Body of Trust - Jeannine Colette Page 0,72

did everything they’d said, but it didn’t work, and now, we’re here. Can you hear me?”

I pull on my wrists again, harder this time, straining my body as I try to rip the material. It won’t work. My lungs can’t seem to get enough air as I fight for breath, winded and distraught.

My eyes scrunch as tears sting from the inside.

“We have to get out of here, and I don’t know how. You promised to protect me, but I couldn’t protect you. How could that be when I can’t live without you? God, I should have told you. I should have fucking told you how amazing you are. How sweet and kind and generous and strong and resilient you are. That’s why you have to wake up and walk out of here with me. You said it yourself. It’s us. Always us. But I can’t do it alone. I wish I could, but I need you, Jesse.”

I stare at his face, still so beautiful, even in the dark and splattered with dirt and blood. “What I’d give to go back all those months and tell you how I feel. I fought you so hard, when I shouldn’t have. It was always you that I trusted. In the marrow of my bones, I knew you would be the one to bring me into the light. I was too scared to say it, but I’m not anymore. I’ve had a taste of that love, and I want it.”

I roar in my seat with might, and it lifts and slams onto the floor. My body aches from the impact, but it reminds me I’m still alive. There’s still fight left in me.

“Fucking Salinger! He did this to you. He ratted you out! We trusted him, and he did fucking did this! You shouldn’t be here. He brought you into this!”

My sobs pour down my cheeks. Big, heavy, aching cries bubble off my lips. I feel completely useless.

I failed Jesse.

I failed my family.

I failed myself.

“I love you.” My words are an apology.

Maybe if I hadn’t loved him, he wouldn’t be in this mess. He wouldn’t have tried to protect me.

“It’s about time you admitted it.” Jesse’s words are soft and grumbly.

“You’re awake!” I cry in delirium. “Are you okay? Is anything broken?”

A soft smile tugs on his lips, his eyes still closed. “I’m okay. Just a broken rib. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“They beat you horribly. You’re still in shock.”

“No, baby. I’m okay.” The eye that’s not swollen opens. The blue of his gaze lights up the dark room. “You are a sight for sore eyes, you know that?”

I let out a laugh. “I was so scared. I still am. We have to get out of here.”

“I know.” He looks down at his body, assessing the situation. His head rolls from side to side and then up and down. “We’re in a warehouse, but I don’t know the location. Lugazzi’s men hauled me away in a van and started beating the shit out of me on the ride here. It was only a twenty-minute drive, at the most.” His words are stated matter-of-factly as he tugs on the zip ties.

“I tried that. It just leaves your wrists bloodied.”

He looks at my injured wrists in dismay. “They’re going to kill me when they come back because I won’t tell them what I know about Frank Evangelista.”

“What aren’t you telling them?”

“Nothing. I just needed a reason to keep myself alive until I got to you. They’re going to kill you too. Carlo must not have seen what you did to yourself. Your ankles are bleeding. There’s no way they can turn you into the police, looking like you were kidnapped. It’ll be easier to get rid of you.”

“Jesse!” I gasp in horror.

He starts rocking himself back and forth. His movement makes it look like he’s going to fall backward in the chair as he lifts the front of the seat up in the air and down. As he does so, he pulls his right leg over so the zip tie is rubbing up against the moving chair and shimmies his body. Again and again, he thrusts his chair up and back while moving his foot creating a fierce friction that is severing the thick plastic of the tie. On what feels like the hundredth try, he frees his right leg.

I want to cheer in happiness but stay silent, as I’m shocked by his moves.

With his right leg free, he pushes his foot against the ground and slides