5
Arianna
It happened in a blink.
One moment I was walking through the manicured garden on the eastern side of the estate, sunlight kissing my skin through the gauze of my white dress. The next, I was yanked backward by a hand over my mouth, the sharp jab of metal against my ribs.
“Scream and you die,” the voice growled in my ear, breath hot and foul.
But I didn’t scream. Not because I wasn’t terrified, I was, but because I’d learned something since coming here. Screaming wasted time. Time I needed to survive.
The man dragged me through the hedge wall, toward the waiting black SUV idling beyond the estate’s border wall. No guards in sight. My heart thundered. Had they been bribed? Killed?
I twisted hard, throwing my elbow back and catching his jaw. He swore and stumbled. I made it t
