Kidnapped By The Italian Mafia

(Marco's POV)

"You're stressed," hands came up to touch my back, something I did not enjoy. The sweat dripping from my brow should have been enough indication that I was under strain. "Let me help you with that."

It had been nearly twenty days and I still hadn't found her, despite having men searching for her day and night. We found the car she used to escape and two wrecked vans which we later on found out belonged to Salvador's men. There was nothing of value in any of the vehicles except for the bag of money found at the bottom of the swamp where her car was found. The money was ruined, but there was a substantial amount of it. She had thought the whole move through, that much was clear.

Searching for her wasn't a matter of wanting her inheritance at this point. We needed to keep her away from Salvador to avoid a complete war, something it seemed she knew too, judging by the fact that she killed every single one of the Austrian guards her father had sent for her.

I didn't know why Katarina was avoiding her father, but I needed to get her back before she changed her mind and decided to spill it all to him. We lost track of her once she crossed the border into France.

Knowing Katarina, she wouldn't stay in France. It was neutral territory, so she was smart in going there because she knew we couldn't track her without revealing ourselves as her kidnappers. France was like a portal into Wonderland.

"Marco, look at me," Lina took my face in her hands to stare at me. "You're going to start aging if you keep thinking about her."

I couldn't help it. Kat had run circles around my head right under my nose. She was the one person I couldn't read. Lina, on the other hand, was a different story.

"She couldn't have gotten very far. If we post a bounty on her anonymously, she's sure to be found," Kat had lived her entire life under her fathers shadow and umbrella. Smart as she was, there was no way she could have enough experience as to disappear completely.

"She has many connections, she's probably back in America now," Lina ran her fingers through my hair. This familiarity wasn't something that came with the package that was Lina. It was abnormal.

"No, we wouldn't be here if she went back to her father," Salvador was a man who lived with blood in his eyes whenever it came to his daughter. He would have stormed Italy if he found out the truth.

"I didn't say she went back to her father, I just said she probably went back to America. She has friends she can stay with, no? And a lot of money. It wouldn't be hard."

"How do you know that?" She stared up at me, perplexity beginning to show in her eyes.

"It was just a guess. Katarina is a socialite, she must have many friends. And it wouldn't take a genius to estimate that she has a lot of money."

She wasn't wrong. Kat knew many people both in and out of the dark world. If she needed help, all she had to do was lift a finger. Which circled back to Lina, the person who had helped get her out of the island.

"What do you think you're doing with me, Lina?" She gave me a confused look, but a flash of fear in her eyes gave her motives away. I gave her body a once over, completely n.a.k.e.d and only covered by a sheer bathrobe. "You think I don't know that you helped her leave?"

"Who are we talking about here?" Lina began to put some distance between us, but I grabbed her before she could get very far. "I haven't helped anyone with anything."

"Don't lie to me." I gripped her face, squeezing her cheeks harshly. "I hate liars."

Kat was smart, I would give her that. She didn't waste her time playing games with the people she could control. I thought she didn't take anything seriously, but she was observing and finding weaknesses. She played Lina like a flute, and made an idiot of me in the process.

How could I not see it before? Lina was terrified of me. The only reason she would begin sleeping with me was by direct command of someone she feared more than me. Whatever Kat had on her, it was big… possibly something that would cost Lina her life.

"You fell for it." She gasped. I realised that my hand had stopped squeezing her face and was now squeezing her neck. She had a very delicate neck. "She saw right through you and you fell for it."

Katarina realised that beautiful women were my weakness and she used it against me perfectly. There were pieces to the puzzle that she had hidden from me, just waiting for the perfect time to form an ambush. All the more reason why I had to find her.

"I'm going to kill you." I wouldn't have hesitated to end her life if she hadn't been trying to whisper something. I wasn't a man to leave unfinished business lying around, so it made sense to hear what she had to say.

Lina gasped and coughed when I let go of her throat. It was a pitiful sight, but one that made my blood run cold when I finally caught wind of what she said. "Killing me would start a war that you can't win."

There was more to Lina than I had originally anticipated. Somehow, between the first time I took Kat to the restaurant and the time she left, the scheming bitch had sunk her claws into a piece of my operation.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Who was protecting her? "Who are you working for?" If Kat had somehow convinced Lina to work for Salvador, then I had a much bigger problem on my hands than anticipated. Salvador was my father's mortal enemy, and to have an agent here was to taunt us. If I killed Lina, he would surely come looking for retribution. With most of my family in prison, that wasn't something I could risk. I couldn't afford to feud with him, not until I had more power.

"Why would I sleep with you unless my boss told me to?" So it wasn't Salvador. "You're being watched, you know."

"Italy is my turf," Katarina wouldn't dare invade if she knew what was good for her. "She's smarter than that."

"Miss Montenegro is also very resourceful. If you think you have men on your side, think again."

"Who betrayed me?" The very thought of it made my blood boil. When I found the people who preferred to side with her over me, I would light them up.

"No one has betrayed you," Lina scoffed. "Your men are more loyal than dogs, you should consider yourself lucky for it."

