sidewalk, making me jog to catch up.
We drove from Manhattan through Jersey, then started at Ranchers Best Meat not far from the Bayonne Bridge. When that was a bust, we hit the Elm Park and Tompkinsville butchers without any luck.
“Google shows one in West Brighton, so we can hit that next. Head toward the zoo,” I instructed without taking my eyes from Google maps.
“That one’s closed.”
“Maybe that’s the perfect place to check then.”
“I can’t imagine Sal would have dared use the shop. It was bratva owned, located in the largest Russian community in all of Staten Island,” Michael explained.
We were both quiet for a moment. Then our eyes met at the same time, and I could see his thoughts had taken him to the same place as mine. It was possibly the one place on the island that the Italians wouldn’t dare look for Sal, which made it the perfect hideout—so long as the Russians didn’t figure it out.
“I assume you have my back on this,” I noted. “In any other circumstance, I’d need to set something up with Biba before I could go snooping on Russian property.”
“You’re with me, so there’s no problem. And I wouldn’t turn my back on you. It would be the same as turning my back on Sofia. Not gonna happen.”
Michael tested the limits of his car, weaving in and out of traffic. While he drove, I let Enzo know what we’d been up to. He hadn’t heard anything from Sal, and in this case, no news was not good news. We parked two doors down from the butcher shop and decided I’d take the front while Michael went around back. I waited out front while Michael used his lock-picking skills to get in. I tried not to get my hopes up, knowing how slim our chances were. I figured at least the venture kept me occupied and allowed me to feel like I was doing something to help.
After a minute or so, the front door opened, and Michael ushered me inside, a gun already in hand. As soon as I was off the street, I followed suit and took out my weapon. Aside from the meat having been removed, the place looked otherwise untouched.
“There’s a stairwell by the back door to what I assume is an apartment upstairs,” Michael whispered as we made our way behind the front counter.
When we soundlessly passed through the swinging door into the prep room, we both turned to one another. The air inside was noticeably warmer from the air compressor, and there was rope wrapped between the freezer handle and a pipe parallel to the door. I rushed to the door, untying the rope and pulling it open while Michael covered my back.
A gust of cool air met me, along with the sight of tiny Sofia, curled into a ball on the floor. I rushed to where she lay, my heart in my throat at the sight of her blue lips and ghostly white skin. “Sof, wake up!” I rubbed her cool arms, cursing and pleading for her to show me signs of life. I forced myself to remain still just long enough to watch her and see the small movement at the pulse point on her neck.
She was alive.
Thank Christ.
“Is she alive?” hissed Michael, edging in from the door.
“Stay outside that door. I don’t want us all trapped in here. She’s breathing, but we gotta get her warmed up.” The air wasn’t actually as cold as I’d feared, but her prolonged exposure to it had her core temperature dangerously low. I carefully lifted her in my arms, but before I could take a step, a sound came from somewhere inside the shop.
My eyes met Michael’s, and a silent communication passed between us—I would keep Sofia safe; he would handle whatever was up front. I carried her out of the freezer but stayed in the prep room while Michael quietly snuck out to the front counter.
Seconds later, gunfire rang out in the small shop—a series of rapid shots shattering the quiet around us. I dropped to a squat, holding Sofia tight to my chest, my back turned to the entry. The exchange only lasted a matter of seconds, then the room fell back into silence.
“Fuck!” Michael barked in an angry yell. “You can come out, Nico. He’s gone.”
I rose to my feet, then peeked out the front, doing my best to keep my gun out while still holding Sofia. Michael was leaned against the side wall, hunched over, and blood was spreading out from a gunshot wound in his thigh.
“I can’t believe I fucking let him get away,” he bit out, slamming his fist against the wall. “Must have been the stairs creaking that we heard. I caught him just as he came around the corner, but I didn’t expect him to be armed. We both shot, and he took off. I got him in the shoulder but couldn’t chase after him.”
“We can’t worry about that now. Sofia needs to get warm, and you need a doctor. Can you get to the car, or should I call an ambulance?”
“Let’s get her home first. I’ll be fine once I tie it off.” He pulled off his belt, then cinched it around his upper thigh.
