Chapter seven

You smell like medicine

“Hello,” Antonino’s voice rolled, deep and baritone, like the rumble of a distant storm.

Rosa’s mother, her breath catching, fumbled for a response, her voice fracturing. “Sorry, who is this? Where is my baby?”

Silence ticked away, tense and pregnant with implications, before Antonino’s tone hardened, his words like blades.“She will communicate with you soon.” The words left Antonino’s lips with the sharpness of a razor, but the moment they were spoken, he felt regret’s cold fingers curl around his heart. What had made him offer such a promise?

On the other end, Rosa’s mother’s patience frayed into hysteria. “What? What did you do to her?” she shrieked, her words torn by anguish.

Antonino’s voice was granite, his fury palpable. “Woman!“I said she would communicate with you soon.” With that, Antonino snapped the phone shut, the clang of its closure echoing through the room like a gunshot. But as the silence of the aftermath settled around him, the ghost of doubt whispered its insidious poison.

After Antonino hung up the phone, the silence that settled over him was not the comforting quiet of a peaceful night, but the oppressive stillness of a tomb. He questioned his own judgment, his mind in a turmoil of uncertainty.

He called on his men, giving them orders to retrieve Rosa’s belongings from the hotel. Alone, the burn of his cigarette a feeble comfort, his thoughts churned like a tempestuous sea.

When his men returned, Antonino’s fingers flitted through Rosa’s things with the frenzy of a starving rat seeking its next meal.Like a man possessed, Antonino rifled through Rosa’s suitcase, the sound of rustling fabric and snapping zippers punctuating the silence. But as he sorted through her belongings, her secrets remained frustratingly out of reach. Her passport, a collection of photographs, her toothbrush—all innocent items, offering no hints, no clues.

And then, his fingers brushed against the cold metal of a ring—an engagement ring, its brilliance stark against the shadow of his suspicion. He held it up to the light, his gaze hard and calculating, as if the precious stone held some hidden truth.

He got curious and asked himself what was her secret. Why was she at the club when she was engaged and why she wasn’t wearing it

The sun had dipped beneath the horizon, the room enshrouded in darkness, when Rosa’s consciousness stirred. As her memories of the day’s events came flooding back, a tide of dread rose within her. “What have I done?” she murmured, her mind swirling with fear and regret.

Desperate for answers, Rosa gathered her strength, determined to find Julian, but as she Shackled to the bedside table by the cuff’s cold embrace, Rosa’s heart thundered, its frenzied beat a reflection of her panic. Confusion and rage swirled together, a tempest of emotion raging within her, and her screams rang out, reverberating off the walls.

Rosa grappled with the metal chain, her fury giving way to a desperation that burned as fiercely as the fire within her. How long had she been confined? Was Julian even still alive? The questions whirled like vultures in the dark recesses of her mind.

Antonino entered the room, his presence a suffocating darkness that snuffed out the last vestiges of Rosa’s courage. She quivered, a tiny, helpless mouse under his towering shadow, her voice a tremulous whisper.

Antonino’s response was laced with acid, his tone a mockery of her vulnerability. “Not so bold now, are you?”

Rosa, choking on her fear, her anger a smoldering ember, spat out her retort. “What more do you want from me? Haven’t you done enough?”Antonino’s eyes, hard and unyielding, bore into Rosa with the cold intensity of a Siberian winter. “The truth.” His voice, cutting as a razor, sliced through the silence.

Rosa, her defiance tempered by terror, wailed, “I don’t know what you want from me! I’m telling the truth!” Her chest heaved with the force of her sobs.

Antonino’s voice, deceptively placating, flowed like honey. “Calm yourself, Rosa. You don’t want to die just yet. There are still so many questions I want to ask.” His words, although seemingly soothing, were a sedative laced with venom.

Rosa, her body trembling with a dread that ebbed and flowed in violent waves, turned ashen. The proximity of Antonino, even from behind, evoked a primal terror, an instinctive knowledge that she was in the presence of a predator.

“You know about your condition, and you decided to become a spy?” Antonino’s words dripped with a mixture of disdain and curiosity. He leaned forward, his proximity invading Rosa’s personal space like a fog.

Rosa, paralyzed by fear, felt as if she were drowning in the depthless void of Antonino’s gaze. His question echoed in her mind, a serpent’s hiss coiling around her rationality. Was he mocking her? Was he genuinely concerned? Did he expect her to answer?

“Why don’t you talk when I ask you a question?” Antonino hissed, his rage quickening with each passing moment. Rosa, her body quivering like a reed in a gale, offered no reply, her silence a mute appeal for mercy.

Suddenly Antonino invaded her personal space.

Antonino’s fingers tightened around the neckline of her gown, bunching the fabric in his fist, but as she crumpled into a trembling wreck, rosa couldn’t help it she started wailing and shaking. This was not what he expected so he let go of her, his resolve faltered.

Antonino’s words cut through the silence like a knife, their sharpness betraying his inner turmoil. “Since the doctor said you need some fresh air, you’re going to accompany me to my site. Finish up your drip,” he commanded, his eyes briefly flitting to the drip attached to Rosa’s arm.

Antonino turned to leave, but stopped short of the doorway, his shoulders tensing like a predator about to pounce.“Oh, and one more thing. I brought your things from your hotel, but I tossed those rags you called clothes. They weren’t my taste. And I’ve got your passport, so don’t get any ideas about running.” Antonino’s words were a razor-sharp edge, his tone laced with a venomous bite.

