They say that some of the best things in life are free. But what are the costs of living a normal life, when you are in love with danger?
When you've been drawn into it by a blinding force, but yet, you have no one to blame for the consequences, other than yourself.
What would it take to have a normal evening with your friends and return home in one piece? Was normalcy too much to ask for?
The locks on both doors clicked as the driver passed the curve, leading up the road to the mansion and headed straight towards an unknown destination.
He was on a suicide mission.
My heart palpitations accelerated as I glanced through my window at the blurring scenery that was speeding past us, a horrifying realization creeping into my stomach.
Even if I were to question his motives, he would not understand me clear enough to respond. I slid my hand slowly into my purse, latching onto my phone.
The vehicle came to a screeching halt and the driver leapt out of his seat, charging at me, snatching the purse from my hand and sending the device flying across the floor.
I crouched down in an attempt to grab it but was forced back against the leather seat and he picked the phone up, crushing it against the dashboard, dismantling it into pieces.
I lunged at him, digging my fingers into the side of his face. He let out a whaling grunt, elbowing me.
My cheekbone was pulsating with pain but there was no time for me to lick my wounds because it was evident that this man wasn't playing any childish games.
His mind was set to win.
I curled my legs beneath me, preparing to fight for my life. I sprang my leg forward with all the blunt force that I was able to apply, kicking him in the nose.
Blood splattered out of it, which he didn't bother to wipe and kept coming at me with a cylinder object, which now came into clear view.
"You fucking bastard!" I screamed, climbing onto the head of the seat but was overpowered and outweighed by his strong hold on my neck, before he stabbed me with the needle and I felt the cold liquid oozing through my vein.
He proceeded back to driving. I took the opportunity and jumped on his back, pressing my fingernails into his eyes. The vehicle swerved left and then right as it went off the road. We were speeding out of control while I clung to his neck and clawed at his eyes, pressing my nails until they pierced skin. He tried to remove my fingers but the car screeched to a halt and I was ejected forward. I hung on as the vehicle started again and I was slammed backwards into the seat, crushing me.
The empty syringe sat inches away from his arm. I removed one hand from his head and grabbed for it, thrusting the needle into the side of his thick neck. He grunted like an angry boar, his nostrils exhaling noisily as if fighting for air. He reached for his neck but the vehicle swerved again and he missed, grabbing control of the wheel. I pulled the needle out and stabbed him again, repeating the motion until my arm began to feel tired.
There was scraping of metal as we dove headfirst into the steep forest. The stars were shining bright in the midnight sky through the windshield but their blazing light began to fade in the distance, forming large blotches of gold as my eyes became heavy and fluttered with weakness before everything vanished into a dark hole.
Ten weeks.
It had been approximately seventy days that I was carrying the heir to the Montanari legacy, the next in line to the throne.
I knew the impact that it would have, once the news began circling among the other families. An ordinary girl holding a treasure that could be extremely valuable, if it were to land in the hands of the enemy.
Therefore, the secret was kept at a low. I was numbering the days until my next appointment, the anticipation drawing out my nightmares of something going terribly wrong along the way.
And it was driving me crazy.
I didn't want my child to be taken away from me. I didn't want to be deprived of seeing my own baby grow. Children who were born in the Mafia remained. Leaving could be punishable by death. La famiglia e tutto.
The clinking of steel against something solid resounded in my ears. I was unable to adjust to the small orange lighting that was dangling above my head, forming moving shadows in the dark.
My wrists were restrained tightly behind my back.
"Welcome back, Princess Adriana.
I immediately recognized the familiar voice, even through my foggy brain, which slowly began to process my surroundings.
My head was yanked back when she grabbed a clump of my hair, holding my face up to look directly into a pair of foxy eyes.
"Remember me?" she seethed, twisting her lips into a devious smile as she held onto my jaw with her other hand, squeezing it until it hurt.
"Of course I do. Only you would be stupid enough to have me kidnapped and fail three times in the course of a year," I muttered, my head hanging helplessly to the side.
She released my hair but I wasn't able to regain the muscles in my neck yet, which prevented me from fully raising it to look at her.
"Save your breath, putanella. You're going to need it." Her words dripped with confidence as she nodded to the driver who stood feet away from us. "Let's see how long it takes before dear Antonio sends someone out to fetch you." She raised her boot to my shoulder and pushed me down, pinning me to the cold ground. "But this time fate won't be on your side, you're remains will be buried ten feet deep into the mud."
Crazy bitch.
The air nearly left my lungs when she drew her leg back and brought it down with force. The head of her boot collided with my abdomen.
"Daniel was a fucking weak-link to your soppy past and too dumb to finish you when he could. It's a poignant reminder of how men think with their dick instead of their head."