“Lean on my shoulder.” I opened the front door, holding it open as the two of us fumbled our way outside. Once he was in the back seat, I set Sofia in his arms, then drove like a bat out of hell toward Enzo’s place. I gave him a heads-up we were on our way, and he put a call in for the family doctor to meet us at the house. If at all possible, we avoided going to a hospital. They kept records and asked questions, and we weren’t a fan of either of those things. While Sofia could be treated at home, Michael’s injury would likely involve surgery, and thus, a trip to the hospital.
When we arrived at the house, one of our guys was waiting and ready to get Michael the medical attention he needed. I gave his hand a firm shake, assuring him I’d send updates about Sofia. He wasn’t crazy about leaving, but I told him he’d only hurt her if he bled to death rescuing her. He called me some choice names but begrudgingly agreed to go.
As soon as we were inside, I asked Enzo if we could use his master bathtub. Carlotta led me to the bathroom where she helped me start a bath and undress Sofia. As we removed her clothes, she began to shiver, tremors shaking her entire body.
“Take care of my baby,” Carlotta choked out, her face lined with worry.
“She’ll be fine as soon as we get her warmed up, and the best way to do that is in the bath. Water conducts heat far better than air,” I said, my words meant to reassure me just as much as her.
She nodded, then quietly let herself out of the room. I quickly undressed and carried Sofia into the warm bath. The water felt almost cool to me, but we didn’t want it too warm so that it hurt her already traumatized body. As I eased us into the water, she let out a small whimper. My heart soared at hearing her show any sign of life, even if it sounded pained. I positioned her back against my front, laid her head back on my chest, and held her close.
Seeing her so weak and fragile, I would have given anything to help her, my life included. Ending things between us had nearly killed me, but at least I’d known she was alive and well. I wasn’t sure how I would survive if I lost her for good.
“Come on, Ladybug. Come back to me,” I crooned in her ear. “I just got you back; don’t leave me now.”
For a half hour, I worked on warming her body. I would let out some of the water, then add back in warmer water to reheat the bath. Slowly, her tremors eased as her seizing muscles warmed and relaxed, but she never woke. Eventually, I lifted her from the water, slipping on the robes Carlotta had left for us, then carried her up to her bedroom.
Her mother had used an electric blanket to warm her bed, so when I removed Sofia’s robe and placed her beneath the sheets, she curled up peacefully and slept. I was going to sweat to death, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t ready to leave her. I crawled in beside her, wrapping my body around hers in a cocoon of warmth.
Chapter 26
Sofia
Now
I woke from a muddled dream when I tried to roll over and was met with a sharp stinging in my hand. A peek through squi
nted eyes told me I had an IV in my hand. Why did I have an IV?
“Easy, Sofia,” Nico said from behind me. He had been propped against the headboard while I slept and was now scouring my face, but I wasn’t sure for what.
I pulled myself up to a sitting position, making my entire body ache. The sensation brought back the memories of lying cold on the freezer floor, feeling like I’d never be warm again. At the recollection, my entire body shuddered.
“It’s okay, Ladybug. You’re home now.” He pulled me over to gently kiss my temple.
“Oh, Sofia! Enzo! Sofia’s awake!” my mother called from the doorway. Hand to her chest, she hurried to my bedside as tears pooled in her eyes. She sat beside me and cautiously wrapped her arms around me, careful not to tug on the IV tube. “My sweet Sofia, you had me so worried.”
I held my mom as tight as I could without straining my aching muscles and gave a tight smile to my dad as he entered my bedroom. “Hey, Daddy.”
He stepped close and placed a kiss on the top of my head. “Hey, Princess. It’s good to see you awake.”
Nico started to stand, but I took his hand and held him securely in place. “How long was I out?”
“Fourteen hours since Nico brought you home.”
“Nico?” I turned to him in surprise. “How did you find me?” I sputtered, curious at everything I’d missed.
My mom stood, patting my hand. “You guys talk. I’m going to put on some soup for you.” She left the room, and my dad took her place on the edge of the bed.
“Nico figured out your clue about being on Staten Island,” my dad explained. “The rest was a little bit of luck and persistence. He had the help of a Russian man who I’m told is a friend of yours.” He arched a brow at me. “Apparently, we have a lot to talk about when you’re feeling better.”
There was only one Russian Nico possibly could have been working with. I didn’t know how they did it, but the two had gotten together and rescued me—just in time, if my aching body was any judge. I was glad to be alive, but it meant my father now knew my deepest secret.
Never Truth Amazon Page 19
