I didn’t know her situation.
She lived here.
She was apparently free to roam around the house whenever she pleased. I would have tried her room door had I not seen the big man standing outside it, obviously to keep me in here.
But she wasn’t free, was she?
The bars on her window probably meant she tried to escape before and failed. I could use that to my advantage.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
She looked over at me. For a moment, I didn’t think she was going to say anything. Then she surprised me when she said, “My whole life.”
I frowned. That didn’t tell me why she was here. If she had been here her whole life, then she wasn’t kidnapped when she was little.
Was she…
Was she related to the man who broke into Valentino’s apartment to take me?
She let out a small sigh. “He’s my uncle. The man who took you. I know you want to ask.”
I didn’t deny that. “Your uncle?”
She nodded. “He’s the president of the Devil’s Wings MC.”
“The Devil’s Wings MC?”
That was the rival gang Elio was having trouble with.
But the De Luca Famiglia was fighting with the MC. And Dad was somehow involved with them? That would brand him as a traitor.
I knew for a fact that Valentino had cameras set up inside his apartment. And Dad didn't bother to hide his face. He was so sure of his alliance with the MC that he would outright betray Massimo.
How fucking stupid.
And I knew why he was so sure of it.
He was using the information he gathered as a high-ranking member under the De Luca syndicate and was marrying me off to the fucking president.
I was nothing more than a bargaining chip for him to regain power.
I looked down at my half-eaten sandwich, losing my appetite.
“Are you okay?” Nova asked me.
She stood up from the recliner and cautiously made her way over to me. I didn’t think she realized I wasn’t really a threat to her now.
Not in my current state.
“Are they keeping you here against your will?” I asked, peering up at her. She looked… hungry, like she wasn’t eating enough. Like she was on the verge of fading away, of disappearing while no one around her even cared.
She didn’t answer me.
“Don’t you want to go?”
She gazed out the window, a faraway look entering her eyes. “There’s nowhere to go. And you shouldn’t try to escape. They’ll find you. They’ll always find you. They know these woods like the back of their hands.”
They had broken her.
