Page 12 of Poison and Wine
When I tossed my head back, I looked into the mirror. I shrieked when I found myself staring into a man’s blue eyes. My body tensed as fear and horror ricocheted through me. Before I could react, the man grabbed my waist and spun me around to face him. His tattooed hand closed over my mouth while his other hand pressed against my throat. “Not a fucking sound, sister,” he warned.
Instantly, I recognized his deep Irish brogue. It certainly wasn’t an accent I heard around here. It reminded me of New York. More than anything, it made me tthink of the Irish families who warred against ours. Was this man one of my father’s enemies? Had he somehow managed to track me down here to enact revenge on the Neretti family?
In another situation, I would’ve found him handsome. Jet black hair, ocean blue eyes, and finely chiseled facial features. But his beauty encompassed cruelty. His harsh gaze trailed from my face down to my breasts where it lingered momentarily before dipping lower to my hips.
“Fuck me, sister. The pictures didn’t do you justice.” He licked his lips. “You have a body for sin,” he remarked as he pressed me tight against his hardened muscles.
At that moment, I realized his intentions were to rape me. In spite of my fear, I knew I couldn’t let that happen. From the time I could walk, my brothers had taught me how to defend myself. It was a necessity for all Famiglia daughters in cases of kidnapping.
With everything I had in me, I jerked my knee up between his legs. When his hold momentarily lessened on my mouth, I reached out and chomped down on his hand, shredding the skin with my teeth until a metallic rush hit my tongue.
“Motherfucker!” he shouted before releasing his grip on me.
I dashed into the bedroom and whirled around the side of the bed. With trembling fingers, I ripped open the nightstand drawer and dug inside for the Glock my brothers had gifted me for my eighteenth birthday. While many would’ve been surprised to know that a sister was armed, it was a necessary evil based on our location outside of cloistered walls.
Once I had the gun in my hand, I spun around just as the man had breached the bathroom door. At the same time, footsteps echoed in the hallway. When the man lunged for me, I squeezed the trigger. Because of his movement, the bullet grazed him in the thigh instead of my intended target of his stomach.
“Fuck!” he bellowed, his face contorting in pain.
With a grimace, I steadied my hand, which was hard to do with how much I was shaking. Just as I was about to shoot again, another man barreled into me. When he slammed the two of us to the floor, the gun slipped from my grasp.
I began thrashing under the man’s weight, kicking him as hard as I could in the shins. As we rolled around on the floor, the mop next to the nightstand got knocked to the ground. I reached over and grabbed it. Instead of whacking him around the head or abdomen, I jammed the hard end between his legs repeatedly.
At his howl of agony, I scrambled to my feet and raced out of the room. “Sister Caterina?” Sister Antonia called from her doorway.
Waving my hands, I ordered, “Get back in your room and lock the door!”
I knew she wouldn’t want to listen to me. As the head of our group, she should’ve been the one going for help. But something in my steely expression registered with her. Maybe it was the fact she knew I’d come from a dangerous past—one that gave me more survival skills than she possessed. After giving me an agonized look, she slammed the door.
I sprinted down the corridor. If I could get to the main office, there was a phone I could use to call for help. It was a windowless room, so I could barricade the door with some of the furniture. It would buy me time to hopefully have someone come to our rescue.
As I started around the fountain past the main gate, a body crashed into me, sending me flailing into the fountain’s pool. As water cascaded over me, I gasped from the temperature. Then as a body held me captive, I fought to breathe. Panic ricocheted through me as I desperately tried getting air in my lungs.
Strong hands grabbed me by the shoulders and jerked me to the surface. I gasped and wheezed to catch my breath. “Let me go!” I screeched.
“Dunk her again,” a man’s voice growled from my right.
“Forget that. Just fucking sedate her.”
“No!” I screamed. If I was out, the men could violate me anyway they wanted to. I continued to thrash and fight, but then something jabbed into my upper arm. “No, no, no!” I cried. I kicked one last time before darkness took me under.
Chapter Four: Callum
After scaling the gates of the religious order, I’d broken my first rule: never underestimate your target. I suppose I let my guard down because everything was too easy. No guards. No alarms sounding our arrival or motion detectors announcing our presence. Not to mention the ancient locks that appeared easy to pick.
Once Quinn and Dare convened with me in the courtyard, I had barked out a few orders. “Quinn, you stay here by the gate and pick the lock for us to have a clear getaway.” Glancing over at Dare, I said, “You cover my back as I head in the building. After I’m inside, move to the front room, and I’ll meet up with you once I’ve secured Caterina.”
Dare’s brows had furrowed. “You don’t want me to come with you?”
With a roll of my eyes, I had replied, “I’m pretty sure I can handle four unarmed nuns.”
In hindsight, that was a grievous mistake. Of course, it wasn’t four nuns that incapacitated not only me, but Dare as well. It was only my not so blushing bride. She’d felt like heaven when I’d pressed against her. Her full breasts had pillowed against my chest while her round, full hips had curved against me. At that moment, I’d wanted to claim her mouth and thrust my tongue against hers.
But then that heavenly moment had turned to pure hell when she racked up my balls and then bit me. The bitch had maimed me enough to draw blood. I’d yet to have an enemy make me bleed through a bite. I’d be lying if there wasn’t a small part of me that was turned on by her ferocity.
But then she had to go and fucking shoot me. The bite was nothing compared to the gaping wound in my upper thigh. I imagined without the fear and shock, Caterina probably would’ve been able to shoot me right through the heart. I gave thanks for small mercies, and the fact that Quinn knew how to tie a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
I turned my attention back to Caterina. She lay limp on the edge of the fountain. Even in the dark, I could make out how her wet cotton nightgown was drawn obscenely tight against her skin—the see-through white color leaving nothing to the imagination. If it hadn’t been so dark, I would’ve taken off my shirt to cover her so my brothers couldn’t see.