Stalking Ginevra (Morally Black Book 4)

I wake up in a world of pain. Pain in my head, pain across the welts in my skin, pain in my heart. My limbs bend into an awkward fetal position, and the hard surface beneath me rumbles as if I’m crammed into the trunk of a car.

It feels like a whole day has passed since I tried to escape. The aches from falling into that pit have faded, replaced by painful welts from the whipping. The skin on my wrists burn from where Bossanova tied them too tight, but it’s barely a distraction from the replay of Carla’s murder. Her eyes, wide and pleading, stare out at me through the dark, begging me to do something—anything to save her life.

All I could do was scream.

Shit. I need to focus, but I can’t breathe with pressure pushing down on my lungs. I exhale a choked sob at how Carla looked so pale and terrified, at the way she thrashed as the whip tightened around her neck.

Stop.

Pressing my forehead against the trunk’s cold metal wall, I fumble around for a lever, a latch, a lock. Carla is gone and there isn’t a thing I can do to bring her back. He strangled her like she wasn’t his own flesh and blood, but lower than nothing. All because I tried to escape.

The car jerks over a pothole, jostling me against the sides of the trunk. My stomach lurches, bringing up a bellyful of bile. My lungs seize in tight bursts, the confined space constricting every ragged breath. At this rate, Valentino won’t need to wrap the tail of a whip around my throat. I’ll have already choked to death.

Fuck… I really need to focus on breaking free.

I turn my ear to the trunk’s lid, straining to hear anything beyond the rumble of the engine. Bossanova’s muffled voice seeps through the noise. I can’t tell if he’s talking to himself or has found an accomplice, but I try to make sense of his muttering.

He’s cursing, screaming obscenities, and by the time I hear the name, Montesano, the car screeches to a halt. My body slams into the wall of the trunk, sending a fresh wave of pain down my side. I bite down on my lip, hard enough to taste blood.

The sound of a door opening snaps me back into the present. Heavy boots hit the ground, growing louder as he approaches. There’s a click of the trunk, a creak, then a burst of sunlight bright enough to sear my retinas. I squint against the glare and groan.

Rough hands grab my shoulders, yanking me out of the car. I hit the gravel with a thud, the sharp stones digging into my raw skin. I clench my teeth, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a scream.

Bossanova stands over me, dressed in a stained wife beater, his bruised chest heaving. Gray hair sticks to his flushed face, his eyes wide with desperation.

My breath hitches. Did Benito find a way to claw back the money? Last time I saw the crazy old buzzard, he was stuffing Carla’s severed head into a box. He said Benito would pay another hundred million when he saw what could happen to his precious wife.

He hauls me up by my hair, slamming my head against the bumper, making me see stars.

“How the fuck did Montesano find out?” Spit flies from his mouth, hitting my cheek. Bloodshot eyes burning with insanity, he jerks my head back and forth with a grip tight enough to rip the scalp off my skull. “How?!”

Wincing through another explosion of pain, I stutter, “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“Liar!” His foot smashes into my solar plexus, knocking the wind out of my lungs. I double over, wanting to curl into a ball, but his fingers tighten around my hair. “Tell me how Montesano found Gianni,” he snarls, his voice shaking with unrestrained fury. “Tell me!”

“I don’t—” Another kick cuts off my words, this time to my ribs. Sharp pain radiates through my side, and dark spots swim in my vision as I try to make sense of his accusations. What’s he saying? That Benito pieced together the link between Victor Bellavista and Valentino Bossanova?

He reaches into his pocket, extracts a phone, and shoves it into my face. “Look!”

The device is too close for me to focus, so I draw back, blinking over and over to clear my vision. Benito appears on screen, holding a gun to the head of a man dressed in a prison uniform. He looks so much like Valentino that he has to be Gianni.

My heart stutters, and every muscle in my chest tightens to the point of pain. That’s the man who murdered my birth mother.

“You have four hours to deliver Ginevra to my gates,” Benito says, sounding more like Bob Brisket than the man I married. “Or I’ll send your brother back to prison in pieces.”

My eyes widen. Benito must have broken into death row to hold Valentino’s older brother hostage.

All to save me.

When the video loops back to the beginning, Bossanova tightens his grip around my hair, trying to pull each follicle out by the root. “This is your fault,” he snarls, his voice cracking. “You must have left him a clue.”

As he continues an unhinged, accusation-filled rant, my mind conjures up a dozen replies. I was escaping a manipulative husband with the help of what I thought was a friend. If I’d known Carla was the daughter of a psychopath, I would have found another way to leave Benito. How the hell was I supposed to communicate with him while tied up and held hostage?

The tirade continues, but I force my thoughts to still. This diatribe tells me only one thing: Bellavista is unraveling. If I stay alert, I might even find an opening.

He slams his phone into his pocket and drags me like a rag doll across the gravel to the car’s back door.

“Get inside. We’re going to rescue my brother.”

After opening the door, he bundles me in the back seat and orders me to stay down. Even if I wanted to sit up and scream for help, no one would see me on this deserted road.

We pass large expanses of land, some filled with orchards, others with corn, and a few left for cattle. I coil on the back seat, readying myself for the first opportunity to escape.

After about thirty minutes, we stop at a large farmhouse. It’s a nondescript building of brown bricks with clouded windows. Strangely, the land around it looks tended.

Valentino exits the car and flings open the door. Before he can drag me out again, I’m already out and on my feet. He shoves me across the courtyard and up the farmhouse’s stairs, his breath hitting my bare back in ragged gasps.

If my hands weren’t cuffed, I’d knock him back on his ass, but I bide my time, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Inside, the house feels like a forgotten relic from the ‘80s. Mirrors with gaudy gold frames reflect faded floral wallpaper. He bundles me through a living room, where a velvet couch sits with its plump cushions untouched. The air is thick with dust and the faint musk of aging fabric, giving the space an almost suffocating stillness.

We climb the stairs and reach a doorway leading to a woman’s bedroom. Valentino pushes me into the edge of a vanity cluttered with cosmetics. I hit my head and grimace through another burst of pain. Before I can recover, he’s already unlocked my cuffs.

“Get dressed, cover that shit on your face with makeup. We’re going to trade you for my brother.” He disappears through the door and turns its lock.

With a groan, I stumble to my feet, met with a wall of mirrors reflecting gaudy décor dripping with retro opulence. The bedspread is a swirl of pastel pinks and purples, with a golden chandelier hanging closer than the blade of a guillotine.

Did this belong to one of his dead wives? The thought turns my stomach, but at least it distracts me from my reflection. I look like I’ve spent a night battling a monster in a pit, when I’ve been battling through terror and grief.

A heavy fist bangs on the door. “If you’re not dressed in the next ten minutes, I’ll drown you in the toilet.”

It sounds like a bluff, but he’s not above holding my face in a dirty pan out of a sense of twisted revenge. With a groan, I get up and walk to a wardrobe filled with garish outfits, adorned with sequins, shoulder pads, and side-splits. I sift through them, trying to find something in my size.

As I pick out a safari suit, still encased in dry-cleaning plastic, a heavy object falls free, landing on the floor with a muffled thud. I glance down, finding a long item encased in leather.

A knife.noveldrama

My breath catches. This is my chance.

I’ll wait for the moment when he least expects it. When his guard is down.

And then I’ll strike.