Repaying the Mafia’s Dept

Isabella My head… My God… Why does my head feel like this?

Like it’s not really there.

Like it’s… not quite attached to my body.

I rasp out a sharp breath and force my eyes open only to snap them shut again as bright rays of sunlight blind me.

Instinctively I turn my head to the side and try again. I open my eyes and find it’s less bright on this side but what am I looking at?

I blink several times and try to focus my gaze on the scene before me of waves crashing against a large rock formation.

Waves as in the sea. But there’s no sea for miles where I live, and … it doesn’t look like that.

Like I could be somewhere tropical.

I move my head from side to side looking around the room that looks like some type of hotel suite.

The realization sends a shiver of panic through me as I realize I’m not home. The panic worsens when it dawns on me I can’t remember anything.

Grogginess makes my body limp, and my mind is so fuzzy I can’t quite connect my thoughts, but I manage to sit up. And that’s when I see what I’m wearing.

It’s looks like a hospital gown. I lift the edge and gasp when I realize I’m naked underneath. No panties, no bra, just the gown. The horrific realization constricts my lungs, and I can’t swallow past the lump that’s formed in my throat.

Jesus what happened to me?

Where am I?

How did I get here?

What happened?

Bringing my hand to my head I wince as I try hard to remember and can’t. Nothing is coming to my mind though. I can’t push past the barrier of fog that’s engulfed my mind, stopping me from piecing together what I need to remember.

I slide off the bed and my bare feet connect with the stone floor, too cold for my feet. The coolness makes me shiver even though the room temperature is quite warm.

Ahead of me the wall is glass and all I can see is the sea. I turn and see a sliding door to my left at the end of the glass and it looks like it leads on to a balcony. There’s a stony pavement outside.Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

Gathering my strength, I rush up to it, thankful my legs can carry me. I’m even more thankful when the door slides open. I was right, there’s a pavement and it actually leads out to a terraced area filled with palm trees and bougainvillea. I recognize the flowers from my travels to the Mediterranean and tropical countries.

My damn heart sinks below my feet, however, when I assess my surroundings and realize there’s not actually a way out of where I am. I’m high up and there’s nothing but the sea around me. From where I am the sea looks deep. V ery deep. And angry. The waves roll in and out around the rocks, clashing against them with a force that shows the sea reigns here and anyone who dares to venture into it had better beware.

God… where am I?

Where the hell am I? I need to think and try hard to remember what happened. I need to remember how I got here.

I run my hand through my hair which is a matted mess. It’s still in a ponytail but the band has been loosened and the ends are tangled. I touch the back of my neck and wince when it feels sore. The area feels slightly bruised like I’ve been bitten by something.

When I run my thumb over the skin an image pops into my head. I see bright blue eyes on a handsome man I didn’t know was the devil.

Tristan… Everything comes tumbling to the forefront of my mind and I remember it all.

Tristan stuck me with something and now I’m here!

Oh God… I remember. He kidnapped me.

The bolt of mortification makes my legs move again. There’s nothing out here on the terrace so I rush back into the room and stop short when I see him leaning against the side of the room with the stone wall.

Dressed in full black, the sight of him, makes the air rush from my lungs and the icy tendrils of fear race over my body.

My lips part and my feet plant to the spot in fear. I’m too scared to move, too scared to breathe, too scared to exist right now.

I am scared of my father and the power he has. Right now, though… true fear assails me, and I realize what I feel for my father is nothing. Right now, I’m terrified of the man before me.

This man found out who I am, tricked me into believing he was something else, and now he has me.

Why? The answer is simple. My father.

I ran from one monster to the next, and it looks like this one is the worse of them all.

He pushes away from the wall and straightens up. Those eyes of his take me in coolly and calmly.

Too cool, too calm. It makes my heart gallop, slamming against the wall of my chest as the fright paralyses me.

My lips part as if to say something, but I don’t know what to say first, or if I should say anything at all.

I know his face, he gave me a name, I’m here…. I know what those things mean. He’s going to kill me.

He takes a step forward and the sun catches his eyes making them so bright they look like vivid blue lights against his olive skin.

One more step and I feel myself step backward. Another step and I move two more steps backward, not knowing where I’m going, or what I’m doing.

“There’s nowhere to run Isabella,” he states.

“Where am I?” I breathe. My voice sounds hoarse and so shaky I barely recognize it as mine.

“On an island that very few know about,” he answers.

At first, I think that’s impossible but I right myself, my mind. This man is the same type as my father and if he says we’re on an island that very few know about, it’s true.

