Kidnapped By The Italian Mafia

"I'm so boooored!" The groan left my mouth accompanied by a loud sigh. These past few days with nothing to do were pure hell, and it got to the point where I spent my time in the sun room drawing. Drawing! I didn't have an artistic bone in my body and somehow I was drawing!

At some point the head maid had to tell me to stop trying to help, because every time I started doing a chore, I ended up making the situation worse than it started to begin with. I was cursed with a helpful disposition and talentless hands. Never in my life did I feel so… useless. Nothing was happening. All I could do was count down the hours until Philipe would drive me to go get my gloves. Only then would I be able to get to work.

"Madame," Henri spoke to me from where he was standing in front of the fireplace, dusting. "If you wish for entertainment, perhaps I could be of service."

My mind immediately dove head first into the gutter as my eyes raked over his uniform. What in the hell possessed me to hire a man so attractive to be someone I looked at every day? Oh, that's right, his skills.

Henri's dark hair was slicked back as it usually was, and this time I began to notice some greys coming through. His face was clean shaven, as it always was, and he wore a stern expression on his face. Did his face ever do anything other than look stern or smile only at me? I hadn't seen him smile at anyone else since the day of my arrival.

"What can you offer me, Henri?" I sat up on the chaise lounge, ignoring the way my skirt bunched up right above my knees. It had come to my attention that in the short week I was here, somehow, all the weight that was lost being locked up in Marco's dreaded dungeon had come right back, and my body filled out nicely.

'Please be s.e.x, please be s.e.x, please be s.e.x!'

"There is a room in the bas.e.m.e.nt," a kink room. "And I have discovered that it is the entrance to a series of tunnels between the walls of this chateau. If you would like, I can lead you there." Oh. I'll take it.

"Yes please, anything to get me away from my looming depression," as I was standing up, I was quickly reminded of something. "Henri, in your days of service, did you ever see something like a keypad on the wall?"

"Pardon?" He looked surprised, but not in the 'I have never heard of it before' way, but more in the 'I wasn't expecting you to know what that was' way. "A keypad?"

"Small. About this big," I demonstrated with my hands. "With a screen and on the wall, hidden behind things. I thought it was the keypad to a secret safe but there was a code that would reset every twenty-four hours and the screen recalibrate it. Have you ever seen or heard of such a thing?" Henri hesitated, almost like admitting to such a thing would be like conjuring something dark. "Tell me the truth, Henri."

"In a house?" I nodded. "That is called the Mockingbird security system and it is not what you think."

"Well? What is it?" Adjusting my skirt under my b.u.t.t, I sat back down on the chaise lounge and motioned for him to join me. "It's not a weapon, is it?"

"It is. The Mockingbird weaponizes the house against intruders. The code resets every day but there is a set code that only members of the household are supposed to know. This is a very dangerous system and I urge you to stay away from it if you ever encounter the Mockingbird in the future."

"How does it weaponize the house against you?" That didn't make sense to me. "Does it make the house shoot knives or something?" Henri stayed quiet, almost like he didn't want to tell me that yes, that was exactly what it did. I squinted at him sceptically, thinking he was just bluffing. He was not. "Wow okay, stay away from Mockingbird, noted."

"Your gloves are ready today, Madame, would you like to pick them up?" He stood up again, straightening the vest of his tux. I let out a disappointed sigh and fell back down on the chaise lounge, eyeing his back longingly. I needed to get laid and stop acting like a whore.

"I suppose. What time is it?" My head turned towards the grandfather clock on the far side of the room. "One in the afternoon. "I had better get going, then," I stood up and slipped on my wedge heels. "Will Philipe be driving me or can I finally drive myself?"

Henri gave a small chuckle, one he probably thought I hadn't heard. "No, I will drive you myself."

"Really?" What in the world could have caused Henri to want to drive me himself? "Don't we have a chauffeur?"

"No, madame, we have not hired a chauffeur," Henri looked at me through the mirror atop the fireplace. "Would you like me to find one?"

"Yes, for the love of god, I can't pull you or Philipe out of work just because I need to go somewhere and lord knows you won't let me drive anywhere," I rolled my eyes just as Henri sighed and set down the duster. "I already know what you're going to say."

