Chapter 2 Chapter two

ADORE

"Waiting for Angelo?" Imogen sneered. She smiled at me but it didn't reach her eyes, not even close.

I swallowed hard. "How did you know about that?"

"I read your little note, dummy." She tilted her head like I had asked the dumbest question in the world. "So what is it? This important thing you have to tell him?" She took a slow step toward me, her smile sharpening. "You can tell me instead, right?"

The disappointment hit me square in the chest and I hated how much it hurt. I had practiced those words a thousand times. They were supposed to be for him.

"What do you want, Imogen?"

She didn't answer. Her hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked so hard my eyes watered instantly.

"Let me go!" I cried out, grabbing at her wrist, twisting, trying to pull away but before I could do anything two of her girls had both my arms locked in their grip.

"And what if I don't?" Imogen leaned in close, her voice dropping to something sweet and poisonous. "You'll run to daddy? Just like a little cry baby, always needing daddy to save her."

They all laughed and something hot and humiliating crawled up my neck.

Imogen was the heiress to my father's rival company and the undisputed queen of Futham High. Pretty, polished and absolutely ruthless. She wore her father's wealth like armour and used it like a weapon. Everyone knew it. Nobody said it to her face.

My father was the Mafia Don, one of the most feared men in the state. Half the school whispered about it behind my back. Unfortunately for me, I had inherited absolutely none of his steel.

"The Mafia princess wants her daddy!" Imogen sang and they howled with laughter.

"Let me go," I said through my teeth, pulling against the girls holding me. "I'm warning you."

"Warning me?" She looked genuinely amused. "How dare you even think about stealing my man."

"Angelo is not your man."

The amusement vanished from her face like a light switching off. Her palm connected with my cheek so fast I didn't see it coming, just felt the sharp crack of it and the sting blooming hot across my face.

I should have taken those self defense lessons. Every single time Dad offered, every single time I said no. I was thinking about that now of all times.

"You think Angelo would ever look at your face?" Brittany tightened her grip on my arm and looked me up and down like I was nothing. "Imogen is prettier, smarter, classier. You don't even stand a chance."

"You are not even fit to be Don Luca's daughter," Imogen said, her voice dripping with contempt. "You are so ugly."

Something cracked open inside my chest but I refused to let her see it.

"Help!" I screamed suddenly at the top of my lungs. "Somebody help me!"

Stefani darted to the corner and peered out, then shook her head. Imogen laughed, low and satisfied.

"No one is coming, dummy." She nodded at her girls. "Bring her."

They dragged me toward the old library, the one nobody used anymore since the new building opened. I dug my heels in, twisting and pulling but it was no use.

The door slammed shut behind me.

Darkness.

Complete, suffocating darkness.

My breath seized in my throat. I spun around and threw myself at the door, banging both fists against it as hard as I could.

"Imogen! Let me out! Imogen!"

"Let this be a lesson." Her voice came through muffled but I could still hear the smile in it. "Don't ever touch what isn't yours."

"Enjoy your party with the rodents!" someone else called and then there was laughter, bright and careless, growing fainter with every second.

Then nothing.

Just silence and darkness.

"No," I breathed. "No, no, no, don't go, open the door, please..." I wheezed out but silence answered me.

I pressed my back against the door and slid down until I hit the floor, my knees pulled to my chest. The sweat was already soaking through my uniform and my whole body was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering.

The dark wrapped around me like something alive and suddenly I wasn't sixteen anymore.

I was five years old.

I could hear the laughter of the men who kidnapped us. I could hear the click of the lock as they separated me from Adonis, the sound of his voice calling my name getting farther and farther away until there was nothing. Just a dark room and the scratch of roaches moving in the corners and the sound of my own crying because I didn't know how to stop.

Being the child of the Mafia Don had its price. That was mine to pay at five years old.

Tears were streaming down my face and I couldn't tell anymore if I was here or there, sixteen or five, the old library or that room. My chest was heaving, each breath coming out ragged and wrong.

I pressed my lips together and did the only thing that had ever worked.

I started whispering his name.

"Angelo." One. "Angelo." Two. "Angelo." Three.

Over and over, quiet and desperate, like a prayer I had memorized without meaning to. His name was the one thing that had always pulled me back from the edge of myself and I clung to it now with everything I had.

But it wasn't enough. My head was swimming, the darkness pressing in from every side, my body going weak in a way I couldn't fight.

I was losing.

Then light exploded into the room as the door was kicked open so hard it swung back and hit the wall.

Footsteps. Fast ones.

I looked up and my whole world went still.

"Angelo," I whispered.

And then the darkness won. I slid into unconsciousness.