Locked Away
Matty’s Point of View
It’d been months since I watched Taylor get thrown into the back of that SUV. I’m sure to everyone else it looked like all I did was run, but I had been looking. I had been trying. Just apparently, not enough.
We tried to chase after it, but we failed. Not we. I couldn’t say we. The guys did everything they could.
What did I do?
Simple, I did nothing.
♡━━♡━━♡━━♡
Chris took off on foot to try and get there before Ronan could drive away. Declan ran for our car and had to say my name twice before my feet moved toward him. It was like my body was numb. She was gone, and it was my fault, I couldn’t protect her, and now I couldn’t save her.
We searched for Ronan’s car for an hour before I had to call it. We went back to my parent’s house and tried to come up with a plan.
I knew the guys were trying to figure something out but all I could do was pace back and forth. If he was anything like I thought he was then he would move her around for a while before settling on a spot for her. As a boss, it would be smart not to keep her in one spot too long until we stopped looking for her. The problem with that was; that we were never going to stop.
“Just get a record of all the O’Leary properties and let me know if, or when, he makes a demand.” I walked toward the door with my hands in my pockets.
Declan jumped to his feet, “Where the fuck are you going?”
I should have stopped. I should have stayed in that room until we found her, but for some reason, I couldn’t do it.
“Let him go,” Chris yelled from his spot at the conference table, “If he wants to be a dick then let him. If he had just fucking agreed to marry her, she would still be here.”
I was okay with them thinking I was a dick. They were right, all I had to do was say okay and marry her, and she would be upstairs with Maddie shrieking about wedding stuff. The girl’s excitement used to irritate me when we were younger, but now it was all I wanted to hear.
The truth was I felt useless in that office. I needed TayTay around to think clearly, which was crazy because I had done it without her before. The only thing I could think of was to surround myself with all her things. I was walking toward the front door when the driver Chris and I assigned to Taylor stopped me.
“Somewhere I can take you, Mr. Carbo?” His hands were held behind his back making him look more submissive than he was.
Before he was a driver, Enzo worked at Ivylands. He not only trained our soldiers but had single-handedly killed over a hundred people. Never once did he ever question or cower from his actions.
“Actually,” I pondered, “can you take me to Maddison’s.”
He looked at me curiously, “Ms. Carbo is still here as far as I know.”
“Enzo, please.” I half-chuckled, “We both know it’s not Maddie I’m looking for.”
He nodded his head and we both walked out to an SUV waiting in front of the house. We didn’t speak for the entire drive, instead, I tried to put the best search teams together.
I had a good feeling Ronan wouldn’t take her to one of his businesses, so I was only going to send teams of two or three guys to check out each of those. I also needed to make sure my dad was having our people be extra observant on our own buildings to make sure he wasn’t trying to hide her under our noses.
By the time I made it up to Taylor’s old apartment, I had sent my dad a text and put together, what I thought, were some decent pairings. I walked into Taylor’s old room and, although I helped her pack it up, was shocked by how empty it felt.
We had left most of the furniture here since her room at home was already furnished. She even left extra things here to keep it feeling homey in case Madison ever had guests. Truthfully, I think it was so she had a comfortable place to go if the guys and I ever pissed her off.
I lay on her bed and was disappointed I couldn’t pick up any of her vanilla shampoo or the smell of warm fresh coffee that always seemed to follow her around like I had hoped I would. I knew I should have gone home, but I needed the guys to not find me for a little while.
I wasn’t sure why I was hiding from them until I felt the tears fall down my cheeks. I wasn’t exactly sure when the last time I cried was, but I knew, for a fact, that every time I had cried had been for Taylor Reign Carter.
Taylor’s Point of View
My eyes opened to a cold, dark, and damp room. It was so dark, the only way I knew my eyes were open was because I had to blink.
I was lying on a lumpy mattress with no sheets on it. My body shivered, and I realized I didn’t have a pillow or a blanket either. Where the fuck was I? I opened my mouth to call out into the void but my throat was so dry the only noise I could make was a raspy croak.
I pushed myself onto my elbows and noted how heavy my body felt. My mind felt foggy, and it took a lot of energy to try and remember how I got to this point. Once it all clicked I got a sudden burst of energy and pushed myself off the bed.
“Ronan!” I yelled at the top of my lungs before falling to the damp concrete floor, “You’re a fucking asshole, Ronan! Get me the fuck out of here!”
I kept yelling for Ronan’s bitch ass until it felt like I had used up all the air in the room. Then a light flicked on and blinded me.
“No need to yell, sweetheart. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.” His voice boomed, and I could hear his boots slap against the floor before I could see him.
“Suck my dick, asshole!” I cursed, trying to get my eyes to adjust.
He chuckled, “I’m hoping it will be the other way around.”
