by Bella King
I spun around to see him standing in a suit very much like the one he had been previously wearing. He looked as handsome as ever, and even more relaxed in his mannerism than when we had first met, if that was even possible.
I nodded. “It’s beautiful,” I said.
“Yes, just like its wearer. Beautiful,” he noted with a sly grin. “Now, if you’ll join me in the garden, I would like to see the roses before sunset.”
“Okay,” I said, realizing that his eyes matched my dress almost perfectly. Perhaps that was a coincidence, but around Caleb, there seemed to be a suspiciously high amount of those.
Caleb held his arm out at the elbow for me to take. I accepted it, letting him guide me out of the room and down the hallway. We didn’t go to the front door, instead, heading to the rear of the house where the rose garden was located. I was informed this was one of many.
We exited the house barefoot, but the grass was so well kept that I couldn’t even feel the soil beneath it. I was walking on a soft padding of green, the evening air full of rose scent and the light of the sun golden on the leaves of the bushes.
I was floored by the variety. Not only were there a splendid amount of rose bushes, but there were also so many kinds, more than I had ever seen before. There were even some that I wasn’t familiar with, and I made it a point to be. Horticulture was a hobby of mine, but the police academy took precedence over pursuing any kind of degree in it.
“You must know more about these wonderful plants than I do,” Caleb said, seeing how wide my eyes were at the sight of them.
I nodded. “They smell amazing.”
“That’s true. Most of them are in full bloom now, but there are a few that will show their true colors in about a month from now,” Caleb said, but I hardly heard him.
I was captivated by the sights and smells before me. I left his side, stepping toward a large bush full of bright red roses. The thorns were like daggers sticking out from the stems, but the roses themselves were pure silken beauty. I enjoyed the duality of roses. They reminded me a bit of myself, as egotistical as that was.
I think people are drawn to reflections of themselves. We like to muse that God created us in his image, but it was my understanding that we operated in much the same way. Everything we valued was what we saw in ourselves, or even more so, what we wanted to see.
I loved roses, not only for their beauty and smell, but also for how they reminded me of what I had set out to be. I was a small blonde woman, seemingly innocent to the world, but on the job, I was running down hardened criminals and putting myself in the face of danger almost daily. I was as much of a rose as I was its thorns.
Looking back at Caleb, I noted that he wasn’t so much different than I. Sure, we had taken vastly different paths in life, but he was a handsome man on the surface, his poisoned thorns tucked somewhere beneath the surface. I hadn’t yet experienced them, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t pull them out and prick me if I tested my luck.
That said, I felt no urge to take off across the property. It wasn’t even out of fear that I didn’t run. I was in Italy, blessed by the presence of a thousand perfect roses in the afternoon sun. I didn’t want to leave such a beautiful sight so soon.
“You can spend as much time in the garden as you like,” Caleb said, as though he had read my mind.
I cocked my head. “How long do you intend to keep me here?”
“Until you fall in love with me,” he replied.
“And if I don’t?” I tested.
“You will,” he said, not a hint of a smile on his face. It almost sounded like a threat, but then he followed it up with, “and if you don’t, I will bring you back home. I’m looking for a bride, not a slave.”
I raised my eyebrow at him, looking critically into his eyes. The eyes don’t lie, I had found, but with him, it wasn’t that easy. His blue irises distracted me from seeing into his soul. He wasn’t an easy man to read.
“How long do I have to fall in love with you?” I asked, cocking my head to the other side inquisitively.
“Soon, you’ll be asking when we can get married, not when you can leave,” Caleb said, keeping his answer vague.
“Doubtful,” I replied.
He smirked, then changed the subject. “I’ll be out of business tomorrow. I expect that you can behave yourself here while I’m away. If you need anything, it shouldn’t be hard to find a servant that can help you. They don’t speak English, but they should be able to read your body language well enough to help you out.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, getting excited. If he was actually going to be gone, this was a chance for me to move ahead with my plan to capture him. All I would need to do would be to send out a communication somehow to the police department back home. I knew the address and phone number by heart.
“I need to arrange some things. The usual. Crime doesn’t stop for love, unfortunately,” he said, shrugging his broad shoulders.
Indeed, it didn’t. I was still here, and Caleb had just reminded me that he was behind the astronomically high crime rate in my hometown. I couldn’t marry a man like that, but I didn’t have to. Either he would let me go, or I would escape from him. I didn’t let that little stunt in the massage room change my mind.
“I should be able to manage on my own,” I said, distracted by his proposal to leave me alone. I could no longer think of the roses. Their scent lingered in the air without my appreciation now. I had much greater things to think about.
“Good. How about dinner? I know a lovely place that has a live theatre and everything,” Caleb suggested.
Of course, he knew that I adored live theatre. Under any other circumstances this would have been a dream come true. Why then, did it have to be such a nightmare?
Chapter 11
There is always a glimmer of hope on the horizon.
Dinner turned out to be a surprisingly social event. I was amazed that Caleb would dare expose me to so many people, any of who I could cry out to for help, but none of which I trusted to help me if I did. Perhaps that was why he had brought me here. Trust wasn’t something he actually believed in.
