Tempted By The Mafia Boss

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Charlotte

It’s Freddo’s birthday and my big brother has to make the biggest fuss ever.

At twenty five he wants Pa to throw him a party because he and Tony not only set up their own business but Freddo is about to buy his own home.

He’s talking big with my parents but he doesn’t realize I heard him talking with Angela. I don’t like her and she doesn’t like me much either, however I decided I’d tolerate her because Freddo thinks the sun shines from her ass and she’s the most beautiful girl in the world.

I don’t have the heart to tell him that she looks like a cross between a cow and a horse mashed together and her hair looks like shit.

Today is his birthday and we’re all supposed to be nice.

The house is beautiful. Ma did such a great job decorating, and like when we were little she leaves a space in the living room where the guests can place their presents. She’s so organized and I hope that one day when I’m a mother I can be just like that too.

Everyone is in the garden but it feels weird.NôvelDrama.Org owns © this.

I walk toward them. Ma and Pa are sitting together under the gazebo, Freddo and Tony are staring into space. Cordelia is being a bitch today, she looks at me with that ‘don’t care why were you ever born’ face she’s been giving me a lot lately because she knows I’m with Gabe. Abuelita is standing at the edge of the garden.

She’s looking at something. So is everyone else. I just don’t know what.

I walk down to where she is standing and then I see it.

It’s a glass coffin like you’d imagine Snow White was placed in but there’s a skeleton inside it.

I look at Abuelita and she smiles that warm smile she always gives me.

“Look and you will see,” she tells me and points back to the coffin.

When I look back I see Gabe inside…

“No!” I cry jump up with a start… waking up. “Oh God…Gabe.”

It’s not real. Just a dream… just a dream. No… a nightmare. A nightmare.

My heart is pounding and I’m panting. I can’t catch my breath. I release a short burst of breaths and look around the … room?

Where am I?

It’s dark with the hint of a faint light and I’m on the ground. That’s as much I know.

Dark and the ground is earthy. Dirt.

I run my fingers over dirt. So I’m somewhere outside?

That doesn’t make any sense. I focus my gaze toward the light and try to adjust my eyes.

Slowly, I start to remember what happened. What Tobias did to me.

Tobias stabbed me with a tranquilizer and I’ve been out. I don’t know if it’s dark because where I am is dark or if it’s dark because it’s night. it feels like I’ve been out for days. I hope I haven’t. I pray I haven’t.

Instinct sends my hand to my stomach and I feel. I know I’m being ridiculous because I’m only three weeks pregnant but I want to feel. Something inside my soul knows what I’m feeling for and when I get the sensation that I’m not damaged in any way in my stomach, I feel as at ease as I could be given where I am.

Then next thing I feel for is over my mound and pelvic area. I would just die if I knew that Tobias had abused me in my unconscious state. I would just perish here if that man had been inside me again.

It doesn’t feel like it happened. I’m not sore like I’ve had sex so the situation is what it is.

The question is – what is it?

Where am I?

Why did he bring me here? That fucking bastard doesn’t just do things for the sake of it. I’m here for a reason. I just don’t know what it is yet.

I stand and move around, move toward the light.

It’s dark but the area feels spacious like I’m in a wide open space. Then there’s dripping of something like water.

And a growl.

I freeze and stop watching.

The growl sounds again and my knees turn to water.

Christ what the fuck is that?

The patter of footsteps click against the ground and then there’s a skitter and eyes glowing in the dark. A pair of six eyes and growls.

Dogs.

I’m already running in the dark before my brain can process that the dogs have started to chase me.

I run until I see more light. It gets brighter and brighter and I’m racing up a path of rock and dirt. The dogs chase me and I run, crying and screaming. I’m so tired and weak. So weak. I burst out into the light and stop myself before I fall down a deep drop.

I have to recoil my force and push back hard against a rocky wall.

Three of the dogs go over. They run straight out and the other three are barking at me, three mean looking Dobermans. They look all messed up like someone trained them to kill on sight.

I clutch at the wall and kick at the first one as it leaps into the air and comes for me. The kick sends it into the chasm the first three fell down.

That makes the remaining two back down, but they don’t stop barking.

Realizing I have a grip on the wall, I grab it and plant my feet into the grooves of the rock to try and climb up.

I move fast and sure because the dogs below look like they’re ready to tear me apart.