"It's for your own safety, madame," he turned around and gave me a serious look. "You just arrived from fleeing for your life. I would not test fate until everything is completely secure if I were you."

"Yes yes, just shut up and drive me to the lab already."

~~~~~~~~~

"They don't even feel like gloves!" My amazement was seeping through my voice. Even though I knew what I would be getting, the reality of having it in front of me and on my hands was something completely different. "They feel like my actual skin! This is amazing!"

I was officially a new person. Nothing was as it had been anymore, and I was finally ready to start my plan for revenge. These past few days had been nice and rested, now it was time for me to take lead and make change.

"They are truly a sight to behold, madame," Henri looked at me briefly through the rearview mirror and quickly returned to eyeing the road. "You can finally use your electronics now."

"Yes, this is very exciting."

I immediately took out the box from my purse that contained the brand new cellphone and tore off the plastic wrapping. The tassel on the box fell and I pulled it open, causing the top cover to slide off and reveal the shiny smartphone underneath. Now that I had new fingerprints, I could easily set up a new facial recognition system with fingerprint sensor backup.

"Madame, I nearly forgot to inform you that a mister Connor McBride from Scotland has called for you."

Connor McBride? "What name did he address me by?"

"Isabella VanBurren, madame," Henri glanced at me again through the mirror and turned the wheel, taking us around a corner and up a side street.

"What did he want?"

"A visit with you. Mister McBride is in Paris for a short while and he said he would stop by Lyon on his way to Monaco. He wishes for a meeting whilst he is nearby."

Connor McBride, heir to the Scottish mafia and the one my dad had high hopes of setting me up with. My future and potential marriage was between Connor McBride or anyone set to control the east.

"How far away is Saint-Étienne from Lyon?"

"About an hour's drive, madame."

It struck as a surprise that Connor would want to meet with what was supposed to be my secret identity. My throat clogged up and it felt like there was a croquet ball in it. I had no choice. "I will meet with him."

"Are you certain that is wise? It could be a trap."

"No, not with him. I'll do it. When is he stopping by?"

"He said he would inform us," I could see Henri's worried face from the mirror, but I paid it no mind. He would probably come with me to keep me safe. In any case, I wanted to know how the hell Connor got his hands on my life's secret and why he wanted to speak with me. If push came to shove, I would have to act dumb through and through.

As I looked out the window, I caught my reflection against the dark greenery of the trees. Everything about me was different, including my teeth. There was no way he would recognise me. There was no way he could.

The rest of the ride home was spent in silence, and my evening was spent equally so. For the rest of the day I was up in my room setting up my electronics and keeping up with the news on the internet. My biggest fear was seeing something like the Italians were found not guilty and were set free. Considering how much power they had, I wouldn't have been surprised if that was the case.

Thankfully, I saw no such thing, and it really put me at ease that the news was being so selective with their broadcasting. If people knew the DiBiancci's were in prison, their rivals wouldn't hesitate to swoop in and we would have a mafia war on our hands. The only rival swooping in would be me, and I wouldn't hesitate to take out anyone who stood in my way.

Obviously, I was comfortable with taking a life, especially with a gun. It was quick and to the point. Not so clean, but the person didn't suffer unless I wanted them to. Torture wasn't my thing. It would never be my thing. But killing someone? That was like drinking water to me.

My first body dropped when I was fourteen, and that was only because my mother made me. She took me by the arm to the holding cells, put a gun in my hand, and said that if I was my father's precious daughter, I wouldn't hesitate to kill the man strapped to the seat in front of me.

He begged me not to, and she pushed me to it. My mother was cruel like that. She taunted me and pressured me. Even when I had the gun raised and pointed at his head, she kept taunting me and calling me horrible things. She was right about one thing, though. I didn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

Annaliz tried to make me feel bad by showing me a picture of his family, but I couldn't have cared less. In that sense, I was my mothers daughter. She herself had buried heads to get where she was, and she never once cared about the families of the people she ordered dead.

My eyes wandered toward the full length mirror on my closet door. Was I a monster? Yes. A beautiful monster.