Chapter 3 - The Savage Pawn
Rebecca took an instinctive step backward toward the doorway, her adrenaline surging through her veins. ""Get out of my studio. If Alessandro finds you here, he’ll slaughter every single one of you.""
Marco let out a dry, rasping laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping over concrete. ""Alessandro is currently occupied trying to hide his little side-piece and his bastard daughter in an upstate safe house. He left you completely unguarded, Rebecca. That tells the whole five families everything they need to know: you’re yesterday’s news. A discarded queen. But to Vittorio, you’re worth a hundred million dollars in territory concessions.""
Marco signaled with two fingers, and the two younger thugs lunged forward to seize her arms. Rebecca didn't freeze. The years of living alongside Alessandro had taught her that weakness invited death in this circle. She reached into her heavy shoulder tote, grabbed the solid steel monopod she used for outdoor shoots, and swung it with all the leverage in her body. The heavy metal tip struck the first man across the cheekbone with a sickening crack, dropping him to his knees with a scream of agony.
""Bitch!"" Marco snarled, lunging forward with blinding speed. He caught Rebecca by the shoulder, slamming her roughly against the brick wall. The impact knocked the wind completely out of her lungs, black spots dancing across her vision. Marco wrenched the steel monopod from her fingers, pressing the cold, heavy muzzle of his pistol directly underneath her jaw. ""Try that again, and I won't care what Vittorio wants. I'll paint this white brick with your brains.""
The surviving henchman hauled Rebecca’s hands behind her back, binding her wrists with thick plastic zip-ties that bit mercilessly into her flesh. Marco grabbed her hair, forcing her face up. ""You’re going to be the bait that brings your dear husband to his knees. Let’s see how much he values the loyal wife versus the mistress.""
They dragged her through the rear fire exit into an alley where a tinted black SUV was idling quietly. Rebecca was shoved violently onto the floorboards between the passenger rows, a heavy canvas hood dropped over her head, plunging her world into suffocating darkness. The roar of the engine echoed in her ears as the vehicle accelerated rapidly, navigating through the early morning traffic of Manhattan.
Beneath the canvas, blinded and terrified, Rebecca fought against the rising tide of hysteria. Her jaw ached where Marco had slammed her, and her wrists burned, but beneath the raw fear, a cold, incandescent rage began to smolder. For seven years, she had been a passive ornament, smiling at charity galas, tolerating Alessandro’s unexplained absences, and accepting his solemn promises of a future that never arrived. He had claimed he was keeping her untouched by his violence, but in reality, he had merely left her completely defenseless when that violence finally came knocking on her door.
The vehicle drove for nearly an hour, turning through winding roads before coming to a stop on gravel. Rebecca was hauled out by the scruff of her collar, dragged up a flight of damp concrete steps, and shoved into a chair. When the hood was violently ripped away, the glaring yellow light of a bare incandescent bulb forced her to blink tears from her stinging eyes.
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She was inside a massive, abandoned warehouse overlooking the industrial docklands of New Jersey. Piles of shipping crates bearing international cargo labels were stacked in towering rows. Seated across from her at a folding table, sipping espresso from a delicate porcelain cup, was Vittorio Romano.
""Good morning, Rebecca,"" Vittorio said, offering a sickeningly polished smile that didn't reach his predatory black eyes. ""You’re looking remarkably resilient for a woman whose husband threw seven years of marriage into the gutter for a cheap cocktail waitress.""