“Madam,” a woman said, bowing her head slightly to me and flashing a humble smile.
I nodded my head.
“This is Stallion,” Caleb said, waving a hand at the mid-20s woman whose dress sparkled with gemstones and whose breast was laced with diamonds. She looked like a princess.
“Nice to meet you,” I said in English, hoping that she would understand.
“You as well,” she responded, her voice thick with an Italian accent. I suspected that she didn’t know much more English than basic introductions.
My suspicions were all but confirmed when Caleb broke into rapid Italian speech, racing through his words like he was competing with the world’s fastest rapper. It was impressive, to say the least.
Stallion responded with similar ferocity, and I began to realize that was just how they spoke. I wondered if English sounded the same when they heard it.
Once Caleb finished with his prompt conversation, I turned to him. “Do you have Italian roots?”
He nodded. “Actually, I’m not even a US citizen. Funny, isn’t it? I grew up there, though. My father is Italian, but he met my mother there and knocked her up,” he said crudely. “I didn’t know him well, but I took after him anyway. The mafia business is in my blood.”
I could tell. Even the way he dressed was a dead giveaway, never deviating from a charcoal suit, always elegant and calm in his actions. It took a special type of cold cruelty to run that type of organization, and Caleb certainly fit the bill.
We were at a packed theatre that doubled as a restaurant. It looked like the type of thing you would see in an old movie, except this place was spruced up to keep pace with the modern world. The lights glowed yellow and the seats were plush and comfortable.
There were tables at every grouping of seats, and hundreds of people could comfortably fit beneath the towering ceiling
and the red-carpeted floors. It wasn’t something you saw every day, nor something you would even see in your lifetime unless you were part of an arranged marriage with a mafia boss, like I was. Funny how that works.
Caleb walked me to my seat, but not before introducing to around a dozen other people in the theatre who he seemed to know quite well. I was impressed by his social repertoire, and even more so with how fluently he drifted in and out of conversation between languages at the event. He was a man of great skill and culture.
“They have a cheese platter here that has some of the rarest cheeses in the world. Have you tried crocodile cheese?” Caleb said as we sat down on a black velvet double sofa.
“What?” I asked, surprised that there even was such a thing.
“I’m pulling your leg. Sorry, but you seemed so enthralled by the place that I figured you might fall for it,” Caleb said with a hearty chuckle.
I had the urge to punch his shoulder like I had done to guys in high school who I crushed on, but I resisted the urge. His secret bodyguard service might tackle me to the ground if I touched him wrong, though I didn’t see anyone around who looked like they could protect him.
I flashed him a smile, shaking my head. “I wouldn’t be surprised by anything at this point,” I said honestly.
“Well, they do have a cheese platter you should try. It’s delicious,” Caleb said, crossing a leg over the other, revealing the red bottoms of his polished leather shoes.
“I suppose I will,” I replied.
I looked around, beginning to think that Caleb might not actually have a security detail at all. It would be impossible though. He had to. I wanted to ask, but that would raise some serious red flags, and as of right now, I felt like we were on good enough terms for him to start trusting me. I mean, I hadn’t tried to escape yet.
We were seeing a play tonight, something in Italian, but Caleb had given me the script in English so that I may follow along. He insisted that the dance numbers were enough to keep me entertained without needing to understand what they were saying, but I appreciated the effort he put in so that I would enjoy myself.
I ordered off the menu, getting the cheese plate that Caleb had suggested. I wasn’t terribly hungry since our lunch, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have something extra in my stomach before I retired for the evening. Plus, the play would probably leave me wanted something to do with my hands. I almost always snacked while I watched things.
Caleb ordered the same thing that he got at the restaurant, which prompted me to inquire if he ever ate anything else.
“Sometimes,” he said, putting down his menu, “I go an entire week without eating anything else. Most of the time, though, I have to switch things up. Steak and vegetables are great, but they don’t have quality everywhere. It’s actually quite difficult to find when I’m on the road.”
I nodded. “Do you usually try to eat at nice places, even when you’re doing your criminal stuff?” I asked, genuinely curious.
He laughed. “I know I said this before, Kalila, but you’re adorable. I try, but sometimes I have to eat whatever slop they’re feeding everyone else around town. I’m often shocked by what normal people eat.”
“Cops eat like trash on the job,” I said, fully understanding what he meant.
“One time,” he said, as though he were thinking back to a fond memory, “I had to eat this gruel that they served just south of the border in a Mexican prison. Awful stuff, but it kept me from starving.”
“You were in jail?” I asked, surprised that he didn’t stay there.
“Yeah, they held me for a week on a drug bust, but those were the early days. They let me go when they found out who I was,” he said, smirking.
“They let you go?” I asked, fully wrapped up in his story.
“It was that, or the inevitable. Nobody keeps Caleb Anthony in a cell and lives to talk about it. They knew that they didn’t have the resources to protect themselves when my boys finally came to break me out, so they let me go.”
