Chapter 65 Beautiful lie
Chapter 65 Beautiful lie
Bianca
Time dissolved in the windowless room. My world was measured by the arrival of bland food and the distant, rhythmic crash of waves that vibrated through the stone a constant reminder I was trapped somewhere by the sea. I didn't know how long it had been since Jennifer’s visit. A day? Two? The perpetual darkness was its own meticulous torture.
They came without warning, materializing from the shadows. Three men. A hood, coarse and stifling, was yanked over my head before my eyes could adjust. My arms were wrenched back. A blade sawed through the plastic ties, offering a second of relief before new bindings thick, coarse rope replaced them, biting into my raw wrists.
"Cooperate,"
a flat voice stated. It wasn't a threat, just a fact.
I didn’t reply. I focused on the clues my senses could gather. Seventeen steps up a flight of stairs. A doorway. Then, a sudden, shocking change in the air cool, clean, and scented with night-blooming jasmine and distant wood smoke. We were outside, but the city was gone. No traffic hum, no sirens. Only crickets and the crunch of gravel underfoot.
I had to still keep hope alive that my baby was okay and that I won't start showing and by the time that I start showing that I am carrying precious cargo Alessandro would have already shown up and rescued me. Our family did have connections but they were only used for emergencys this was one of them and I just hope that my father would mobilized the right people to actually come and extract me or maybe he would take the opportunity to test Alessandro's capabilities to be protect me.
I was shoved forward, my hip connecting with cold metal. I fell, landing hard in a confined space that reeked of dust and old carpet. A car trunk. The lid slammed shut, the sound final. The engine roared, and the world began to move.
I was a parcel, being delivered. The drive was an eternity of disorientation the smooth hum of a highway giving way to the violent lurch of mountain roads. I was thrown against the trunk walls, my shoulders screaming. I lost all sense of direction, of time.
When the car finally stopped, the silence was profound. The trunk opened. Hands hauled me out onto unsteady legs. Gravel, then pavement, then the soft give of carpet. We were inside.
The hood was ripped away.
I blinked in the sudden, brilliant glare of a private terminal. Through vast windows, a sleek white jet waited on the tarmac, its stairs a bridge to further captivity.
My heart sank. We were flying.
"Walk," the voice commanded.
I walked. They flanked me as we crossed the terminal and stepped into the jet's roaring wind. Inside, the cabin was a study in obscene luxury cream leather and polished wood, wealth that operated above any law.
They forced me into a seat and chained my bound wrists to the armrest. A man leaned close, his breath hot on my ear.
"Flight time is hours. Don't be stupid. There's nowhere to go at thirty thousand feet."
I watched through the window as the city lights shrank into nothing, swallowed by the dark. I was being erased.
The descent brought a new landscape: jagged hills and the silver gleam of a vast sea under the moon. We landed with a gentle bump on a short airstrip carved into a mountainside.
The door opened. Warm, dry air, heavy with the scent of wild herbs and salt, assaulted my senses. The Mediterranean.
A black Mercedes waited. They pushed me inside, and we began to climb, a twisting road hugging a cliff edge. Massive iron gates swung open automatically. A road lined with spear-like cypress trees led to the villa.
It was a breathtaking monument of ancient stone, perched defiantly on the cliff, warm light glowing from its windows,a beautiful lie. My elegant prison.
They marched me inside, across tiles worn smooth by centuries, past antiquities in glass cases. This was old, entrenched power.
They deposited me in a large bedroom and cut the ropes. Blood rushed back into my hands in a painful, prickling wave. A man gestured to a bathroom. "Clean up. Don't try the terrace—it's a hundred-foot drop. Don't try the door. Make this easy."
The lock clicked. Final.
I was alone. I tried the glass doors. Locked. The view was a masterpiece: a black sea stretching to infinity, a path of moonlight on the waves. Stunning. A death sentence.
A quiet knock. The door opened before I could speak. A young woman entered, placed a tray of food on the desk, and left, the lock engaging again.
The food was fresh bread, cheese, sun dried tomatoes. I ate slowly, methodically. Starving myself was surrender. I needed to be strong.
The question hung in the luxurious air, as heavy as the stone walls. I was in the heart of the enemy's stronghold, and the only thing more terrifying than the known threats were the ones still waiting in the shadows.