Reign (The Italian Cartel #3) - Shandi Boyes Page 0,20

when the blackness overwhelmed me. They want me to win as much as I want them to be free. We are in this together. I’ve just got to find where they’re hiding to ensure them I am on their side.

I make it up four stairs before my ankle is gripped and pulled out from beneath me. While breathing through the windedness my collision with the wooden stairwell caused my lungs, I kick out like a madwoman. I smash my heel into the man’s face that’s already dribbling blood on repeat, determined to show him I’m not as weak and pathetic as he thinks.

It takes three solid stomps on his nose for him to release my ankle from his hold, and even longer than that for me to reach the peak of the stairwell. As I gasp in much-needed air, I take a moment to gather my bearings. The pain distorting my mind has me confused as to whether I took a left or right when I exited the room that had me gleaming with happiness and sobbing with sadness in under a minute. I think it was left, but I’m truly unsure.

When the heavy stomps of the man’s boots boom into my ears, I dart to the left, praying I’m heading in the right direction. If the number of voices I heard overnight are anything to go by, just the volume of women in one space should conceal me until I work out my next plan of attack. I don’t stand out in a crowd. I never have.

I send a quick thanks to my Nanna when she answers my silent prayer. The room I just barged into is brimming with women. There are ethnicities from across the globe—Americans, Asians, Europeans—they have every nationality covered.

There are children too.

Many of them.

Although I’m dying to seek a toddler with chubby cheeks, elf ears, and a dimple in the top of her lip, the furious breaths of the man hot on my tail stops me. I will find Fien, I’ve just got to survive this madman’s wrath first.

“Thank you,” I mutter in shock when several women switch out my sweat-drenched sweater with the Mormon-like clothes they’re wearing.

Their nighties are white, cotton, and very bland considering how attractive their faces are. I thought they’d be glammed up to the hilt, ensuring they got top dollar from interested buyers. Instead, they’re dressed as if they are in a convent.

“Sit, sit,” says a blonde with a heavy accent as she tugs on my arm.

Once I’m on the floor, I am surrounded by over three dozen women. The fact they want to protect me springs tears to my eyes. They’re living in horrible circumstances, and I don’t want to think about how they’ve been treated, yet here they are, still willing to help someone in need.

Despite the circumstances, it is truly a beautiful thing to witness.

I tuck my chin in close to my chest when the man enters the door I left hanging open. The reason for his delay is unearthed when I spot the cleaver in his hand. He had to get reinforcements. The thought makes me smile.

“Where is she?” he asks a group of women on my right.

They don’t answer him. They keep their heads bowed and their lips shut.

It angers him further. “I won’t ask again! You know what happens when you don’t listen to my first order.”

My heart launches into my throat when he fists the nightgown of the smallest woman in the group. He’s so much taller than her, her feet dangle inches from the grubby floor when he brings her close enough to him, the brutal crunch of his hand colliding with her cheek will ring in my ears for days.

“Where. Is. She?”

When he moves the cleaver toward her left breast, I almost vault out of my spot. The only reason I don’t is because the blonde next to me curls her hand over my balled one before whispering in broken English, “He won’t hurt. Not allowed. Slap okay. Further…” She makes a throat-cutting gesture. “Watch.”

As promised, within seconds, the brute releases the brunette from his grip before he swings his eyes across the room. I’m confident he won’t spot me in a crowd, so you can imagine my surprise when he mutters out a few moments later, “There you are.”

The women rally around me when he grips my hair like he did before my ultrasound to drag me out of the room. They claw him, bite him, and whack into him