Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 229(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 229(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
“I saw it with my own eyes, boss. I followed her home just like you said. And there she was, with old man Martinelli waiting for her. Right out front, he followed her all the way back.” The other voice says.
I can open my eyes, but my hands and feet feel tight, and in a second, I’m trying to gasp for air, to scream in panic.
I’ve never been hog-tied and gagged, and I can safely say I never want to experience this ever again.
That’s if I can get outta here.
Whatever they knocked me out with has worn off, and I can clearly see I’m in a restaurant kitchen, tied up by the back door.
A smug-looking face peers over a stainless steel countertop. “Tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen…,” she purrs.
The face, I thought, looked a little like mine.
Turns out Maria Portello’s way more part bitch than I first thought.
“Maria!” Don Portello snaps, moving into the light above me, almost blocking my view.
“You shouldn’t have even shown your face today. Let alone see this,” he scolds her.
She doesn’t flinch, as if she’s used to being spoken to like that.
Her cruel smile is her farewell to me before she shrugs and saunters off someplace, making me wonder what exactly are they doing here, and more to the point – what are they going to do with me?
My gag is loosened with a jut of my chin, and I sit up but am still tied.
“And you…,” The old man muses aloud, scanning my curves, letting his fingers hold a curl of my hair for a second.
“I wanted to use you as a decoy to make them think you somehow were Maria somehow….”
Letting my hair fall, he clicks his tongue to himself, and one of the men guarding me stifles a laugh.
But the old man doesn’t see the humor in it.
“And you have any better ideas?” he shouts at the man. “I think Martinelli is up to a lot more than just sending his halfwit, overgrown boy down here,” he growls, starting to pace.
Giving each man, in turn, a fierce look as he thinks out loud.
“…But I still can,” he smiles to himself, silently answering some of his own questions as he looks me over one more time.
“Yes. Nobody’s seen Maria, except you. How could they know?” he asks nobody in particular, but it’s clear every man knows to keep quiet while the boss ‘thinks.’
“And you’re sure it was Martinelli with his son?” he snaps, everyone nodding swiftly in reply.
Growling under his breath, the old man seems to have reached his conclusions.
“We’ll have to get ready. I don’t think that Don Martinelli is just gonna –.”
But he doesn’t get to finish his sentence.
There’s a bang as the swinging doors fly open, then even louder bangs that make my ears ring.
The old man clutches at his side before he’s grabbed by two of his men, who whisk him toward a side exit.
I can’t hear anything all of a sudden, but I can see plenty.
The whole room slowly fills with choking smoke from what I soon realize are handguns firing round after round into the kitchen.
The men on my side of the kitchen show me what they were reaching for earlier, returning as many bullets as they can with their own guns.
Most of them whizzing past my ears until one of the attackers spots me. I’ve never seen him before, but he looks like he’s just won a prize at the county fair once he spots me.
His lip curls into a grin, and he moves toward me, towering above me with both hands out.
In the excitement of what feels like being kidnapped for the second time today, I do what any self-respecting girl who’s had the day I’m having would do.
I faint.
Probably for the best because being manhandled and shot at isn’t something I wanna be awake for right now.
Finally coming to, I feel the warmth of a soft bed underneath me, replacing the cold cement floor of the restaurant kitchen.
My first thought is I must be dreaming, maybe even in the afterlife.
Everything’s so….
Clean. So…expensive looking.
I don’t have long to imagine the worst, though. The sound of voices behind a thick wooden door that’s being unlocked tells me I’m far from dead.
And once I see who walks in, I’m still not sure if I’m actually in a better place or not.
At least they’re not shooting at me, I suppose.
He’s an older man like the Portello guy who ‘hired’ me and then kidnapped me earlier.
But he seems different, kinder, and a little wiser.
A lot more like a kind grandpa than an angry-looking one.
I open my mouth to say something, but he shakes his head gently. He sits on the edge of my bed and takes my hand in his.
“I’m sorry if we frightened you, Maria,” he sighs. “But there’s some business between the two families now. And until it’s done, we’ll need to keep you here with us.