The first thing I noticed was the smell. Not the stale cigarette smoke or the damp concrete of a normal Mafia gangster, but his cologne. Something clean and sharp, like cedar and bergamot, cut through the dirt on the surface of the warehouse. It was entirely out of place, just like the man wearing it.
His name was Rocas Lorenzo, a notorious Mafia lord. He told me that he and another one of his men had bundled me into the back of a van outside my favorite shopping mall.
Rocas was the one who'd put the hood over my head, but his hands were surprisingly gentle. He was the one who guided me, his grip firm on my elbow, not to hurt, but to steer.
For the first twenty-four hours, I was the textbook billionaire's fiancée. I threatened them, I promised untold wealth just to secure my release, and I name-dropped Pascal Washington so many times that it started to sound hollow even to my own ears.
"He'll pay you double whatever you're being paid," I tried to convince them, my voice cracking slightly.
"It's not about the money, Miss Millicent," Rocas finally said, his voice like a low, calm baritone. He was the only one who used my full name. The others called me 'princess' or 'the package.'
So I tried hard to seduce him so hard to see if he would let me go. That's the crazy thing I have done in my life. I unbutton the first three buttons of my velvet top letting out part of my sexy boobs. He looked at first and looked away
On the second day, things shifted. He brought me food. Not a greasy takeaway, but a proper meal from a decent Italian place-osso buco, my favorite. A coincidence, surely. He also brought me a book: a worn copy of "East of Eden," its pages soft with age.
"Boredom is a worse torture than anything else," he'd said, placing it on the rickety table next to my cot.
I was disarmed. This wasn't the script. I ate the food, the flavors was a shocking burst of normalcy. I read the book, and when I got to a particularly beautiful passage about timshel-'thou mayest'; I looked up and found him watching me, a strange, unguarded expression on his face.
"You're safe here," Roca's voice came from the darkness. He was sitting in a chair by the door. "No one will harm you. You have my word."
"Your word?" I whispered, the bitterness returning. "You abducted me. Your word is worthless."
He was silent for a long moment. And then finally said, "Sometimes a prison looks like a gilded cage, Millicent. And sometimes a kidnapping is an escape."
The words hit me with the force of a physical blow because he was right. My life with Pascal was a series of photos, charity galas, and silent, boring dinners. I was a prop, a piece of arm candy to be polished and presented. I hadn't felt like a person in years.
The next morning, I woke to find Locas looking exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, staring and smiling. The other guy, Marco, was on the phone, arguing with someone.
"The deal is closing in Shanghai tonight. Boss says she stays put until the ink is dry. Then we drop her off, no harm, no foul."
A cold dread, different from the fear of physical harm, began to creep into my veins. A deal in Shanghai. Pascal had been obsessing over the Shanghai merger for about a week. It was all-consuming. He'd even joked, a cruel glint in his eye, that if our wedding interfered, he'd find a way to postpone it.
And then, like a shard of glass finally working its way to the surface, everything became clear.
I remember the night on that fateful day I was brought here. I heard him discussing a major contract on a phone call, worth millions of dollars, which would require him to travel to Shanghai on our wedding day to seal it. But that had been a war between us. I couldn't imagine postponing my own wedding taking place in two days time for money. I had told him to choose either me or the contract, and he had chosen to forfeit the contract for our wedding. But I never knew he had other plans.
He told me his friends were coming to stay over at the house so they wouldn't be late for the wedding and that we needed enough groceries.
I left for the mall that fateful morning and was abducted, only to be found in an old, dilapidated warehouse.
Now everything gets clearer. The lack of a ransom demand, the specific two-day timeframe, the 'no harm, no foul' directive. I saw the understanding dawn on my face.
He dismissed Marco with a sharp gesture, and when we were alone, he walked over and knelt in front of my cot. His eyes were full of profound, shocking anguish.
"He hired you?" What!! My eyes popped wide out of their sockets.
I continued. "Pascal hired you to take me. To get me out of the way so our wedding wouldn't delay his precious deal." I screamed.
Rocas didn't deny it. He just looked at me, his gaze stripping away all my defenses, all the pretenses I'd built over the years.
"He gave me a file on you," Rocas said, his voice raw. "Pictures, schedules, your likes, your dislikes. It was just a job. A well-paying job from a powerful man who wanted his fiancée… temporarily misplaced." He shook his head, a muscle ticking in his jaw. "But the file was wrong. It said you were shallow, a socialite who loved fashion and parties. It didn't say you were brave. It didn't say you had a temper but no malice. It didn't say you cried and wailed like a newborn.
He reached out to me; his fingers were hovering just an inch from my cheek, not touching it.
"I was supposed to be your jailer, Millicent. But these last two days, watching you, talking to you… it's been the first time I've felt free in a decade. I've spent my life in the shadows, doing ugly things for powerful men. I thought I had no soul left. You made me feel it again."
He loved me. mafia Locas. This criminal, was looking at me with more honesty, more raw feeling than Pascal ever had in seven years.
"The wedding…" I whispered.
"Is off, if you want it to be," he said. "The deal will be signed in a few hours. After that, my contract is fulfilled."I can take you back to your gilded cage, and you can marry the man who thought so little of you that he had you kidnapped. Or…" He took a deep breath, his sea-glass eyes holding mine. "Or you can walk away with me. Right now."
I looked at Locas, at his open, hopeful, terrified face. I thought of the gentle hands that had put a hood over my head and the honest words that had just set me free.
I placed my hand in his.
"Let's get out of here," I said.