Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“There. Done.”
“Do her arms, man. Then you could ride up here with me.”
“Yeah,” the guy on top of me said, scooting back, then tossing me onto my stomach. Pain shot through my cheekbone as my face slammed against the hard floor.
“Easy, man,” the driver growled. “We bring her in all fucked up, and boss man is gonna be pissed.”
But he’d already wrenched my arm back and up to wrap a layer of tape to it, the stickiness nipping at my skin. His weight shifted, yanking up my other arm, then securing it to the other.
Then just like that, the weight was lifted as the man climbed off of me and moved between the front two seats to drop into the passenger one with a groan.
“She fucked up my face,” he growled.
“You were ugly before, you’re ugly now,” the driver said, tone light and teasing. “Don’t see the problem.”
“Dick,” the other guy grumbled as I threw myself onto my back.
“Turn the music on or somethin’ in case she starts knocking around,” the driver said.
I was considering trying to kick the walls or doors.
But, clearly, they had all their bases covered.
The music started thumping from the speakers, making it impossible to hear my kidnappers, though I was vaguely aware of the timbre of their voices.
Gagged and bound, I had nothing to do but think.
For several horrific moments, I thought about all the typical things women thought about in situations like this. About all the ways a man could hurt a woman.
It wasn’t long, though, until I remembered that I wasn’t the average woman.
Which meant I had to look at this whole situation as more than a snatch and grab kidnapping and potential rape by random, strange men.
See, they’d said something about their boss.
Their boss.
From The Bronx.
A low, pathetic whimper escaped me as the name flashed across my mind.
It couldn’t be him.
But, also, it couldn’t be anyone else, could it?
Primo Esposito.
The boss of the Esposito family.
A man that had, as legend went, sliced his father’s throat during a Family sit-down, wiped the knife off on a napkin, then sat down to finish cutting his steak with it.
He was a brutal, cold-blooded, homicidal maniac.
The word was that the entire Esposito Family was vicious and unpredictable.
It was why the new Capo dei Capi of all the New York City organized crime families had been trying to step lightly around them. Anytime my brother, Emilio, came to Sunday dinners, he was always griping to the cousins about the Espositos not respecting the Costa Family, not paying their dues, not following the rules.
But as far as I could remember, there hadn’t ever been any word about Primo or his men kidnapping women. That being said, my brother and the rest of the Costa Family tried to keep the women out of the businesses as much as possible so none of us could get in trouble with the police.
For all I knew, Primo Esposito kidnapped and abused women all the time.
A low, pathetic cry escaped me, muffled by the duct tape.
Frustrated tears burned my eyes.
Because there was nothing I could do.
I was gagged and bound. There were two of them. And if I knew anything about the soldiers in the mafia, it was that they were always armed.
There was no way out of this for me.
Except, maybe when the van stopped. Maybe I could possibly make a run for it. Dance had at least given me some stamina. And I somehow doubted these guys were the ‘spend endless hours at the gym working on calisthenics’ type. Besides, I wouldn’t have to run far. Just far enough to get around people, to get inside a store, or anywhere that someone might help me.
No one was going to stand by and let a bound and gagged woman be dragged off by kidnappers. People were better than that.
Plan made, I spent the entire ride trying to keep my breathing slow and even, trying not to let my mind run away with me. It wouldn’t do me any good to get worked up by the possibilities of what might happen if I didn’t get away. It was just going to psych me out, make me second guess my instincts.
It felt like an eternity of bouncing around in the van before it finally pulled to a stop where the engine cut, the music turned off, and the passenger got out.
Just him.
That was good, right?
I had a better chance of evading just him. And the driver would be slow to get out of the car and lead in the chase.
I could actually do this.
Taking a deep breath, I let the passenger open the door. I even let him yank me toward it because I didn’t want the driver to suspect anything before it actually happened.
The sounds of people met my ear and I felt a flood of relief so strong that I nearly cried out.