Chapter 2: Chapter 2
I drove my foot straight into her stomach.
Whoosh!
“Mila… Just hold on. I… I’ll get you out right now…”
A sly glint in his eye, he turned and snuggled into Tessa’s arms, a sickeningly sweet smile on his face. “How about this? You beg Aunt Tessa. If she accepts the ring from you, I’ll let your sister go.”
I brought my forehead to the floor again and again.
I forced my eyes open. Vincent stood over me, his face contorted with rage.
The words had barely left my lips when my son kicked my hand away in disgust.
With trembling hands, I brushed the matted hair from her face. I forced a smile. “Mila, don’t be scared. I’m going to find the key and get you out of here.”
“Alright, stop. I’ll take it.”
“Tessa!”
In my last glimpse of her, I saw a single tear trace a path down her pale cheek.
“What are you doing! Let go of me!”
I yanked at the chains, desperately trying to tear them open.
I bowed my head low.
My sister’s eyes were sunken, her lips cracked and peeling from days without water. “Sis…” she murmured.
Tessa didn’t answer.
As she crumpled to the ground, I pounced, smashing my fists into her face again and again. I didn’t stop until her face was as bloody as my own.
Half an hour later, with my hands bound and a hood over my head, I was shoved into a room.
“Can you let my sister out now?” My voice was a ragged whisper.
“Mila! Mila!”
“Isabella, do you have any idea what you’ve done? Because of you, Tessa had a miscarriage. She’s in the ICU at Northwestern Memorial right now!”
“Sis…”
Seeing Tessa unconscious on the ground, they both glared daggers at me. “If anything happens to her,” they snarled, “you will pay.”
“Tessa, I’m begging you, please take the signet ring!”
Her words flipped a switch in my brain, snapping the last thread of my sanity.
The words had barely left my lips when several burly Soldatos burst in, grabbing me and dragging me away.
A look of false pity on her face, Tessa helped me up. Then, she leaned in close, her whisper a venomous hiss in my ear. “Do you know why Luke turned your sister in? I told him. I told him your shameless sister seduced the Don of the Torrino family and leaked our Castellano family secrets…”
I let the signet ring clatter onto the floor.
I ignored them, staggering toward my sister, who was still in chains.
Blood streamed from the gash on my forehead, hot and wet like tears.
They ignored my struggles, dragging me from the cold storage.
My hand trembled. I looked up in shock.
Vincent and Luke finally started screaming, shouting for their men to pull me off her.
I squeezed my eyes shut, pain lancing through me.
The hood was ripped from my head. I flinched, blinded by the harsh, sterile light.
Then I slammed my forehead against the cold floor. Once. Twice.
My sister’s weak voice drifted from behind me.
“You’re so boring!”
A sharp crack echoed in the room as a heavy slap struck my face.
