Tied Up.

-38- Dripping

"Mi Amore? Can you hear me? Rose? Follow my voice."
"I'm trying!! You're in every direction, the echo it doesn't help."
"Trust your instincts. Come to me." The voice echoed though the dark room, bouncing around every which way and I was not sure in which direction to travel.

Silence.

"Ace?"
"Oh. Ace. He's gone now." A new voice speaks.
"What?!" I shriek
"He ran, got out. Left you to rot, mi amore."
He says the Italian words mockingly in a cutesy whiney voice, as if it were a cute little nickname like babe or something. He never told me what it meant.

"He- he can't of left!! No, I don't buy it."
"Oh but he did sweetheart, he doesn't care about you." Tears swell in my eyes and my knees become weak, was I really just a shag?
"Don't worry, I'll look after you." I hear the echo of steps, several sets of feet, marching towards me.

This has got to be a dream, I'm dreaming.
Pinch. Still here. Pinch, pinch, pinch.
The footsteps get closer, several large shadows surround me, the lights flicker on. I squint at the sudden change and a hand squeezes my cheeks straightening my head to face him as he squats down to my level.

"Do not cry for him, he will not help you now."
He harshly releases my face, tossing me carelessly to the side before spitting on me.
My eyes finally adjust to the harsh lighting and I'm in some kind of cellar, a large concrete room with nothing but a huge steel door at the opposite end.

I stand to face the man who spat on me, the same man as before, the man who put me here, I don't remember his name. I quickly march up to the man and hit him across the face.

"You're not too much of a gentlemen, if you don't mind me saying." I sass.
"You aren't much of a lady yourself." He straitens up, trying to be intimidating but failing greatly, I'm not scared of him.

I take ahold of his collar and pull him close to my face, behind me I hear the click of half a dozen loaded guns.
"Don't shoot her, we need her alive." He orders. He's not going to kill me. Not yet.
"What do you want from me bastard??"

"You're nothing more than bait. Mi amore."
The way he speaks, he sounds almost too much like Ace. He speaks perfect Italian, like Ace.
"He wasn't here was he? That was a trick, a trap." He nods. His expression almost impressed at how fast I caught on.

"Let me go." I release his collar roughly and he stumbles back a few paces.
"Why would I do that?" He teases, stepping closer. "So you can tell your little Ace what I've done and he can light the place on fire. Quite a thing you two have with fire isn't it. Like fate, you were meant to be...

My fist pounds into his nose. Shortly after, blood begins pouring out.
"A broken nose won't do much gorgeous, you've only made me mad and that's something you don't want to happen." He swipes his nose with his fingers, admiring the blood before wiping it on his trousers.

"Boys," he pauses "go ham." Before they even move he raises a hand stopping them, he turns to leave.
"I want her alive, barely, but alive. That's my only condition."
With a flick of his hand I'm surrounded by big men as the scrawny man leaves the room.
They all have the same look in their eye.

"Look boys, I'm sure we can come to some kind of an understanding-
One swipe and my legs a out from beneath me, I land on my ass, hard. That's going to bruise.

Before I even have the chance to open my mouth someone punches me across the face and someone else yanks my hair.

I can't even process anything and I'm being beat to pulp. There's several men, big buff huge men taking shots at me with their fists from every angle and I'm defenceless, my face streaked with tears

"Please. Stop." I cry.
I make my self as small and compact as I can hoping to minimise the surface area they can hit and bruise. Fuck, I'm going to be covered in bruises if I ever make it out of this.

My mindless sobs get lost in the echos of thuds bouncing off the empty walls, I can't go anywhere, there's no point in fighting back - I'd never win. I just stay and take the beating.

I deserve this.

***

There's a constant dripping. I can hear it every second of the day, every second of the night. I cannot locate any moisture, I have made my way around this fucking room 7 times and every single time all I've found is concrete walls. Plain. Concrete. Walls.

The drilling is like torment, a constant reminder of the dry scratch in my throat every time I swallow. This man decides to beat me up and then leave me here, I think it's been about 2 days since I got thrown in here?

I'm not sure I lost count hours ago when he decided to let me live a couple more hours and nourish me with a single slice of bread. No water. Just bread. My throat is killing me.

My body is full of aches and covered in bruises from the beating I received, I cannot move without hurting myself. I think that was the intention, to torture me for several days from a single punishment.

I must say, Aces punishments are way more fun.

"Guess who??" A voice bores.
"Oh I don't know, Santa Clause?"
A low evil chuckle.
"My package puts his to shame, sweetheart."
"I doubt that very much. When are you going to let me go, I'm sick of this." My voice dripping with complete and utter boredom.

"We will let you go when your little boyfriend-
"He's not my boyfriend!"
"UH!" He tuts like he's talking to a dog. " I do not like being interrupted Ms Juliette." He clears his throat.

"As I was saying, you will be released as soon as Mr Ace Romano himself pays me his debts hands over his fortunes and comes to collect you himself. So I'd say...

...Never?"

***
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