Finally, I was able to see my surroundings. Two walls were made out of cinder blocks while the other two were iron bars. There was a pot in the corner of the room that, if I had to guess, was meant to be my toilet.
The bed I woke up on was more like a cot than an actual bed. The mattress was probably white at one point, but now it was stained yellow. The frame was made out of black metal bars and squeaky springs. There were no windows, so the only light was controlled by whoever was outside the cell.
I turned to face Ronan, who was standing just far enough from the bars that I couldn’t touch him. He was smirking while he swayed from one foot to the other with his hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans. My eyes scanned him from head to toe. He was all muscle, with tight clothes, and tattoos.
If he hadn’t tried to kill me, kidnapped me, or thrown me in a cell I might have been able to be convinced he was attractive.
I took a deep breath, in an attempt, to keep myself calm, “Get me out of here, Ronan.”
“In time, my beautiful girl.” he stepped forward and held a plastic cup out to me.
I stared at it. If he thought I was going to take food or drinks from him blindly he was crazy. My hesitation must have been more evident than I thought because he rolled his eyes and took a sip.
“Do you really think I would go through all the work of getting you here if I was just going to poison you the second you woke up?” He asked.
He may have been the biggest dickhead I knew, but he had a good point. I took the cup and gulped down all the water. I thought about throwing the empty cup at him, but I reached through the bars, instead. He smiled, really big, at my actions and reached for the cup. Right before he could grab it I let it fall to the floor.
“Let me the fuck out of here.” I cursed, pulling away from the bars.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t fast enough, and he pulled me against the cold bars making me hit my head in the center of my forehead, “Watch your mouth little girl, or I’m going to show you what you can do with it.”
“You won’t do shit to me because when Matty finds me, you’re dead. All three of them are going to fight over who gets to end you. I hope Declan gets the chance to torture your ass.” I spit in his face hoping it would piss him off, but all he did was lick it up.
“Oh sweetheart, it’s cute that you think those fucking idiots will find you. Even if they could find the island, they’d have a hell of a time finding the house. Besides, in order to find you, they’d have to actually look for you.”
I tried to pull back, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He finally released my shirt, “I’ve been told Matthew left the other two the day you disappeared and no one had seen him for two days.”
Two days!
I’d been out for two whole days! My shoulders slumped in defeat. It can’t be true. There’s no way the guys weren’t looking for me. Especially Matty.
“How the hell do you know what my guys are doing?”
“It pays to have people on both sides, Taylor.”
“I get that but who do you have?”
He laughed again as if my question was the biggest joke, “I forgot you never got to meet our dear Camillo. If the idiot squad didn’t mess up the first capture, you would have met him.”
“How the hell did you manage to turn Enzo’s son against his father?”
He took a step backward and folded his arms over his chest, “That’s a story for a different day, and we’ll have lots of them once you’re my wife.”
It was now my turn to laugh at him, “I will never be your wife.”
“I’ve paid enough money for you, you practically already are. But don’t worry, I won’t do anything until you’re begging for it.”
“Fat fucking chance!”
He turned and started walking up the steps, “We’ll see about that.”
Before I had a chance to respond, he flipped the light switch and slammed a door. I was left to figure out the dark and just hope the next time he came down he would bring food with him.
Now I had to try and remember where everything was and figure out the best way to use a chamber pot.
I found my way down to the floor and crawled, easily finding the pot in the corner of the cell. I bumped into it on accident while trying to pull my panties down, and a squeaking erupted, echoing off every inch of the cell.
I shrieked and kicked the pot over. All I could do was listen to the rat scurry away. I took a deep breath and hovered over the pot, pissing as fast as I could.
What else was I going to have to deal with in the hellhole?
Not having much of a choice I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. I had a hard time believing the guys weren’t looking for me. I had an even harder time believing Matty had left the other two for days. Ronan had lied to me before about what my men were doing, so it was easy to believe he was lying now.
Ronan said we were in a house on an island, which meant trying to run was out of the question. I still needed a plan, though. I knew he wanted to get married. I could play into that.
I couldn’t actually go through with it, because Louis said once I married a mafia boss I would become a Forbidden and be untouchable by any other family. I couldn’t let that happen, or I’d never see the guys again.
I wasn’t sure when I had fallen asleep, but I was only sure I did because I was pulled from my slumber by the need to throw up. I didn’t have many choices on where to put it, so I rolled over and let it splat onto the floor. I lay my head back onto the mattress with a long sigh. I didn’t remember having a nightmare, so it must have been the drugs Ronan gave me that made me throw up.
I stared into the darkness waiting for food to be brought down, but it never happened. No one came down the stairs for any reason for almost three days. Every one of those days I threw up even though I was running out of things to retch.