Rosa’s heart lurched in her chest, her body quivering like a lone leaf in a raging storm. She was trapped, and he knew it, savoring every moment of her terror.

After a while, Julian burst into the room, his fear fueling his steps as he rushed to Rosa’s side, his eyes widening at the sight of her sobbing form. “Rosa!” he exclaimed, dropping to his knees beside her bed.

Her gaze was distant, lost in the maelstrom of her trauma, and Julian gently touched her arm, feeling the tremors ripple through her body like a fever. “Rosa, I’m here,” he said, his voice calm and steady. “I know what happened.”As Julian’s words registered, Rosa’s gaze slowly sharpened, focusing on his face as if it were a solitary beacon in the darkness. “Julian,” she whispered, her voice quavering like a candle’s flame in a stiff breeze.

“I’m here, Rosa,” he murmured, his hand tightening its grip on hers. “I’m not going to let him hurt you anymore. But we have to find the real culprit before it’s too late.”“Rosa, hang in there,” Julian pleaded, his voice tinged with desperation. “Please, don’t try anything stupid again. You have to stay alive.”

Rosa’s breathing, still ragged with the echoes of her sobs, slowly steadied as Julian’s words washed over her.

“I’ll be gone for a day or two,” he continued, “but I’ll come back, I promise. Julian left to prepare for his business trip.

Antonino's secretary came in as soon as the drip finished,ready to make Rosa ready for her walk.

Rosa, still hopeful that some answers might be forthcoming, tentatively asked, “Where are we going?”

The secretary remained silent, her gaze fixed on the tasks at hand as she methodically changed Rosa into the satin gown, her hands steady and unyielding.

“Am I supposed to wear this?” Rosa persisted, the weight of the gown an uncomfortable reminder of her precarious position.

This time, the secretary replied, “That is what Mr. Antonino requested,” the secretary said, a hint of finality in her tone. “We need to be on our way now. Mr. Antonino does not like to be kept waiting.”

Rosa nodded, her expression a blend of resignation and fear. She followed the secretary in silence, her gaze lingering on the elaborate decor that adorned the halls, a cold testament to Antonino’s wealth and power.

The mansion’s double doors opened onto a waiting cars, its sleek lines gleaming in the sunlight.

Rosa was just seeing it for the first time she turned away taking in the view. Julian and Antonino just watch her as she displays such as childish but cute spin. Rosa’s wide-eyed wonder at the opulence of Antonino’s mansion quickly melted away as she spun around, her eyes alighting on Julian, his presence a beacon of comfort in the disorienting ocean of luxury.

She waved to Julian she was surprised he was still around, Julian came toward her.

“Julian!” she exclaimed, her voice a mix of surprise and relief. “You’re still here!”

“Don’t worry,” Julian replied, his lips curling into a reassuring smile. “You’ll get to see the sea.”“But why aren’t you coming with us?” Rosa asked, her brow furrowing with worry. She turned to Antonino, her expression betraying her distrust.

Julian chuckled at her reaction, a sound that was quickly stifled by Antonino’s frown. “I have a business trip,remember?” Julian explained, his gaze flitting between the two, a silent message dancing in his eyes. “I’ll be back soon. Just don’t provoke him, okay?”

Rosa’s heart thudded in her chest as she watched Julian disappear from view, his silhouette fading into the distance like a mirage. As he made his way to a black SUV parked at the far end Ashe drove off.

“Come along,” the guards barked, their voices as gruff as their demeanors. Rosa’s arms and legs were spread, her body subjected to their thorough search. She thought the humiliation would end there, but Antonino had other plans.

Rosa’s confusion deepened as a single heavy handcuff, a cold and unforgiving shackle, was clamped around her right wrist.She glanced at Antonino, his malicious grin a bitter taste in her mouth, like a spoilt teenager who had just collected candy from a baby as he saw her expression change, she was so confused, that she was escorted to the white SUV jeep which was in the middle of two black Chevrolet suburban SUVs.

Rosa’s discomfort was palpable, her body rigid and tense as she slid into the back seat of the SUV, the cold steel of the handcuff pressing against her skin like a reprimand.

“You smell like medicine,” Antonino teased, his tone a mockery of concern. “Did Julian not feed you well? You’re so thin.”

Rosa’s jaw clenched, her silence a defiant act of resistance in the face of his taunts. Trying her best not to provoke him.

Your hand he asked her. Antonino’s request, a seemingly innocuous one, was like a stone dropped into still water, the ripples of unease spreading across Rosa’s features. As she watched, bewildered, he snapped the vacant cuff around his own wrist, their arms forming an unholy bond.

“Just in case you’re planning something silly,” he said with a sinister smile, a sickening blend of amusement and malevolence."Let go sell you off" he said.

Antonino’s attention shifted to his phone, a world unto itself that hid his motives like a mask.

She was going to be auction she thought..Rosa’s shock was like a taser to the heart, her mind racing faster than the SUV’s engine, each thought a tangled thread in an endless web of possibilities. She turned her attention to Antonino, hoping to read his expression, to divine his motives from the hidden depths of his gaze.

But his face was a blank slate, his features as hard as marble. There was no trace of humanity, no flicker of empathy.