Page 49 of Vendetta

That delicious-smelling snack was our ‘guest’.

Oh shit…

Scent-match.

Francisco was going to kill us all just to watch us scream.

Chapter 33

Rosalina

Cruz lifted me out of the back seat, which would have been sweet if he wasn’t clearly friends with the Moreno heir. How could I have missed it? Nico Moreno. It wasn’t like Nico was a very common name, it wasn’t incredibly uncommon either. But it all made sense. The familiar line of his jaw and the inky black and gray tattoos.

I should’ve known.

I wanted to walk, I wanted to scream and scratch this motherfucker’s eyes out, but I wasn’t going to give up the advantage I’d gained during the car ride. They thought I’d slept the whole way, that I was still asleep. That was fine by me. It gave me more time to plot the slow and painful death of these Moreno fuckers, and to listen for anything else they might let slip.

I lay still as Cruz cradled me against his chest, like I was his precious omega. If only that were true. My traitorous body would’ve loved that. The instinctual urge to snuggle against him was strong, but I fought it. He wasn’t my alpha. He was a child-killing monster. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, reminding myself that these people were responsible for my family’s downfall.

Trees rustled in the early morning breeze, and the first trills of birdsong were swept along with it. The air smelled fresh after being cooped up in a warm car, suffocating on alpha pheromones. I wanted to peek, but I also wanted them to leave me the fuck alone, and so far, pretending to sleep had been keeping them from paying me much attention. Which was perfect, as far as I was concerned.

Cruz carried me through a door, shutting out the slight chill and flooding my senses with delicious scents of syrupy sweet breakfast treats. I almost groaned, thinking they might feed me. Come to think of it, I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, and the smell of buttery maple had my mouth watering. I’d kill for French toast right now.

A pleasant, velvety voice carried through the space—distracting me from my hunger—telling Cruz not to put ‘the stray’ in his nest.

Well, I wasn’t a fucking stray, thank you very much, and I didn’t want to be here any more than this guy with the nest wanted me to be, so we were in agreement on that. The thought of being in a stranger’s nest made my skin crawl anyway. So when Cruz kept walking without responding, it was a relief. Although it made me wonder where we were going. I was envisioning one of my father’s concrete torture rooms with the drains in the floor for easier clean-up of the blood and viscera.

I wish we’d get there already. The suspense was killing me.

The air changed again, and the light behind my eyelids dimmed. It felt like we were going down steps, and then there was the clank of a metal door. I dared to peek, just barely cracking my eyelids open.

I fucking knew it. Of course, they would have a torture chamber in their basement, didn’t everyone?

Cruz lowered me onto a concrete bench that jutted out from the dull slate-colored wall. A concrete cell. How unoriginal.

He stepped back, and my body ached from the sudden lack of his warmth. My body was a traitor anyway because it was all languid and happy, breathing in his pheromones even though he’d kidnapped me. I pushed myself up so I was sitting on the ledge and pressed my lips together. “So, I’m your prisoner now?”

“Come on, Rosa. Don’t be like that.” He retreated to the door.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Be like what, Cruz? Like someone who’s been beaten, abused, drugged, and kidnapped… twice!”

He paused at the metal door, unable to meet my eyes. “Almost none of that was my fault, and you know it.”

“Yes, but in the end, here I am, and there you are about to lock me in a concrete room with a drain in the floor. We both know what that means.” I turned my attention pointedly to the small grate in the center of the room.

“You’re going to be fine. It won’t come to that. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” With a look that almost resembled remorse, he backed out with his eyes cast down and closed the steel door.

Fuck my life.

I thought it was bad when Diego pulled me out of school. And then I thought it was worse when my father decided to marry me off to the Vasco pack. But no, I was wrong. This was so much worse. I couldn’t even wrap my head around what was happening. How does one get kidnapped three times in the space of a couple of weeks? Twice on the same night.

Really though, it was looking more and more like I was going to die here. There were things worse than death, and it wouldn’t matter if I begged or cried, all I could do was hope that they’d make it quick.

I stared at the only bit of minuscule light coming through the barred window set high in the door.

Maybe there really was no way out this time.

Oliver