Chapter 11 Eleven

Hello Dear Readers!

It has been an EXTREMELY long time since I last updated any stories on here, and I am so incredibly sorry for that! A lot of things have happened in my life and I temporarily abandoned my passion for writing. During that time, my on-going contract with MoboReader had come to an end. But I am back, and hopefully better than ever. I will be continuing on with this story for the time being, while contemplating if I will continue with any other on-going stories published on her.

I have also published a new story called Changing My Fate, the first few chapters available now for free! :)

Now, onward to the story! xo

**********************************

I awake to almost complete darkness, the candle next to the bed almost burnt out, but still providing a low amber glow. When I try to sit up, Nathanial's arm draped across my stomach presses into me, keeping me glued to the bed.

Everything from last night comes rushing back to me; the dinner, the quarry, and the best sex I have ever experienced, and probably will experience, in my lifetime.

I also remember the way Nathanial looked at me, the deep emotion screaming through his eyes as we finally gave into each other. It both frightened and excited me, but left me feeling confused after it was said and done. When he left the bed, I thought he had already regretted I and was leaving, but he left to get me a cloth.

He was being a complete gentleman, tending to my every need, going above and beyond to fix my personal and emotional problems. He is nothing like the man that was described to me, and he is making this whole operation much harder than I expected.

I promised myself I wouldn't be the one to fall, that I was strong enough to do this mission, that I have to be strong. Get close to him, break his heart and watch the chaos unfold. Simple as that.

So, then why am I lying here, contemplating jumping out the window and running away? Why am I telling myself that I can't do this? That I've already failed, that I failed a long time ago. Whether I love Nathanial or not, I've fallen for him; hard.

I don't know if I can still complete this mission, and not feel utter guilt afterwards. Even if I walk away now, would I still be saving him?

I for sure thought last night, he was going to cave, and tell me he loves me. I saw it in his eyes, in the way he treated me and planned the entire night.

Why didn't he say it? Why did he plan this big, romantic evening?

There is no way it was just for the sex, or we would have gone back to the King's Hotel for the night, a place where he can leave the next morning, and doesn't have to worry about getting me home or taking me anywhere.

Matteo said one more night, and I'm out. I think I accomplished more than I thought I would get, in just one night. I don't know how many times I've had to pretend to be asleep, or learn to be absolutely still and silent. I did a pretty good job last night, long enough to hear a phrasing of the words I need to hear.

He has fallen, I've won this imaginary game, and my mission. If he has fallen as hard as I have, then he will fall even harder when he wakes up alone.

This is my only chance. I slowly lift his limbs off me and poke his side for extra measure, making sure he is dead asleep. I rush around the room to gather the clothes he leant me, having no idea where my wet mess of a dress and under garments went, and I don't really have the time to search this enormous manor.

I do, have the time to quickly search his closets for a jacket of some kind, so I can at least make it back to the Cavallini house. Or hopefully a taxi to take me there.

Carefully remembering the way, I found the front foyer, where thankfully my shoes are placed by the front door, along with the boots that I used to get to the quarry.

Looking at them, my heart squeezes painfully. I ignore the thought and decide to take the boots anyway, seeing them as more suitable footwear for the long walk ahead of me. I just need to make it to town, where I can reach a payphone and call for a ride.

That can't be that hard, can it?

I look down the long driveway and my hope falls. This is not going to be easy.

***

What feels like hours later, I am off the large manor property and travelling down the main road into town, trying my best to keep my pace up, but my legs are already starting to feel like lead. I haven't done this much walking in a long time, and I really wasn't prepared for this.

I have to be at least half-way there, I hope.

A couple miles more it seems, and my hope lifts a little when headlights flash behind me, heading in the direction of town. I turn around and start to wave them down, hoping it's just a family or someone going home late from a weekend travel.

At this hour, it could be anyone, but I must stay optimistic.

The car slows down, and I quickly realize it isn't a car; it's a windowless van. Before it can come to a complete stop, my instincts kick in and I take off running, ignoring the burning in my legs. I hear the squeal of the tires behind me, and the gravel kick up as the van veers towards me, almost set on hitting me.

