The Woman in the Trunk - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,15

utensils and cutting into the eggplant parmigiana.

"Lorenzo," he offered, surprising me.

Lorenzo.

I knew of a Lorenzo thanks to all the mafia research I had done.

"Lorenzo Costa?" I asked. The son of the most violent mafia boss since the seventies.

"Yes. And you're Leon's daughter."

I just barely held myself back from saying "unfortunately."

"Why wasn't he in the beach house with you? Who leaves their kid in a house all alone all night?"

"I'm not a kid," I objected before catching myself. It was a knee-jerk reaction from having people confuse me as younger for so long.

"Yeah okay," he agreed, rolling his eyes. "Where is Leon?"

"At the bakery right now, I imagine."

"Hopefully earning the money he needs to get you back."

That was unlikely, but I kept my mouth shut about it.

"This is the part where I'm supposed to beg for my life, right?"

"I imagine so. I don't exactly kidnap kids on the regular, so I'm not sure how all this plays out. You can roll your eyes all you want, Gigi, but the mafia usually doesn't deal in children."

"Gee, lucky me, then," I mumbled, lip curling as I took a bite of the eggplant parm that had clearly come from a frozen patty.

"I know. Not great," Lorenzo agreed. "One positive to getting back to where we need to go is the food will be good. And the bed will be less dubious under a blue light."

I felt a chuckle build, but forced it back down, refusing to find my kidnapper a little charming.

"How's your head? I can probably scrounge up some aspirin."

I hadn't given my head much thought. The constant, skull-piercing throbs had long since become tolerable. I imagined if I could get some sleep, it would be almost normal again. I'd gotten a look in the grimy bathroom mirror, seeing the black eye there, testament to my own idiocy.

"It's tolerable," I said, shrugging. "What?" I asked when his brow furrowed. It took a second to think that maybe I wasn't speaking like he expected. Maybe if I was seventeen, I would have said 'it's fine' or something like that, not that it was tolerable. I needed to be careful with that. Being seen as underage seemed like it was going to work in my favor with this family. Or, at least, with this man in particular. "Kinda hurts still," I added, going ahead and doing a pout as well.

"You went down so fast. I couldn't grab you in time."

I couldn't trust myself not to sass him about wanting me unconscious, pliant, so I focused on choking down the crappy food, washing it down with one of the bottles of Coke he'd had them add on the order.

"After we eat, we need to catch some sleep before we're off again."

"Are you going to stick me in a trunk again?" I asked, glancing at him sideways.

"I dunno. Probably. Maybe. Depends."

"On if I am a good little victim or not?" I asked, chin jerking up, something that got a lip twitch from Lorenzo.

"Something like that. Little bird is telling me your ass is going to be rolling around in the trunk again," he added, smirking.

Knowing me, I probably would.

But I was going to try to be quieter, bite my tongue, play my part. The less I fought, the more he would trust me. The more he trusted me, the more likely I was to catch him off guard and get away.

I will admit that my chances weren't great. And even if I did get away, where the hell would I even go? My father couldn't—and possibly wouldn't—protect me. And what was my other option? To go to the cops? That was a surefire way of getting a bullet in the back of my head.

I had no idea what the best play was. But I knew I couldn't just sit idly by and be an obedient victim until my father possibly saved me.

I knew better than anyone else that Leon Lastra was not exactly the savior type. I'd been saving his ass since I was still a kid.

So, this time, I would just have to save myself.

However I had to do that.

"I can see those gears turning," Lorenzo said, cutting into my swirling thoughts. "Don't get any ideas. You're not going to get away from me when I'm asleep," he said, and I hadn't even thought about that.

One bed.

Two people.

My stomach twisted, a knee-jerk, involuntary reaction.

"Relax," he said, voice softer. Well, as soft as someone with a deep, rough voice like his could be anyway. "I told you