“Mandy!” I yelled and turned towards her, but the hard nuzzle of the gun pressing into the back of my head stopped me cold.
“Move another muscle and I’ll blow your head off.”
Such fear filled my chest I couldn’t even breathe properly.
“Tie them up,” the one with a gun to the back of my head said. It was clear they were professional, purely by how quickly and efficiently the plastic ties were bound to our wrists.
Mandy was dragged roughly and slammed against the car. “Please don’t hurt me,” she cried. “Please.”
Her quiet sobs broke my heart as I tried to meet her gaze to tell her how sorry I was, but she wouldn’t even look in my direction. I couldn’t understand what was happening. I had no idea this kind of danger was lurking around me. Now, I desperately wished I hadn’t rallied the girls around to help me.
Christine had gone extremely quiet, and was also leaning against the door beside me.
“Who’s Siciliana?” he asked, but he stared at me. He knew it was me, but he was making sure.
None of us spoke.
One of the men lifted his arm again. He pointed his gun to the back of Christine’s head. “Who the fuck is Siciliana?”
“I am!” I instantly surrendered. “I am. I’m Sienna Siciliana.”
The man who had asked the question nodded to his companion with satisfaction.
“We need to get out of here,” one of the men said. “Get to it!”
“I’ll come with you but please, please let my friends go. They have nothing to do with this.”
None of them bothered responding.
Instead they moved into action. “Move,” they commanded and they shoved us into walking.
The three of us were herded towards the van ahead.
I kept looking back to catch the gaze of the one pushing me. “Please. Let them go. I’m the only one you need. They have nothing to—”
“For the love of God, will you shut the fuck up?” he snarled.
“Calm the fuck down,” another man scolded him in Italian.
A phone began to ring. It had the same ringtone as mine and I froze thinking it was mine. The last thing I needed was to have my phone confiscated.
“Yes,” one of the men said gruffly.
I breathed easier at the realization that it wasn’t mine.
He listened to whoever had called, then turned his head to look at me with cold, dead eyes. “Are you sure?” he asked.
My heart began to beat like a trapped bird against my chest.
“As you wish,” he said and ended the call. He slipped the phone into his pocket and addressed his companions, “Let the other two go. Only she comes with us.”
I released a deep breath, my knees almost buckling in relief. At least the immense guilt I felt for dragging them into this mess with me could stop now. My friends, still tied up, were tossed aside like garbage, and I was led to the van.
“Sienna,” Christine called out from where she and Mandy had been thrown to the ground.
“Don’t worry about me,” I assured her. “I’ll be fine. Be careful on your way back.”
When I arrived at the back of the van one of the men slapped a patch of duct tape over my mouth. He glared at me. “Jesus, preserve me from rich girls.” Then he unzipped my purse, took my phone out and threw it with force onto the road. It smashed into pieces. Then he pushed me roughly into the empty van and the door was slammed shut behind me.
I found myself lying on my side in pitch dark. I could still hear the men speaking outside though.
“If either of you say a single word about anything you’ve seen to anyone, we will hunt you both down and kill you. Do you understand?”
There was no answer from my friends, so I assumed they must have nodded. The van shook slightly as the men got into their seats in the front.
Now I knew what my father had been so frightened about. Why he had felt it necessary to marry me off to a stranger to keep me safe. Was I being kidnapped for money? Somehow, I doubted it. I had no idea what these men wanted from my father. I could only hope that whatever their demands were, it would be something that wouldn’t break my father.
I knew now that my decision to run away from Angelo had been the wrong one, but even though I had jumped from the pan into the fire itself, I