I manage to jump off the road just as it is about to hit me, clutching my rapidly beating heart. The van comes to a halt in front of me, and a darkly dressed man with a mask rush toward me. Before I can open my mouth to scream out, the only thing that comes to mind, he grabs the back of my head and slams a cloth over my already open mouth.

I know the drug it is soaked in before I take my first inhale, and know there is no use fighting it, I'm already caught. I try and make out any features on my captors' face, before the darkness takes over, but all I can make out is dark eyes, and a tribal tattoo on his neck, peeking out from under his collared shirt.

Well shit, I should have just taken a cab.

***

When the sun hits my eyes, I moan and roll around the cover my face with the pillows, expecting to hit the soft flesh of the goddess next to me. I nearly jump out of bed when I feel nothing but cold, empty covers instead.

My eyes search the entire room, but my golden goddess is nowhere to be found, and neither are her things.

She ran in the middle of the night. But why? What had I done last night, that might have scared her off? Did I assume her feelings too much, and was the only one to fall?

Dressing quickly, I rush into the office to phone Arthur and ask if he has seen Grace at the Gala, but there is no answer at home or the pub. That leaves me no choice but try and hunt her down myself.

Unless she doesn't want to be found. Regardless, I have some questions or her anyway. There is no way I imagined the connection we have, I know she felt it too. It's no longer about the stupid bet, it never really was. It was about two stubborn people, unable to admit they found their ultimate weakness.

Damn you, Grace.

Slamming down the phone, I make my way to the front door, not stopping to even question why Phyllis is standing in the kitchen doorway as I blow past her, already knowing she can never stop worrying about what she shouldn't worry about.

Grabbing the car keys, I rip open the door and stop dead in my tracks.

Daniel Cavallini is standing on my doorway, soaked from the rain, looking ready to murder me. This morning just keeps getting better by the second.

"Where the hell is she, you bastard?" he roars at me, lifting his pistol to aim at the center of my head. "You know exactly who I'm talking about, so don't even try and play dumb with me."

Slowly, I raise a hand and pull the pistol down away from my face, trying my best to keep my anger at bay and remain neutral, not giving him anymore reason to paint the stairs with my blood.

"She isn't here, I could've asked you the same question, but here we are. Why are you looking for her so urgently? What has happened?" I ask, once again trying to remain clueless and calm, not alerting him that she has already ran away from me, and I haven't the slightest idea where she might have gone.

Daniel rummages in his pocket and shoves a crumpled piece of paper into my chest, finally removing the pistol and holstering it.

The girl for the debt. You are wiped clean.

"What the hell does this mean? I have no debt with anyone, and if I did, I would never bargain Grace's life for it!"

Daniel lowers his head in shame, and the anger I have been withholding rears its ugly head through my chest. I grab a fist full of his shirt and ram him against the brick building, hearing a sickening crack as his head collides with it.

"What the fuck have you done? What kind of mess have you and your father got yourselves into, huh? What filthy bastards have my girl?!" I scream at him, my vision blinded red with rage, unable to control it, no longer wanting too.

"She was never yours, Nathanial." Daniel starts laughing. "She really got you wrapped around her little finger, didn't she? My father and I were starting to have doubts, with her coming to the manor and asking to be let out of her deal, but she really did you in one."

My fist flies towards his face, hitting him repeatedly until I feel satisfied with the bloody mess in front of me.

"You have seconds to explain," I mutter, with so much deadly anger, I almost scare myself.

"She was supposed to infiltrate you, make up some story about being a worker from another bar, but she never knew no one," he stops to spit out a mouth full of blood. "Get whatever information she can from the pub, then get close with you, so she could get in deeper, find out anything we could to take you down. Then, my father pushed her in deeper, wanted to make you not only bleed on the outside, but die on the inside too."

I can't hear anymore. I smash his head against the wall once more, before letting him slump to the ground.

It was all a trick. The entire time I thought I was playing her; she was really playing me.

And she got me. She got me bad.

But that still doesn't explain why Daniel is here now, looking for her on my doorstep.

"Where was she headed last night?" I ask.

