The Gangleader's Gem (BOOK 2)

My head was dizzy, my eyes hurt and so did my arms.

I tried to pull my hands up to my head but found them to be bounded. My sore eyes shot open and I was greeted by a metallic ceiling with a light bulb.

My eyes immediately closed, opening up slowly getting use to the light. I shuffled and felt soft sheets beneath me.

I was on a bed, I turned my head to the side to see an empty room with one white plastic chair.

My hands were bounded to the bed head and my feet to the other end.

Where was I? The last thing I remembered was being at the Grand Canyon... and that woman fighting me. She and her daughter put something at my nose, drugging me!

I pulled at the restrains; I need to get out. What if they were trying to kill me? What if I was going to be a victim to human trafficking?

I had watched enough documentaries to know that it’s a nasty thing. I was just 10 I had my whole life ahead of me.

My mother must be going out of her mind, worrying, crying and getting every known force on the earth to find me.

Suddenly, the creak of the door opening caught my attention. A lady with red hair, blue eyes and olive tone skin came through. I sucked in a breath it was Ms. Blaze. My principal.

She was involve in this, was the school a way to get victims for this human trafficking thing.

Was she like the Boss’s main chick? Or was she like one of the side chicks.

She came over to me, she had a tray with food in her hand. She placed it on the table beside me, untied the ropes that bounded my hands to the bed head and sat me up.

After bounding my hands together and turning to the tray, she placed a spoon with soup near my mouth, which caused me to shake my head and shuffle back.

“Eat it!” she urged, rolling her eyes.

I shook my head. She continued urged me a few more times before her anger took over and she gripped my cheeks forcing the soup into my mouth.

My cheek and tongue burned as the soup touched it.

She released me and I spat the soup at her. Ms. Blaze dropped the spoon and grabbed her face, crying out as the soup burns her.

“You little bitch!” she stormed over after recovering.

I hold up my hands bracing myself as she held up her hand, aiming to hit me.

She almost succeeded, but she was stopped when a man came into view, grabbing her wrist.

He was tall with long, shiny blonde hair, cool blue eyes and dear I say had the face of angel – but, a bad aroma emitting from him

Was this the Boss?

“I’ll take her Elia,” he said in a stern voice, glancing over at Ms. Blaze.

Ms. Blaze left, closing the metal door behind her and by the slam she wasn’t too happy.

She left me here with a strange man.

The man pulled the chair to the bed and sat beside me. He reached over and I flinched back.

“I won’t hurt you, my little gem,” he said with a thick Spanish accent.

His words were soft and reassuring. I shouldn’t trust him but, I had to cooperate. I was on his field, if I resisted he could really hurt me.

I stared at him as he reached over and untied my hands then, my legs. I rubbed my wrists and swollen ankles.

Obviously, he thought I was not threat to him. He was right to think so. I couldn’t fight him and even if by some miracle I did knock him out, there were others on the other side of the door.

I was snapped back from my thoughts as he reached over to the tray and took the bowl of soup, handing it to me.

I shook my head and pushed it away.

“Take it,” he urged and I shook my head.

“We are not trying to kill you,” he said softly.

“Then why was I kidnapped and tied to the bed?” I replied in a hoarse voice.

He placed the bowl back on the tray and gave me a sad look.

“Shaneil, my name is Giovanni Ferrez. I was a friend of your mother’s a longtime ago-”

“Mommy, never mentioned you,” I shot at him.

“Yes, because she didn’t want you mixed up in what we do,” he ran a hand through his hair. “We are members of the biggest gang in Atlanta, both me and your mother.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. My mother a gang member? This must be a joke. “My mother isn’t a gang member.”

“She isn’t now but she was and during her time in the gang she met your father. He was the son of a Drug Lord and they fell in love.”

A Drug Lord’s son?

“After, your mother got pregnant with you, she found out that your father had killed her parents and she ran away from him, from home and from us.”

“My father was a Drug Lord’s son?” My heart was pounding in my chest aggressively. “My f-father killed my mother’s p-parents?”

I was the daughter of a murder. Was that’s why she never spoke of him or wanted him to meet us. Was that why we moved up and down a lot because we were hiding from him?

“Yes he was and when he found out about you he chased after your mother. He wanted to have you as his own. It was a few days ago that your mother contacted us. She told us where you were and told us to take you. It’s like she knew he was closing in...” he looked into my chocolate eyes with his own glossy eyes and stroked my brown curls.

I was too shocked to move away from his touch.

“He had tracked her down and demanded to have you. She refused and h-he killed her.”

My heart stopped. Was what he was saying true? Was m-my mother dead?

“You’re lying! My mother is alive!” I screamed.

This man was the enemy, he was a liar! He kidnapped me, he was the not my friend, not my mother’s friend! He was a kidnapper! A dirty, lying kidnapper!

He stood up, towering above me. “I am not lying!”

“You are!” I screamed back. “You have no proof. You’re just trying to get me to like you! You’re a kidnapper! I can’t trust you!”

His eyes darkened and I gulped. I just angered my kidnapper.

“Fine, you want proof?!” he flung down a photo on the bed. “He tortured her and he killed her! Then he had the gall to send it to every gang in Atlanta. Threatening us that if we’re hiding you this will be our faith!”

I took it up and stared at it. My mother was dead.

She had two bullets in her head, she was hanging from a ceiling fan and her body covered in wounds.

I started to tremble, tears crashed down on my cheeks. I screamed out and cried in agony.

“This is not real, my mother is not dead! You-you could be the one that did this, you!”

He looked at me with glossy eyes and grabbed my shoulders. “She was like a sister to me! I knew you from you were a baby, Shaneil! I have been watching over you! If I wanted to hurt you, you would be dead!”

I broke down in tears and he cradled me in his arms. He rubbed my back as I cried my eyes out.

She’s really gone... Oh momma...

“I will keep you safe my little gem for Shania,” he whispered in my ear.

My eyes started to become heavy, my body was aching so was my heart. I laid there for a while in his arms and soon I was fast asleep.

In the arms of a stranger.

***

Giovanni walked out of the metal cell, laughing to himself.

That was too easy.

She fell for it, even the photo shopped picture.

Kids were so gullible.

Her mother was just as gullible as she was, guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

He walked into the main room which had three monitors with a sleeping Shaneil on it, a few chairs and a couch.

As he entered the people at the screens turned around and started to clap.

“Great acting, babe. We have her,” Elia said with a wink.

She was leaning on a wall at the door.

Elia was the one woman Giovanni could relate to. Her heart was as twisted as his. When he found her she was a shell of herself but now, she was his equal. A woman with the same psychotic drive as him.

The one that would help him to achieve his goals and make those you oppose him fall.

Giovanni bowed and smirked, jesting. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.”

He walked over to the men at the monitors. “I want to be out here in the next five hours. We can’t have Shania tracking us down... We need to get her to safety.”

“To where?” A man asked bringing up an airline page.

"Espana, of course.”