"It's not luck. They trust my leadership."

"No, it's luck. Your men trust you blindly even though you have nothing to offer them in return. I should be glad when you are left with nothing," she gave me a cold look, like I was nothing to her. I didn't like it. Now that I saw Lina in a whole new light, it was interesting to see what she really was. She knew many things, but most importantly she knew of Kat's whereabouts.

"Where is she?"

"Am I my masters keeper?" Lina knew full and well I could have killed her just for that, but she was very secure in the knowledge that harming her would bring me serious trouble. She wasn't an idiot, so I took that security into consideration. "I don't know where she is."

"Yes you do, you helped her escape. She must have told you where she was going."

"And what if I don't tell you?" She raised her nose at me. I wasn't one to meddle with the enemy. I killed them. But, I had come this far. A little more tarnishing wouldn't do me any harm, right?

"I have methods to get what I want out of here," I tapped her lips with my pointer finger. "And I don't want to have to use them."

"You can torture me but I still won't tell you," she really was daft.

"After everything you just threatened me with, you think I'm going to torture you?" She gave me a look. "You're right, I do have a habit of doing that. No, I'm not going to torture you," I grabbed a skeleton key that I kept on top of my dresser. "Get on the bed."

"You're not going to… you've got to be kidding me," Lina laughed incredulously and uttered a string of curses in Italian. "You're going to f.u.c.k it out of me?"

"Yeah," I shrugged casually. It wasn't the first time I'd done it and my skills in bed were good enough to get me the answers I wanted. If spies did it, why couldn't I? "You don't think I can?"

"You must think I'm pathetic if that's your solution," that was very insulting. "I'd rather be tortured."

"Just get on the bed, Lina. This is getting annoying."

"Get on the bed, he says. Unbelievable, the arrogance of this bastard," she muttered to herself, but got on the bed either way. I let her talk her shit until she saw the restraints in my hands. The satisfaction that coursed through me when her eyes widened was immeasurable. "Wait, you didn't tell me about that."

"Why should I? Relax, you'll like it."

"You don't know that," she didn't fight me when I placed her hands in the cuffs. "I could hate it."

"Then you can make me stop and I'll just have to torture you," it was really very simple. "Even if it means invoking Kat's wrath."

"You wouldn't dare provoke her," Lina seemed to have a lot of faith in Katarina, all of a sudden. For someone as negative and 'realistic' as she was, this sudden undying support for that Spanish bitch was unnerving, to say the least. "She has more power than you do."

Even as I was pushing her t.h.i.g.hs apart, the defiant look remained in her eyes. "Nobody has more power than I do," the look in her eyes flickered when I pushed my h.i.p.s forward. "I'm The Emperor Lynx."

"And she's the daughter of The Blood King," Lina gasped but quickly tried to hide it. "Those are genes that carry through generations, you know."

"Katarina doesn't have a taste for blood," she was a coward like that. "She's too much of a lady."

"She doesn't have a—" she was starting to lose her voice. "—taste for torture. She bathes in blood."

I had never actually stopped to analyse whether killing someone was easy for Katarina or not. The man she shot in the cell under the house didn't seem to linger on her conscience. Neither did the Austrian men she killed and just left on the side of the road like that. As Salvador's daughter, she was guaranteed to have at least killed one person in her life. The only way she could inherit the business was by proving she had the stomach and the brains to end a life without leaving a trace.

It was messy work, and one that didn't particularly have a pleasant effect on the brain, but it was necessary to know how to do it. My father had made me dispose of my first body as an early teenager, and then he sent his men to go find it. They all had experience in disposing, so it didn't take long for them to find the corpse. I had to do it again and again until they couldn't find it. Apparently we had an abundance of corpses.

I wasn't sure if Salvador had put his daughter through the same training that my father had put me through. My father was strict and liked to push my limits, whereas I knew that Katarina was the Apple of Salvador's eye. Maybe he spoiled her so much that she didn't have to learn what it was like to cover up a crime for herself. That would explain why she just left the bodies at the side of the road like that.

If that was the case, then she shouldn't have been difficult to find. How far could she get on her own without any help? She was witty, but she was also dependent. She liked to complain and didn't like hard work. Keeping her manicure intact was more important to her than securing a victory or making sure her people were okay.

But then again, Lina seemed pretty sure that Katarina would retaliate. Did I want to find out? What if she had been building her own secret network when I kidnapped her and now she returned to it? That wasn't possible. It couldn't be.

"Where. Is. She?" Lina's face was red from the effort to hold back, but I could tell that she was losing her grip. The telltale tremble in her legs gave her away. She just shook her head, and I knew that I was thrusting in the right direction. If she could provide any information on my prey, it would work out in her favour, didn't she know that? "Dammit Lina, where is she?!"

"Portugal!" Lina screamed and immediately came undone. It was loud and it was long, but I patiently let her have the satisfaction she craved.

Portugal… Katarina had been smart to stay within the European continent. Halfway in and halfway out of her father's grasp so that she could run to him if need be. What she didn't have in bravery, she had in cunning. Still, I would find her no matter what it took.