Daniel spits out more blood and wipes his mouth before standing. "She was supposed to come back to the manor with all the information and documents she was able to gather from your place, then she would have been out, if Matteo actually allowed her to leave."

"What the hell does that mean? Is she not a member of the Cavallini family?"

He scoffs. "Yeah, she's the princess of the Cavallini family, has been for the past five years. But she doesn't come from the blood of my father, though he was friends with hers. She sought our family our when she crawled off that boat with nothing to her name, begging for help. We agreed to offer her enough money to run away to wherever she and her mother were headed, but she had to fulfill one job with us."

"What job is that exactly?"

"Make you fall in love with her, then break your heart in the only way you can feel pain; betrayal."

***

Oh, you've got to be kidding me? How did I manage to go and get myself kidnapped?

This is quite the situation I have found myself in, I should have never accepted a ride from these thugs, and I definitely should have paid attention to the slight red flags around me. Why would someone like these two, looking like they just crawled out of the slums, be driving a rather nice vehicle in the middle of the night, and furthermore, pick up a strange woman wandering the streets?

That whole situation should have been a dead giveaway, but I was so desperate to get away from Nathanial's place before he woke up. I was surprised he didn't spring into action when I moved off the bed, having noticed how alert and focused he is, even when sleeping. An obvious habit he developed from the war; I'm shocked he doesn't keep a gun under his pillow.

The question now is; where the hell are they taking me? There is no way Matteo already found out I never planned to return? Besides, these guys don't look like they would ever work for Matteo, he doesn't like dealing with gutter rats, as he calls the people in the slums.

New question; who do they work for then?

I haven't made any new enemies that I can remember, and it's too sone after leaving Nathanial's place for him to have figured out what happened, and sent thugs after me, and I still have time to return to Matteo as planned, so he shouldn't be behind this.

Would the coppers really go this far, just to capture an Italian immigrant like me? Even if my sweet talk hadn't worked back when I crossed over, they would've just sent me back, not thrown me in prison or go these lengths to capture me if my identity was ever discovered.

Before I can think any further, the vehicle stops moving and I'm thrown from the car by two rough hands. A bag has been secured over my head, tossed on me from the dirtbag hiding in the back that I hadn't saw when I climbed in at first. It took him seconds to get this cloth bag over my head, then my hands were seized and tied. I've been lying on my side ever since, having no sense of time or direction to know just how long and far we've gone from the city.

"Can you please at least tell a lady why you decided to pick her up and hog tie her? If you're planning on defiling me, I promise you really don't have to tie me up, I'm rather not into that style of foreplay."

I've been trying to get a reaction out of them for some time, but none of them have said a word since they put the bag over my head. No point in trying to hide their identities, I already saw their faces and I don't recognize either of them, though I hadn't seen the lad in the back, but regardless they look like such plain men, I wouldn't have been able to tell them out of a line of people.

"Just leave her there," I hear an unfamiliar voice, deep and hollow, void of emotion. It sounds like an older man, refined and pristine are the words that come to mind listening to it. This is obviously someone of high power, or the one in power himself, but I don't know that accent. I've heard quite a few different ones since coming to New York, but this one isn't one of them.

"Put her down there."

A drawled, thick accent. Yet still sounds sophisticated somehow. I feel my bottom hit a wooden seat and my legs are bound to the chair legs. When the bag is ripped off my head, it's thankfully dark enough in the small warehouse style room for my eyes to adjust quickly, and see the white-haired man dressed in a crisp pinstripe suit and black leather shoes sitting in a plush cushioned chair in front of me.

He wears a sneer on his slightly wrinkled face the moment his eyes make contact with mine, his light blue eyes holding an immense amount of hatred.

"Do you know who I am, sweetheart?" he asks me, his tone dropping to sound sincere, but I see the glint in his eye. He has no intention of being pleasant to me, no matter how nice his voice sounds.

"Not sure you would have to kidnap me and drag me here, if I knew who you were."

The man lifts a brow at me and motions for a man to come over with a file in hand, passing it to the man to flip through, his steely eyes never leaving mine.