“Who are you?” I want to know who he really is. I want to know the power of my captor.

“My name is Tristan D’Agostino. That might not mean anything to you, but this will… my family is part of the Syndicate of the Brotherhood.”

He’s right about half of that. I’ve heard the name D’Agostino before and I know about the Syndicate. I know they are enemies to my father, who is the enemy to all.

I really am in big trouble and it’s my fault. I asked Sacha to let me out.

Sacha, my God … as I think of him now, I remember the consequences he could face. They’d all know by now I’m missing. He’ll know I was taken.

Even if the others think I escaped, he won’t think that. He’ll know I won’t have betrayed him in such a way. It will only be a matter of time before blame is cast his way if it hasn’t been already.

“Why did you take me?” The words tumble from my lips as foolishness, but I need to know what the position is. “I can’t be here. Please, send me back. My bodyguard will die if my father finds out I’m missing.”

“I’m glad you know that, so I don’t have to highlight the gravity of the situation to you. I need you to tell me where your father is,” he demands, and I could almost laugh.

It wouldn’t be a laugh of humor, oh no. It would be one of sarcasm.

I shake my head at him, and a tear runs down my cheek because it’s now I know I really am in trouble.

“I don’t know where he is,” I answer.

His eyes flare with rage. “Isabella, I’m not the kind of man to fuck with. Not even slightly. I hate games, and I hate wasting time with shit. You are his daughter; you’re supposed to know where the fuck your father is.”

“But I don’t. I don’t know. No one does.” That’s the truth and that is how my father has managed to walk like some type of god on earth for the last forty years.

Dmitri is his righthand man, before him was Vlad, a man who was actually worse than Dmitri because he was psychotic.

My father has six people who travel with him as bodyguards and they look like they came straight out of hell. All they do is guard. Their tongues have been sliced out of their mouths in a vow to silence. Their only purpose in life is to protect my father if danger comes.

That is the extent of my knowledge.

“Do you really expect me to believe that no one knows where he is?” Tristan challenges. His teeth are bared and his hands fisted at his sides.

“I don’t care if you believe it. It’s the truth.”

“Stop lying!” he shouts, and his voice reverberates through me making me shudder.

“I’m not lying,” I wince. “That’s how he stays safe. No one knows about me too, at least they shouldn’t.”

“You’re telling me you don’t see him at all?” He gives me an incredulous glare.

“We never meet in the same place and the majority of our meetings are by video calls. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know anything.”

“I’m supposed to believe that shit from Mortimer Viggo’s daughter?” He rages and comes closer.

Adrenaline races through me and I do the only thing I can and run.

I run to the door, grab the handle, and yank it open. I manage to get out on to the corridor, another stony path. I’m about to break out into a sprint when a large hand secures around my middle and I’m lifted into the air.

I scream and kick with all my strength, fighting him.

“Let me go!”

“You fucking tell me where your father is.”

“I don’t know anything.” The tears come hard now and the panic of what’s going to happen to me takes route in my soul.

The shuffling against his grasp makes this stupid gown ride up my thighs to the point where I’m exposed. Anyone, if there’s anyone else here, would see my bare ass and everything else.

“Let me go!” I wail. “Please let me go. Don’t hurt me.”

I fight for my life. My life that I don’t own, but it’s always felt like as long as I drew breath my life would be mine one day.

“Tell me where your father is.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“You’re lying.”

“No. Please, let me go,” I beg.

He carries me back in the room and throws me down on the bed. In seconds he’s on top of me and my hands are pinned above my head.

The monsters from my father’s world were always lurking around the corner. Now one has me.

Tristan D’Agostino has me and I can’t give him what he needs. I can’t even try to save myself. I hate my father so much right now. I hate him even more than I already did.

I hate myself more when Tristan presses his face to my cheek and my body reacts to him, confused by a memory from last night. His warm breath caresses my skin and I remember how he danced with me and he kissed me.

I was going to go home with him. To sleep with him.

How could I be so stupid?

It was all an act. A trap set for me because he saw I was lonely and desperate.

“Tell me what I need to know,” he demands. “Isabella, tell me where your father is.”

I hear the threat of what he’s not saying, and my soul now trembles with terror. I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’s capable of and what would make him see I’m not lying. I just know I have to try something. Anything.

“Tristan,” I whisper. A whisper is all I can manage in my despair. I’m so scared. “What would you do to me if I don’t tell you? Would you kill me?”

I think back to the kindness in his presence when we first met in the park. That was just days ago.

