Page 25 of Bane's Beginning

Fuck.

I answered the call in my room. “Hey Chase. I’m sorry about what happened earlier,” I said, referencing me hanging up on him.

“It’s okay, Kid. I know this is a lot to take on, especially with so much going on where you’re at.”

“You have no idea,” I said, letting out a puff of breath.

“What’s going on?”

“Bane asked me to go on a date tonight,” I said. “Well, he told me we were going on a date tonight, there wasn’t much asking.” Chase grew quiet before he said, “I don’t like you getting involved with another pushy motherfucker.”

“Whoa, calm down, tiger,” I said, laughing. “Believe me, Bane is nothing like the guys I typically go for.

“Good,” Chase said and I could hear the relaxation in his voice. “Are we going to talk about the weird calls?”

“I mean, what the fuck are we supposed to do about them? Can Marcus trace the calls from his computer?” I asked. “I don’t seethe point in tracing them if we already know who they are.” He was right. Who else would be calling from the same number as the Oceanside restaurant? Matteo was closing in on us, if he hadn’t already. The thought sent a shudder down my body.

“What about the guy who saved you?” He asked. “Flynn Carter?”

“What about him?”

“You said your brother couldn’t help you. Couldn’t that guy? Didn’t you say it seemed like he had tactical training or something?”

I thought back to the strange man who had saved me from that monster’s house.

I woke up in a hotel room that looked a lot like a typical Marriott suite rather than the suites that were found in Italy. My head was pounding and pain radiated throughout my entire body. I heard the shower running and I shot up to see where I was. There were no chains on my wrist or shackles against my ankles. I wasn’t a prisoner here, I thought to myself. Looking out the window, it looked like I was in the middle of a large city and, judging from the signs on the streets, I was back in the United States.

My mind began to race as I remember mine and Matteo’s big fight, him beating me to an inch of my life before I could even tell him I was pregnant and a strange man rushing in during the middle of the night and rescuing me. I must have passed out from my injuries, but how long had I been out for?

I heard the water turn off and my eyes shot around to look for a weapon. There was no telling who this man was. Matteo was always threatening to sell me because I didn’t love him like he loved me. What if I’m at the mercy of another monster?

Before I had time to find a weapon, a man walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and his chest exposed. I quickly recognized him as the man who saved me, but he looked a lot less intimidating and his face was cleanly shaven.

“You’re up!” He said, flashing me a grin. “You’ve been out for three days, I thought you were in a coma.” He chuckled and I gave him a curious look. I was too scared to speak, I had just spent the last three months with a man who would beat me if he thought I looked at him wrong, and I didn’t want to take any chances with this stranger. As if he caught on to my hesitancy, he put up one of his hands. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I have a stepdaughter that seems to be only a few years younger than you. I would be worried sick if you were her. What’s your name?”

Oddly enough I believed him. “Thea,” I said and my voice came out scratchy. “Oh, you’re an American. I thought so when I looked at that shitty fake ID you were carrying around,” he laughed. “Why’d you have a fake ID anyways? You must be well above most of Europe’s drinking age.”

“People ask fewer questions when you aren’t American,” I simply responded. He nodded in what seemed like admiration. “Well, thankfully you were using another identity. Did Matteo ever get your real name? It’s okay if he did, we can still protect you.”

I shook my head no. While I was with him, he knew my name was fake, but no matter how much he laid into me, I’d never tell him who I was. I didn’t want him to use my family or my friends against me if he knew. “Who’s we?” I asked Flynn.

“I lead a security firm here in New York,” he said as he grabbed his clothes and went back to the bathroom. He left the door cracked so I could still hear him. “We specialize in the shady shit that the feds are too pussy to put their hands on. A friend called me about you being stuck with the Santoros unwillingly, so I came in to help. I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

As he approached me fully clothed, his face looked full of remorse. I knew I was safe with him. My mind quickly went to the pregnancy test I had left on the master bedroom’s bathroom counter. If Matteo saw it, he would think I ran away pregnant with his child. Flynn broke my train of thought as the worry continued to creep up inside of me.

“I know my help won't be able to erase what happened to you, Thea. But I hope that it will make things a little bit easier. We are going to get you back to your family.”

Flynn was my hero. When I think of him, I think of him as my last sign of hope that things would be okay. He helped me get back to California, buy new clothes and a new phone. He also assured me that his team made sure that there were no traces pinpointing Francesca Moretti to the school I was attending in Italy and back to me, and set me up with a few more legitimate fake IDs, social security cards and passports just in case I did need to run.

“I have no way of contacting him,” I said to Chase’s question. “It’s possible that he figured out Bridgette’s alias and that’s why he’s contacting her and not me.”

“Fuck,” Chase breathed out. “That Flynn guy cleared traces of you but not her?”

“More than likely. I was too scared to even mention my real name to him, nonetheless the names of my friends,” I said as guilt flushed across me.

“Don’t worry, kid. We’ll figure this out. It’s Bridgette’s last year, maybe she should do it virtually and lay low for a while.”

I laughed but it was joyless. “You’re going to tell the campus princess to lay low and do school virtually? Like that’ll happen.”