3

Nora opened her eyes and everywhere was dark, she couldn’t see anything. Her head hurt and she felt restricted. She tried to shake off the feeling she was having and tried to get herself off what she thought was a nightmare but no matter how she tried, it just didn’t work. It felt so real, like she was really being restricted. Slowly, her body started waking up and she realized she was indeed being tied to something and the banging of her head wasn’t an imagination.

“Oh god no,”

She cried softly when she remembered what had happened before she passed out, that man, she hadn’t been overthinking when she thought he was bad. She should have listened to her guts when it told her not to get in the damn car.

Nora forced her eyes open again and pain shot through her. She tried to adjust to the darkness but she couldn’t see anything. She was practically blind without her glasses anyway and they were not on her anymore, she couldn’t feel them.

Nora knew she was in big trouble and it would only take a miracle for her to be found, she was alone in a foreign land and somewhere she didn’t know with a man whose face she cannot remember fully. She didn’t need a prophet to tell her that she was in big trouble and that there might be no way out of there. She was going to die in a foreign and the only person who would truly mourn her passing would not be able to find her body. The tarot reader had been right when she had told her that doom was ahead of her. She had brushed it off and now she wished she didn’t. Maybe if she had taken it seriously, she wouldn't have continued her plans to come to Italy and she wouldn't be here right now, chained to a chair in a dark room.

“Please save me,”

She cried as the pain in her head spread to other parts of her body. She tried to move but she was tied too tight she couldn’t even move. She was getting used to the dark, the place she was in looked like some kind of dump or maybe a room in an abandoned house, she couldn’t quite tell and she also couldn’t tell why she was there. She hasn’t been up to anything bad. She couldn’t remember having any enemy that might have had her in mind. Not to mention this was her first time in Italy and she wasn’t even here to do anything dangerous that might have led to her being kidnapped so whoever is doing this to her must think she is some kind of rich foreigner and wanted to get some cash out of her. If only they know.

She heard someone unlock the door to the place she was in and her heart beat increased in fear. It didn’t take long for the shadow of a huge figure to appear in the room bringing some light with him. He switched on the light in the room and she had to close her eyes as the sudden light almost blinded her.

“You are finally awake, good,”

Nora heard him say. She opened her eyes slowly to see who was talking but her vision was blurry and she couldn’t make out if it was the man that had kidnapped her from the airport or if it was someone else. His accent wasn’t as much as it was at the airport so she assumed it was someone else.

“Who are you and why did you bring me here? What do you want from me? I am not rich. You won’t get any money from me,”

Nora cried out. If they brought her here because they thought she was rich, they were about to be very disappointed because all she had to her name was the house her parents left for her and her old SUV that she has been using since she was twenty-one. She was sure if she sold it, it wouldn't be worth much. Yes, her job pays her but she had to pay for all her degrees too so that’s where all her money went and her other savings were for emergencies but not big enough for a ransom. If she was here because of money, they just caught the wrong person.

“Hello, why am I here? Let me go please,”

She let out when the person that walked into the room didn’t say any other words.

“We will or we might not, depending on what the boss wants and how well you cooperate,”

She saw the face of the person talking and her heart sank in fear, he was hideous and huge. He looked everything like a hardened criminal and the gun he held further proved the kind of person he was. She knew then and there that the chances of her getting out of there alive were next to none.

“What do you want? Money? I don’t have money? I am just a foreigner here in Italy for a couple of months. I am not a rich woman, just let me go,”

Nora let out even while knowing he wasn’t going to listen to her. The door opened again and another man entered. She recognized him almost immediately. He was the one that had kidnapped her from the airport. With the way he looked, how could she have thought it was safe to get into a vehicle with him when normally, she would avoid anyone that so much as looked like they could hurt a fly, why did she have to let her guard down in a foreign country and how would she be able to get herself out of this mess?

The two men ignored her and were talking to each other, two more men walked in and they started speaking in Italian. She couldn’t get anything they were saying but by their body language, she knew she was in big trouble.