He seemed so genuine. Why did he give me the origami flower if he was going to do this? It was a meaningless gesture on his part, but it meant so much to me.

“Would you really kill me?” I ask, turning to face him.

Suddenly we’re eye to eye. Eye to eye, soul to soul. I gaze long and hard into those bright blue eyes that trap me in the lock of his gaze. I feel I must have reached something inside him when his grip around my hands loosen, although he keeps my hands pinned above my head.

Fear, shock, anxiety, and curiosity roil inside me like a tempestuous storm and as my captor gazes down at me I’m not sure what to feel.

He lets go of my wrists, but I don’t get the fleeting second it would take to acknowledge freedom from his restraint as his fingers brush over the bare skin of my stomach.

That part wasn’t intentional, but … what is, is the linger of his thumb on the edge of my hip bone.

Tristan breaks the lock of our stare to scan over my body. The gown is just covering my breasts and half of my stomach. The struggle made the thing ride right up to my back so what he’s looking at is my nakedness from my waist down.

A different type of fear races through my mind as he continues to stare at my pussy, and I remain perfectly still.

What if he rapes me?

Men like him do things like that. I don’t know him and so far, I’ve said all the wrong things. I’ve done all the wrong things and I haven’t given him what he wanted.

He could take something else from me. Punish me in a different way. As I watch him looking down at my pussy, his fingers hovering over my skin, true fear closes up my throat. I don’t know if I could survive if he did something like that to me. It would break me.

When his gaze climbs back up to meet mine, the desire I see brimming within his eyes eradicates the fear of being raped. At least momentarily. I’m not fool enough to push it aside completely. That desire I’m seeing though confuses the hell out of me.

I’ve been raised to watch. To observe. It’s what you do when you’re the daughter of a notorious criminal who treats you like property. You don’t have time for shit because one minute to the next could be the end for you. So, when I see, I see all, and as this man who’s kidnapped me looks at me, what I see is raw desire. Wanting, longing, and I know the same attraction that assails me has him too.

A moment passes when all we do is look at each other. A moment of light and understanding where the chemical bonds that draw us together start to spark.

Then he blinks, and just like that it’s gone.

Gone and replaced by something else inside him I fully recognize. I see that unhinged look in my own eyes every time I look in the mirror.

Now that he’s not smiling, I can see quite clearly what that thing is. Pain.

Pain from being broken deep inside. The type of broken that can only come from loss. Grief. Grief from the loss of someone he loved.

The second I think it he moves away from me, and I wonder who my father killed for him.

Who did Dad kill?

Someone died and it’s exactly like he said. Death is the end. Nothing is worse than that. That’s what this is about. Tristan wants to know where my father is because he wants to kill him.

My awareness returns to me and with it the gravity of the situation. He used me and made a complete fool out of me. I actually liked him. That’s the only reason why my body is still reacting to him.

I will not feel sorry for him. He’s kidnapped me and brought me to this place. The thought makes me sit up and pull down the gown to cover myself up.

“I’m going to give you some time to think,” he says cutting into the thick silence. “It seems like you might need it. If I were you, I would think long and hard about that answer of yours.”

I don’t bother to tell him my answer will still be the same. I have no idea where my father is. I do want to know one thing though even if it gets me in more trouble.

“Why did you bother to wear that mask?” I ask as he takes a step to leave. He stops and looks at me.

“What are you talking about?” he snaps, glaring at me.

“The mask of a man who seems to care. That’s what you looked like in the park the other day.

Why did you even bother to talk to me? You didn’t need to. I get why you couldn’t take me in the park though. Too risky. Especially with my guard at the door. My father would have had men on you in seconds. You wouldn’t have had a chance. But there was the club. You could have just led me away when I came up to find you. The whole night was so easy.” My cheeks burn with embarrassment when I think back to how I behaved with him. “I acted enough like a slut to make it simple for you. You didn’t have to kiss me or make me feel for you. I hate you for that.”

The corners of his mouth lift into a dark smile. “You’re supposed to, Bellezza,” he seethes and then he just gazes down at me.

“Monster. Beast. That’s what you are.”

Something shifts in his eyes again and I can tell I struck a nerve.

What I see too is my destruction. It doesn’t matter what attraction and chemistry there is between us. This man hates me because I am my father’s daughter. He’ll use me as a scape goat. Collateral damage.

He hates my father, what he doesn’t know is that I hate my father more than he does.

I’m as good as dead here.

I accept that truth as I watch him walk through the door and it clicks shut.

When a key rattles on the outside I know I’m locked in.

Trapped.