Dangerous Numbers

Chapter 33

ALEXANDRA

When I'm finally ready, Mia opens the door and Dante shoves me out. I find myself in a dark corridor, numerous doors appear on its sidewalls as I turn to look around. Mia is leading the way, while Dante is right behind me, with a gun pinned at the small of my back.

You could hear noises coming behind some of the doors. I wonder how many have down there, torturing. I feel shivers of fear running down my spine as we keep walking further down the gloomy corridor. I thought I'll never find myself in a position like this, yet here I am. This is a nightmare.

We have reached the end of the corridor and I see stairs making their appearance on our right. Mia keeps ascending without stopping and Dante gives me another push. I fall to my knees but a hand joltS and grabs me by the hair, pulling me up. I let a cry of pain but none of them seems to care.

A soft light hits us as we are at the end of the staircase. We are at the surface now. The light here is so strong, that I have to blink to adjust my eyes to it.

There is a large open space, surrounded entirely by large window walls. The light wooden floor is covered by a mocha carpet in the centre. The only furniture, is a large oak dining table with the same colour chairs, and a laptop. Dimitri and Juliano are already here, discussing in a corner of the room.

When we enter, their heads snap straight to us. Mia walks seductively toward Juliano and grabbing him by the collar, she kisses him with force. Dimitri Vokov's eyes are still on me, looking at me from head to toe. The look in his eyes makes me feel filthy.

"So, welcome on board." Juliano mocks escaping Mia's grip, and walking to the table. The rest are following behind him. Dante presses the gun on my back, giving me another push.

Juliano takes the chair opposite the laptop and drags it back. He then motions me to sit. I walk slowly around the table and sit down, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone, especially Vokov.

"You said you'd do anything to save Vittorio, did you?" Juliano says leaning forward, until his mouth is next to my ear.

While Vittorio's breath on my ear was making me blush, Juliano's only manages to make my guts turn with disgust.

"I hear that you're very good at your job Alexandra, or should I call you Alex, like Vittorio?"

"Especially for you, is signora Conti." I spit.

"Aouch! Your feisty, I like it." He laughs. "However, our job requires your skills and since you want to save Vittorio's life, you'll do it no matter what."

"What do you want?"

"I want you to create offshore accounts on our names. Then using your talented skills, you will transfer to these accounts any money Vittorio has, providing a legitimate cover. And when I say 'any', I mean all. Anything in his possession. I want to destroy him financially first. Then we go on to other things." He winks at me.

I knew he was talking about me. After this, he will kill me and make sure Vittorio watches. There was no way things are turning in a different direction. Resisting is futile, they will go ahead with their plan either way. So, the best I have to do is buy as much time as I can and try to find something of their plan.

"Ok, but it will take some time," I say trying to look as calm as I could.

"You have until 11 p.m," Juliano states. "Then, we need to do a small trip." He adds with a bright smile on his face. This was no good at all.

Dante offers to watch over me and the rest leave the room. Without wasting more time, I start typing on the keyboard, doing as exactly as he told me. Dante was pacing all around. Sometimes he was mumbling about his glorious revenge that will end up with both me and Vittorio dead. I confess having someone talking about your soon-to-be death, was not amusing.

As I finished setting up the accounts and I'm about to start transferring the funds, my thoughts go to Vittorio. He must be the same scared as I am. Most were describing him as senseless and many more things, but I had seen a different part of him, beyond his surface. I'm sure he will move earth and heaven to rescue me. But Juliano was betting on that. And when Vittorio appears he will kill me.

I wanted so bad to send a clue to Vittorio, but the laptop had minimum access and with Dante's eyes on me, anything suspicious would end my life much earlier. We've got this. I keep telling myself.

I finished what they asked me after a long time. I check the time on the laptop. 22.30 was written on the bottom right of the screen. I huff a blow of air taking the courage to keep up. This gets Dante's attention who turns his eyes from the window looks outside and walks toward me.

Dante makes a call and as soon as he presses the button to end it, the door opens and all three of them enter. Juliano comes closer and I hand him over a piece of paper without looking at him. He snaps it from my hand and looks at it carefully. When he finished with his inspection, a bright smile formed on his face and the others follow him.

"Even in your last hours, you remain professional. You have my respect. Well, you won't live long enough to enjoy it." And with that, Dante grabs my arms behind me and ties them. Dimitri takes a step forward, smiling.

"Let me go!" I scream but to no avail.

"Do you think we'll let you just walk away? Please, don't make me think about you so low. You're smarter than that foolish play. This ends with you and Vittorio in the morgue. But first, I want to show Mr Vokov how high we value hospitality." Juliano whispers next to my ear.

He stands up and motions his hand to him.

"She's all yours. But be quick. We leave in half an hour."

I start screaming and kicking, as Vokov grabs me by the elbow, dragging me outside of the room.