Page 85 of From Italy With Love

So I kept fighting even as they zip-tied my wrists behind my back, the plastic biting into my skin, cutting off circulation. Even as rough hands grabbed me under my armpits and hauled me to my feet, sending fresh waves of agony through my broken ribs. Even as they dragged me toward the door and my legs gave out beneath me. They dragged me down the hallway, my feet barely touching the ground, my toes scraping uselessly against the floor as I tried to find purchase. My world spun violently, and I couldn’t tell which way was up, couldn’t tell if we were going up or down, couldn’t hold on to a single coherent thought beyond the overwhelming need to survive this.

I stumbled, nearly falling, but someone caught me by the hair and yanked my head back. Pain shot through my scalp.

“Kelley sends his regards,” the voice sneered, close to my ear. So close I could feel the words as much as hear them. Hot breath against my skin, reeking of coffee and cigarettes. “Says you’ve been a very bad boy.”

Kelley.

Nolan motherfucking Kelley, and I knew with absolute certainty that I was not walking away from this. Not in one piece. Maybe not at all.

The elevator descended, floor by floor, and my stomach dropped with it. Not just from the motion, but from the cold, creeping understanding of what was coming. What they were going to do to me. What Kelley had ordered them to do. I’d heard the stories, the whispered rumors about people who crossed him. People who disappeared. People who were found weeks later in pieces.

The doors opened onto the parking garage with a cheerful ding that felt obscene given the circumstances. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow glow. They dragged me toward a black van with tinted windows parked in the far corner, away from the security cameras. The back doors were already open, waiting. Like a mouth ready to swallow me whole. Like a coffin on wheels.

I tried one last time to break free, summoning every ounce of strength I had left. Threw my weight backward, trying to knock someone off balance. I twisted and kicked, made contact with something soft. Someone grunted. But there were too many of them, and I was already too weak. Too hurt. Too broken.

They threw me into the van like a sack of garbage, and I landed hard on the cold metal floor. The impact drove precious air from my lungs, and I lay there gasping, desperately trying to breathe through the sharp, stabbing pain radiating from my broken ribs. Each breath felt like knives twisting between my bones.

The doors slammed shut with a finality that made my blood run cold.

Darkness.

Complete and total darkness, thick and suffocating.

The engine started, and the van began to move. I could feel every bump in the road, every turn, each one sending fresh waves of agony through my battered body. The suspension in this piece of shit vehicle was non-existent, and every pothole felt like a sledgehammer to my ribs. I tried to brace myself, tried to anticipate the next jolt, but it was impossible. My hands were zip-tied behind my back, cutting off circulation, making my fingers tingle and go numb.

I didn’t know how long we had been driving. Time lost meaning in the darkness, when pain was my only companion and fear was the air I breathed. My internal clock was completely shot, scrambled by adrenaline and trauma. All I knew was the pain and the fear, and the growing certainty that I was not going to survive this. That certainty settled in my gut like a stone, cold and heavy and undeniable as I accepted my fate.

Eventually, the van stopped. The engine cut off, and for a moment there was only silence and the sound of my own ragged breathing.

Then the doors opened with a metallic screech, and hands grabbed me again, rough and uncaring, dragging me out into the cold night air. I tried to see where we were, tried to get my bearings, but someone pulled a hood over my head, and everything went dark again. The fabric smelled like oil and sweat and something else—something that might have been dried blood. I didn’t want to think about whose blood it was.

I could hear water. The sound of it lapping against something—a dock, maybe, or a concrete embankment. Could smell the distinctive scent of the river—oil and fish and decay, that particular cocktail of an urban waterway that I couldn’t mistake for anything else.

The Hudson. I was at a warehouse near the Hudson River.

They dragged me inside, my feet barely touching the ground, and the temperature dropped immediately. The air was damp and stale, smelling of rust and old concrete and abandonment. Our footsteps echoed in the vast space, the sound bouncing off walls and ceiling, telling me the building was mostly empty. Just me and them and whatever they had planned.

Perfect for what they were planning.

Perfect for making sure no one heard me scream.

They threw me down hard, and I hit the concrete floor with a sickening thud. The impact sent shockwaves of pain through my already broken ribs, white-hot agony that exploded through my chest and stole what little breath I had left. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Could only lie there on the cold, filthy floor, trying not to pass out, trying to stay conscious, because passing out might mean never waking up.

Someone ripped the hood off my head, pulling hair with it.

I blinked against the sudden light, harsh and unforgiving after the darkness of the hood. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling by a frayed wire, swaying slightly, casting harsh shadows across the cavernous space. The warehouse was exactly what I’d expected—industrial, abandoned, isolated. The kind of place where bad things happened and nobody ever found out. Concrete floors stained with God knew what—oil, chemicals, blood. Rusted metal beams overhead, some of them bent and twisted like broken bones. Windows so grimy and covered in years of accumulated filth that they barely let in any light from the street outside.

Not that it mattered. We were far enough from any main road that even if someone did hear something, they wouldn’t come to investigate.

People around here knew better than to ask questions.

And in the center of the space, a chair.

Metal. Bolted to the floor.

They hauled me up and forced me into it, their rough hands gripping my arms with bruising force. My wrists were still zip-tied behind my back, the plastic cutting into my skin with every movement, but they added more restraints. Zip-ties around my ankles, securing them tightly to the chair legs until I could feel my circulation slowing. Another around my chest pinned me firmly to the back of the chair, the plastic digging into my ribs with each shallow breath I took.

I couldn’t move.