Another blow to my ribs had me almost sobbing to the pain.
"So many whores I've had to get rid of over the past six years but you... you just simply won't go away."
Her thick eyebrows knitted together when she knelt in front of me, the short leather skirt riding up her thigh, exposing the shiny metal attached to a garter around her right thigh.
"Help me understand, Adriana." She nibbled on her bottom lip, skimming my face. "Do you have a golden vagina?" Her eyes drifted south. "What is it? Considering it's been used and overused by Jimmy, and many other men in New York, I doubt that's the case."
"It's not like I was given a choice, Eleanor. I was forced into this and you know that. So why torture me with all these redundant questions?" I croaked through a painful throat that felt like sandpaper.
She raised her fist once again, this time connecting it with my mandible, causing the back of my head to slam against hard earth.
"Don't play stupid with me, you little slut! I know you and that cunt were planning to take me out! You thought I wouldn't catch on to you fucking whores!"
There was no bargaining with this woman. I was surprised that it had taken this long for her to crack.
Where was Giada now, when I needed her? She was thousands of miles away on a business trip with Antonio, exactly how I had predicted months ago when she'd lured me into her treacherous ploy.
So much for having each other's backs.
I said a silent prayer as I felt my stomach spasm, a low grunt escaping my lips when the pain resided to the lower area of my pelvic.
C'mon, little baby, hang it there. We'll pull through this together.
The period-like cramps were only growing stronger by the minute. I focused on my breathing, which was coming out in quivering waves.
"Eleanor, please listen to me," I said with a trembling voice. My face scrunched from the tightening convulsions that were now reaching their peak, "you need to put a stop to this before it's too late."
She was pacing back and forth, with one hand on her hip and the other, running through her silky black hair.
"Or what, Adriana? I've already lost my battle, what's in it for me? What the fuck have I got left to lose?"
"You're life," I answered, resting my forehead against the solid mud, squeezing my knees together against my chest and stretching them out again to help ease some of the pain.
"What life? The one that took six years to build, which you and that bitch managed to destroy? What fucking life are you implying of!"
"He's going to kill you, Eleanor. You know there is no escaping what you're doing here, and even if I don't survive, you will be just as dead as I am."
The cramps severed into spasms and I felt myself clutching my stomach in agony.
"God, it hurts so badly!" I heard myself scream out, unable to hold back the cries.
"It does, doesn't it? When someone takes away the one thing in your life that you've wanted for so long, and end up losing it to a fucking whore from the gutter!"
I wanted to speak but the words were caught in the back of my throat when she removed the gun from her thigh.
"No... Eleanor, please―"
The gun went off, firing two shots. One penetrated my left hip and the other just above my stomach. I heard a crack in my ribcage and I threw up blood. Heat traveled through my body as if my organs were aflame.
The bright stars were floating in the far distance of my view again and soon began spinning in circles at a rapid pace.
I slumped over sideways, drifting into a semi-conscious state, lingering between this world and the next.
The ending was near and I could sense it deep inside the slowing rhythm of my heartbeat.
Had the past year of my life been just a dream?
The ground beneath me was cold and I felt the dampness in between my legs as a trickle of warm fluid ran down the exposed bareness of my thigh, soaking through the soft material of my dress.
"Eleanor, please," I tried again through whimpers, shivering against the solid ground, "you need to take me to a hospital."
"You want me to save your little bastard?" she hissed, noticing the madder now beginning to form a small puddle underneath me. "So you could pretend that it's Antonio's and keep him under whatever fucking spell you've got him enwrapped in?"
"Untie my hands," I pled, unable to pronounce the words coherently. "This is Antonio's child, Eleanor. And you're going to kill it if you don't help me! Please! I'm having a miscarriage."
I opened my eyes a crack to see her face contort into a horrified expression.
"You're not fucking pregnant with his child! You can't be! This wasn't the fucking plan! The plan was to use you as leverage until we could get everything that whore Nina took. You weren't even supposed to be alive this long but Niccolo had to get all fucking emotional! He should have finished the job that night when he went for your junky mother!"
"Help me," I begged, my entire body beginning to shake profusely.
I was picked up by my arms. I stumbled a few times while I was dragged further into the darkness. With a hard push, I was thrown into a deep hole, landing on my face, my knees digging into the mud.
I heard shoveling and panic seized my throat at the realization that I was being buried alive. "Eleanor, don't leave me here!" I whisper-shouted with the little strength I had.
The thick dirt kept coming down on me, on my head and into my hair as I cried tears of pain for my baby, whose blood was pouring out and into the wet ground.
"Arrivederci, bastarda."
Words of cruelty held zero leverage when one was being swallowed into the iniquitous depths of the earth.