CHAPTER 68
ALEXIA PALLIS.
Fear is and always will be a bitch.
To be so immobile that not a single limb in your body can move because something invisible as fear is tethering you to the spot.
That’s got to be one of the worst feelings ever.
And that fear eats me up when in my drowsy feel I can hear my captors scheming.
I can hear her voice, pitchy, pissed off sounding like an echo from where I am.
The place they are holding me in feels like a basement.
You can hear the echoes.
You can hear the outside world like a foggy memory.
You can hear her five-inch stilettos tap the concrete unevenly.
Most importantly I can smell the sweat reeking off the man in front of me and the rust from whatever chair they have me tied to.
My head pounds, any thoughts of opening my eyes would result in the pain intensifying, so I sit, chained to a chair, gagged like a dog, forced to let that fear consume me.
Junior’s breath skitters across my neck. I’m too out of it to shout for him to get away from me.
Get away.
Get away.
Stop touching me.
He can’t hear me though.
He knows this.
He takes advantage of it.
The next thing I feel from Junior is his wet lips on my neck, dirtying me, sniffing me, licking me in a way that brings bitter bile up my throat and tears to the rim of my eyes.
He doesn’t care though.
No, not even when he sneaks his hand between my thighs, caressing my skin while that fear gnaws my head.
Please don’t let him go further.
Please, God, don’t let him…
Please get my child and me out of here safely.
“You smell so good, Tesoro. Like jasmine and lavender.”
Don’t call me, Tesoro.
No one calls me Tesoro except…
Why is your father not here, baby?
Does he not know we were taken?
Is he not coming for us?
Oh God.
“We will get married soon. I will cleanse you of every impurity that brute has left on you.”
“Junior!” Athena skreiches.
Her voice builds the headache that splits my head into two.
“Stay the fuck away from her. We are not done yet.”
“We are not done? Athena my father and I will take your sister and no one will even know we did it.
We struck a bargain; we get rid of your sister for you and you remain the Pallis heir and the woman marrying that bastard.”
“Don’t call him a bastard, Christian Vitello is man enough than you will ever be. Whether you get reincarnated ten times or not. What do you plan to do to her?”
Junior’s breath and the sweat coming off of him in waves disappear from reach.
His villainy laughter pilfers through the room.
“Don’t tell me you are growing a conscience right now when you are the one who brought forth this idea to my father. Whatever is going to happen to your sister is none of your concern.”
“What about the baby?”
My sister asks.
Like she somehow cares about me and my baby’s well-being.
Sisters didn’t kidnap each other because of money or power.
In K-dramas, sure.
But in real life? No.
Athena Pallis has her own special award for sister of the year. Damn her.
“What baby?”
Two words.
Two words that have my heart falling to my tummy with no clutch whatsoever.
“I did not agree to kill a baby”, Athena roars.
Junior speaks something.
I can’t decipher what.
A phone rings somewhere in the room and my mind goes back to his words.
‘What baby?’
I survived Rhett with a baby I didn’t know I had.
I can’t die now.
My baby can’t die now.
They are not going to take you away from me, baby.
I won’t let them. I will never let them.
Athena screams something about not hurting someone.
My head spirals.
My brain ticks.
“We have to take her back! Now!”
“We did not come this far to surrender to–.”
“He has our parents! This is done! Your father will be dead if we do not-.”
“He is lying.”
“You do not know him like I do. He delivers his promises.”
“Fuck, Athena!”
“My mom can’t…I can’t lose her. Untie her, w-wipe the blood…just make sure she is breathing and everything is fine with her. Junior, now!” she wails.
The next few minutes are defined with me going unconscious and gaining consciousness every few seconds.
Every time I do, I see Junior and Athena scolding each other while I lay still in the back seat of a moving car.
Then I close my eyes and darkness eats me alive.
The only thing that ticks like a bomb in my brain is protecting my baby.
My baby is going to make it.
My baby has to make it.
Otherwise, I will…die.
Because this will be my fault.
I should have never ended up in Italy. I should have never had my memories back. I should have never met my mother or become a Pallis.
Athena wouldn’t be jealous.
Junior wouldn’t have met me at that party and wanted to marry me.
The next time my eyes open, Athena and Junior are escorting me to the inside of a building, nervous and shaking more than my weak legs are.
They take the elevator, shoving me inside with them and Junior presses the biggest button out of all the buttons on the wall.
Every time that red light reads, we’ve moved up to another floor, nausea kicks in.
I want to throw up so bad but I’m afraid to.
What if I throw up blood across this shiny metallic floor?
What if I throw up and my baby…something happens to my baby?
The lift doors open, Athena and Junior step out both of them dragging me by my arms.
I hear a few men mutter ‘ma’am’ and ‘sirs’ but Athena and Junior don’t stop moving.
We pass by a few glass doors and the blinding lights until we reach the glass door that looks like a glass room from outside but you can’t see anything on the inside.
Athena pushes the doors and Junior and I enter along with her.
The light hurts my eyes so bad, I prefer to close them.
“Thena!” the voice of my mother yells from the floor.
“Mom? Mom! Hold on! We’ll take you to the hospital. We’ll get you there, nothing is going to happen.”
Mom? Our mother?
“Get your hands off of her”, Christian’s voice, hard and vengeful washes over me like a cooling balm on a wound.
Christian? Christian’s here!
“Nico?” Christian says.
A few seconds later, new warmer hands grab my shoulders and I realize Junior is not touching me anymore.
“I’ve got you, Lex”, Nico’s voice assures and the tears I’ve been holding fall down my cheeks in fat chunks.
“Where is my father?!” Junior’s voice sounds angrier than before, scaring me whether or not I’m safe now.
The next sound that assaults my ears makes my headache triple and my heartbeat skyrocket.
A shot. The sound of a bullet getting out of the nozzle of a gun.
The sound of a bullet hitting an unprepared body.
Junior doesn’t speak after that.
I don’t have to be told he’s been shot by Christian to know that.
“Get her up”, Christian’s voice booms again.
Like a vengeful monster on a murder roll.
“Lean by the wall, Lexy. I’ll be right back.”
Nico guides my hand to what I’m assuming is the wall before he walks away from me.
“Thena! No—No—Not my daughter! D-don’t…please don’t kill her…she regrets it. Thena, tell him. Tell him you regret everything!” Mom screams.
“I’m sorry, Mom”, Athena’s voice comes seconds later and I lean away from the wall realizing what’s happening right in front of my eyes.
The eyes that I have closed since we entered here due to the lighting, will themselves open.
I open my eyes and everything comes out pitch black before the images start to form gradually.
On the other side of this large room is Christian…my…the love of my life…holding a gun…ready to shoot.
On the other side of the room, my mom is on the floor…bleeding, begging…and the woman Nico is holding straight must be…
“Athena”, I mumble as I start to walk.
As I finally get to stand between the distance that separates the man I love and the sister that hates me.
My eyes well with tears as I look at my mafia don and whisper, “Christian, please don’t.”
Don’t kill them.
Don’t hurt them.
Take me out of here. Please.