Rip me apart even. Thank God dogs can’t climb because I’d be dead now. I manage to climb up and see another level of wherever I am. Pulling myself up I shuffle onto a paved surface.

It’s paved and when I look around I see a brighter office-style light.

I work out that I’m in a cave somewhere. The rock and the hollow gives it that feel. Also that drop. I’m still in Chicago though or maybe somewhere outside where it’s more like countryside. I don’t know. For all I know I could be in the back garden at Tobias’s house.

I have no fucking clue.

Ahead of me is a path with two gray walls on either side. The light around is a bright industrial type light that makes me wonder if I really am in a cave.

It must be something like that.

Wherever I am Tobias brought me here and I’m guessing I’m supposed to keep moving.

The man is so confusing. He talks about wanting me and then he does this. I’m in a cave and I was just chased by ravenous dogs.

Shit… did he mean for me to die?

I rise to my feet and follow the path. The light gets brighter and the walls change into floor to ceiling glass windows. Now it feels like I’m in some kind of underground lab.

In a cave. This is definitely a cave. Through the window to the left there are jagged rocks and various formations that I can make out in the light. The path leads up, it definitely feels like I’m going up.

If I see daylight and find my way out, I’m running. Running like hell. Escaping.

This whole … everything is such a mess and I made it worse. So it doesn’t matter what I do from here on, the situation will be bad. Tobias always planned to kill Gabe. If I can get out I can warn him.

I can do something.

I can…

My voice trails off as I look to my right and see Gabe walking right next to me. He’s on the other side of the window. Through the glass, he’s there.

I stop in my tracks for a split second just so I can check this isn’t some dream or that my brain isn’t screwing with me. When I realize it’s really him adrenaline propels me to the glass window, right to him.

“Gabe,” I cry. Oh my God I can’t believe he found me. But he keeps walking despite my cries. I pound on the glass and he keeps walking. He’s walking and he can’t see me.

Oh god, that’s it, he can’t see me.

I run to catch him up and start pounding hard on the glass screaming and hitting out as hard as I can.

He can’t see me though and he can’t hear me.

“Gaaaaabeeeeee, Gabe! Gabe…” I wail and I cry and I scream with everything inside me. He can’t hear me though, he can’t hear me at all. He has a flashlight and he’s walking. He’s looking at something on his phone. He stops, shakes his head and turns up a path in the opposite direction.

I start rushing forward and tears blind me so badly I can’t see before me.

I stumble on something and trip, falling to the floor, just as he turns up the path and disappears.

Emotion takes me whole and I’m about to crumble when I see the thing I tripped over wasn’t a thing, it’s a person. It was a person.

Tessa.

Tessa the realtor.

She’s lying slumped against the floor dead. She’s dead. Looks like she’s been dead for weeks. She has been. It’s been weeks since I last saw her. A month.

It’s her. Her clothes are torn and she’s still wearing the same pantsuit she had on the last time I saw her.

Tobias…

He killed her.

He killed her!

I back away on my elbows and get up to run. As I make a sprint around the corner I stop short when I see what’s ahead of me.

There are dead bodies everywhere. They line the whole path. There are so many of them, too many to count.

“Oh my God…” I scream and bile rises in my throat.

It rises and instantly I vomit.

I can’t help it. I vomit and it feels like I’ve brought up everything I’ve ever eaten in my life. The smell and the sight of the people keep me retching and I back away, the way I came, passing Tessa again.

Once I get back to the section where the windows changed I slump down with my back against the wall, floods of tears take me and I hear it…

Laughter.

Laughter that seems to come from everywhere but nowhere in particular.

Tobias’s laughter.

He’s laughing at me, and if he’s laughing at me, he can see me.

“Very resilient my pretty.” Booms his voice which surrounds me everywhere and makes my skin crawl. It’s coming from an intercom in the walls. “You weren’t supposed to come up here my pet. Dogs were meant to keep you safe while we stop over for the rest of the game. Did they scare you? Ha, ha, ha. How about you be a good little slut and stay right there. I’ll come and get you once it’s over. I’ll allow you the chance to see your dead lover if there’s anything left of him.” He laughs again, harder.

My soul weeps and shudders.

Gabe… he’s going to kill Gabe.

Tobias is going to kill him and I’m just supposed to sit here and wait.

The tears take me whole and I break down.

I blamed myself before.

I worse blame myself now.