"You're rather dark to have been born from a Caucasian mother, and yet your twin brother could probably pass for a Mexican if he had survived."

I feel the blood boil in my body. What the hell is the man talking about? How does he know about Abel and my mother?

There is no possible way this strange man knows the secret about my origin either, no one outside of my family knows that, and I'm the only one who made it over here. We had no enemies in Venice, we lived a leisurely life and stayed under the radar.

"Who the hell are you?" I snarl, twisting my legs as my anger continues to rise and my body grows impatient. His men take that as a sign of resistance and have their guns pointed at me instantly, but he waves his hand to order them to stand down.

Another giveaway; whatever he wants me for, he wants me alive. My life isn't in any immediate danger for the moment, but that doesn't mean one wrong move, and I won't end up with a bullet wound in me somewhere, just good enough that I'll stay alive but still suffer.

"My name is George Harrisson, and your boyfriend is an important business partner of mine, but recently he has had in his head in other places, as well as his hands."

"Speak plainly, I have no business with your mob dealings, I'm not close enough to Nathanial to have been involved in family matters."

George scoffs. "I find that hard to believe, seeing as we picked you up on the road leading to his secluded fortress, a place where one as rarely ever seen a beautiful woman such as yourself leaving. There is a reason Nathanial Galloway built a manor far out into a barren forest, a fortress to keep your deepest, darkest secrets. The ones you want to keep even from the family you hold so dearly."

"You assume I was there because I am one of those, he holds dear?" It's my turn to laugh at him/ "You're sorely mistaken, I'm just a good fuck."

George is across the room, my face grasped tightly between his fingers as he squishes my cheeks like a fish.

"You expect me to believe that a man like Nathanial, would willing let an Italian woman walk into his home, and he doesn't have any personal connections to her? It is not unknown to anyone who walks these streets, that Nathanial and his family are a part of an elite Irish mob, who are trying to crawl their way out of the gutter and join the big boys like me. The next biggest known fact, is that he despises the Italians. It is the main reason he decided to do business with the Brits, people he considers just as dirty as the Italians."

I'm well aware of Nathanial and his dealings with the Italians, or I would have never involved myself with Matteo and his goons. If I ever wanted to make it out of New York with enough money to live a decent life, I had to connect myself with the only other people I could call anything close to family, or I would have been run out the moment I stepped foot in the city.

"So, what do you want from me? If you're expecting me to know all those dirty little secrets, I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't know anything other than the man is desperate for affection." That isn't exactly a lie, anyone who gets close enough to Nathanial can tell he is very much a man who can no longer feel anything, physically or emotionally.

Anyone in that situation would crave for a single moment where they could feel something, whether it be in the arms of another or not. My heart beats painfully in my chest, knowing that I was that person to him, and I tore myself away from him so easily, just as he started to fall. It's a guilt that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

"Oh no, I know for a fact that you don't know anything. Nathanial has been betrayed enough times to not be stupid enough to reveal anything to a woman. From my understanding, even the woman of the family barely knows anything, or have any involvement in their mob affairs. You can't expect a woman to keep her mouth shut when around other woman, they all love to gossip, am I right?"

"Do I strike you as your typical woman? If I did, you wouldn't be treating me so harshly," I say and look down at my feet and hands bound to this dirty and unstable chair. If I was any heavier than I am, moving just a little could break it, and maybe be to my advantage. Unfortunately, my small frame barely covers the seat.

"No, you don't, which is why you're so obviously a woman who has already been claimed by Nathanial, and he isn't the kind of man to allow others to touch what is his."

It's clear now his intent. He wants to get back at Nathanial by targeting what he thinks is his biggest weakness. I let out a low chuckle and bow my head, feeling sick for some reason.

"Is there something you find funny, Miss Anabel?"

My head snaps up at the foreign name. "How do you know that name?"

He waves the file in his hand, a victorious smirk on his face.

"I know everything I need to know about you, Anabel Cavallini. I know of your family, your origins, even who your real mother is. There are records of everything that happens in this world, whether it be physical evidence or word of mouth, you can never completely get rid of something in this world. Your past is no exception."