“Wow,” I said. “They would keep you locked up if you were in the US.”
He laughed. “Doubtful.”
“Really? The whole force has been chasing you for years,” I said, beginning to think his brags were fictitious.
“I’ve been locked up there before as well, but the prison guards died the next day. A terrible accident,” he said with a smile. “I walked out of the place. Literally, walked out.”
“I never heard about that,” I said, furrowing my brow.
“There’s a lot they don’t tell you down at that academy of yours. They’re too embarrassed by their own incompetency to tell the truth about anything. Do you want to know what the truth is?” He asked, leaning in toward me as the lights began to dim in the theatre.
“Yes,” I said in a half-whisper.
“The truth is, I’m the only reason why your police force gets funding. If they caught me, they’d all be out of jobs. I could walk right into the station and they wouldn’t do a damn thing.”
His words hit me like a pile of bricks as the performers walked out on stage. Everyone in the audience stood up, clapping. I rose with them, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything in front of me. My mind was racing at what Caleb had just told me. Could it really be true?
It was all too good. It sounded too perfect. It made too much fucking sense for it to possibly be true, and yet, I couldn’t find a flaw in it. I had to push it into the back of my head to enjoy the show, but it kept springing back up. The cheese platter that came wasn’t even enough to get rid of the thoughts that had been planted into my troubled mind, and this cheese was the best I had ever had.
Frustrating? Yes, but I had to keep a cool head if I was going to get out of this in one piece. Caleb may have been clever with his words, but I was trained for stress, and my training was starting to kick in once he had distressed me to the point of confusion. I knew then that I needed to get out of here. I couldn’t marry him. What other dark secrets would he spill into my mind? I was a cop, not a mafia boss’s wife.
The play was wonderful, and Caleb seemed to enjoy it even more than I did. I considered that he might have actually picked me because our interests were genuinely similar, but that just meant that his plan to marry me might actually work. I couldn’t accept it. There had to be a fatal flaw somewhere.
Tomorrow, Caleb would be leaving me alone in the house, and I would have to begin searching for a phone. There might not be one in the immediate household, but perhaps rummaging through the many abandoned rooms would yield something useful to me. Caleb couldn’t have swept the entire house. He seemed to be barely familiar with the place.
I relaxed my shoulders and began to sink into the play right as it finished.
Chapter 12
Cries for help are often ignored by the people who you trust the most. Such is life.
Caleb and I slept together in the bed together, me in my underwear and him completely naked. There was enough room to keep him from touching me, but I wasn’t too afraid of that, considering I had orgasmed in his hand just hours before going to bed.
I slept very well that night. The bed was just too comfortable not to, even considering the circumstances. The fact that Caleb even trusted me enough to fall asleep with him continued to throw me off. If he had told me that he was the mafia boss’s virtuous twin, I would have been inclined to believe him.
True to his words, Caleb left in the morning for business, leaving me in the bed alone when I awoke. I sat up, looked around me, and sprung out of bed with excitement. I was well-rested, it was a new day, and I was going to find a way out of this mess once and for all.
I got dressed, throwing on another dress. Apparently, pants weren’t a thing in Italy, because Caleb hadn’t bough even a single pair for me to wear. This wouldn’t bode well for crawling around in the basement, but I had to work with what I had. There was no use crying over things I couldn’t change.
I didn’t see any cameras or security guards lur
king about, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any there. The house was dead silent, but I knew Caleb had eyes on me. He had to. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave me here alone, now would he?
It didn’t matter. With or without security, I was busting out of this joint. I needed to find a phone or something with an internet connection so I could dial out to the police station back on the west coast. It was the only way I would be able to leave.
I slunk down as many flights of stairs as I could find in the house, traveling much further down than I thought possible. How deep did this house go? It was colder on the bottom levels, but there was no sign of any type of storage basement, and the house was too large to explore all in one day. This might be the only chance I had, so I started in one room, and began peeling through the drawers, looking for something, anything, that could get me out of here.
I found old flashlights, leather straps, handcuffs, and chains, but no phones in the first room. I didn’t want to touch half the stuff because I couldn’t shake the image of the previous nympho owner out of my head.
I wished I had a pair of gloves to use, but I hadn’t found any yet. Instead, I used my bare hands to sift through the things that lurked forgotten in the old wooden drawers in the bottom rooms of the house. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but I had seen some shit in my short time on the police force, so I couldn’t complain too much.
I didn’t find anything in the first room, but there were so many in the house that I was certain that I would get somewhere with my search eventually. I assumed I had all day, but I had been asleep until eleven, so I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked.
I cursed myself for not waking up sooner, but I couldn’t change the past. If I could, I wouldn’t be in Italy with Caleb. I would be back on the streets, busting minor criminals and staying out of the way of the big bad mafia that ruled the underground.
As I came into the next room, I noticed the dust in it. This room wasn’t maintained. I felt a small surge of excitement. They wouldn’t have removed any phones from this room if there were any. I began ripping through the draws haphazardly, throwing out old clothes and odd devices onto the carpeted floor.
