Stolen Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle
Tess
Ilistened closely and I could tell that Marcelo didn’t lock the door when he left me. It’s shut tight, and all the way across the room from me, but I could easily walk through it.
If I could get out of these ankle cuffs, that is.
Reaching down to my ankles, I scoot my ass closer to my feet, letting my knees bend up by my sides. I can loop my fingers under the metal and next to my skin, but that still doesn’t give me enough room to wiggle them off. He left them loose enough for me to be able to move around, but not enough to get free.
But what about the other end? I glance furtively at the door, hoping that he won’t suddenly come back into the room. The last thing that I need is for him to see me actively trying to escape these things. I don’t know that he’d hurt me, not after what he said about me belonging to him, but I don’t want to find out the hard way that he would.
Just the thought of what he said sends a shiver through me. I’ve not had someone say shit like that to me for years and it honestly scares the hell out of me.
“I don’t belong to anyone, asshole,” I mutter. There’s about two feet of chain between the shackle around each ankle and what’s connecting it to the bed, and I twist my body so that I can feel down along the foot of the bed. If it’s somehow just tied to the bed then I might be able to get out, but even as I think that, I know that I’m being stupid.
If he was going to go to all the trouble of kidnapping me and bringing me here it would be insane to think that he wouldn’t make sure I couldn’t get out. Sure enough, my fingers brush the other end of the chains and my stomach sinks. They’re attached to an iron bar at the foot of the bed.
There’s no way in hell that I’m going to get out that way.
Looking to my other side, I take in the view outside the window. I have no idea where the fuck I am, but I do know that I want to get out into those woods. I’m not a survivalist, but I’d much rather take my chances with what’s out there than the guy in the house.
That means that I have to get my ankles out of these cuffs.
Turning back to them, I stare down at my feet and take a deep breath before grabbing a cuff and trying to yank it off. For a moment, I think that I almost have it, but then my ankle screams in pain as the metal tugs hard on the joint. It’s caught on my heel.
“For fuck’s sake, why couldn’t I have been born with dainty feet?” I ask, panting. There’s a burning pain in my ankle, but I’m going to try again. This time, though, I spit on my skin, rubbing it on my heel to try to give even the tiniest bit of lubrication.
I have to get it off.
A scream reaches my lips as I yank hard on the handcuff but I manage to bite it back. My eyes are closed as I pull on the metal ring and feel it slowly start to move over my heel. The spit helped and I start working my mouth to get enough to do the other foot. I’m almost there.
It hurts like hell, like I’ve burned my skin on a hot stove, but I don’t stop. Wiggling the cuff back and forth little by little, I slowly work it around the curve of my heel. It flies free, slipping from my hands as it leaves my foot, and drops down the end of the bed with a loud clank.
Freezing, I look back at the door. He had to have heard that. I have to work quickly.
Panic spurs me on as I spit on my other heel and rub it in, quickly yanking hard on the cuff. This one must be a bit tighter, or my heel is a bit bigger, or something, because it doesn’t want to pull off as easily as the other one did.
“Come on, you motherfucker,” I mutter, grinding my teeth together against the pain. It started out as a dull ache but now hurts so badly that I close my eyes against it. Just like with the other foot, I work the handcuff back and forth, trying to get it closer and closer to slipping free.
It’s stuck. It’s really, really stuck.
Sweat pours down my face but I don’t bother to try to wipe it away. Honestly, I don’t care what kind of shape I’m in when I get this cuff off of me as long as I can do it quickly. My heart pounds in the quiet of the room and I swear that Marcelo will hear it and will come to see what the fuck I’m doing.
No. I can’t think about him right now. He’s a distraction to what I’m supposed to be doing, which is escaping.
Even as I think that, though, I can’t help the fact that when I close my eyes, I see his face. He’s fucking gorgeous, even though he is a goddamn monster.
My eyes fly back open as I work. Even though I’ve been wiggling the cuff back and forth for what feels like half an hour, the damn thing hasn’t moved one bit. My skin is red and angry from me rubbing on it and I have no doubt in my mind that the inflammation is going to make it even harder to get the cuff off.
“Goddam fucking hell,” I mutter.
“That’s no way for a lady to talk.” Marcelo’s voice scares the shit out of me.
Gasping, I drop my hands from the cuff and turn to look up at him. My face flames with guilt and rage that I couldn’t escape before he came back to me. Quickly, I try to hide what I was doing by sitting up on my feet, but there’s no way to hide the free handcuff hanging loosely at the foot of the bed.
His eyes dart to the handcuff and then drift back to me. Slowly, like I’m a wild animal and he’s afraid that I’m going to make a run for it, he reaches down and takes my free foot, lifting it off of the bed. His fingers trace over my skin, leaving hot streaks behind them. It honestly feels like I’m being burned by his touch.
“You’re going to fuck up your ankles doing shit like that,” he tells me, putting my foot back down on the bed.
“I know.” I glare at him and pull my foot closer to me. I don’t like that he was so gentle with me but I did kinda like the feeling of his hands on my skin.
“And then what was your great big plan?” He crosses his arms and I can’t help it, my eyes fly up to his muscles.
God almighty, the man is built. I know he’s a murderer. I’m well aware that I should be terrified of him. But I can’t help the fact that I have a fully functioning vagina. If I had just happened to meet him somewhere else instead of been kidnapped by him, I’d want him.
But I don’t. Not a chance in hell.
Right? Right. Pull yourself together, Tess, he kidnapped you, for fuck’s sake.
“I was going to escape. Get to town. Get the police. You Bonannos think that you’re untouchable, but you’re not. You’ll see.”
“Mmm. I see. And you were going to…walk out the door there? Or go through the window? You do realize that you’re on the third floor, right?”
He’s lying. At least, I think that he’s lying. I don’t know. I keep my mouth shut.
“You didn’t know,” he says, and his voice almost sounds kind. “Well, now you do, Tess. Third floor, a straight drop down.” He points to the top of the window and I see a small box there I hadn’t noticed before. “Alarms rigged to go off throughout the house if the window is opened. I get the alerts on my phone.”
A knot of fear grows in my stomach. The way he’s talking, so calmly, it’s like he’s explaining the weather forecast to me. It scares me.
“This setup…you’ve held someone captive here before.”
“No. I’ve never done this before,” he tells me. His dark eyes lock on mine. There are shadows there and I don’t want to know what type of evil lurks in them. All I know is that if I stare into his eyes for too long then I’m not sure I’ll be able to find my way back out. “But I did plan for it.”
Turning, he picks something up from the bedside table. It wasn’t there before, so he must have brought it in with him. For a moment, I just stare at it in disbelief.
There’s no way in hell that he actually thinks that I’m going to put that on.
I twist away from him even though I know it’s futile. One of my legs is still tied to the bed, but even if I was totally free, I don’t have a chance of fighting him off. He’s terrifying and huge and could easily overpower me again.
Just like he did in the alley.
“If you stay still, Tess, this won’t hurt.”
