Read Taken - A Gangster Stepbrother Romance for Free Online Page B

looked out to her right.
     
                  A guard with an automatic rifle slung over his back was standing on a raised platform about forty feet away. Emma’s heart sank. There were guards outside. With weapons.
     
                  Emma jumped down from the stool, mentally kicking herself. Of course there would be guards outside! This was the home of the Del Marco Clan leader! He wouldn’t just live in any old house that any stranger could walk right up to. It would have to be well-guarded. Like a fortress.
     
                  But that meant any plans for escape were now impossible for Emma. It was clear that the guard outside was on sentry duty which probably meant there were more surrounding the entire home.
     
                  Home.
     
                  Emma snorted. This wasn’t a home. This was a compound. A prison. And she had no way of letting the outside world know where she was or who had taken her.
     
                  The first guard who had drugged her in LA must’ve taken her cell phone because she had yet to find it. In slow, consuming waves, Emma could feel her frustrations rise within her again.
     
                  Who cares who her mother married? Who cares who Gabe Del Marco was? She had still bounced around from home to home, detached foster guardian to guardian, alone and without anyone to claim her as theirs.
     
                  Even the memory of the Grants had been sullied. Her own grandparents! And they never said one word about it. Even on their deathbeds, they never revealed their intimate connection. And they had known how much she had craved family, how much she had ached for roots. Still they had been silent. They had let her keep floating in isolation.
     
                  Emma ran towards the bedroom door and tried to yank it open.
     
                  But it was locked.
     
                  Pounding on the door, she yelled, “Open this door! Open it!” She kicked at it, punched it, drummed on it. But it remained locked.
     
                  Either no one was outside or if someone was outside, no one cared to listen to her.
     
                  Exhausting herself, Emma slumped to the floor, her forehead against the door. “Open the door,” she whispered, tears threatening to fall again.
     
                  Unable to let herself cry again, she ran back and threw herself on the bed, burying her head into the pillow. If she were going to cry, no one would hear her do it. And if tears were going to fall, no one would see it, not even Emma. Only the pillow would be witness.
     
                  She hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep again until a pounding came at the door. “Dinner is ready downstairs,” a burly voice called from outside.
     
                  Emma moaned, trying to gather her wits about her. Her head felt thick and cottony and her vision a little blurry from sleeping all day without food. She didn’t bother responding. No one had responded to her pounding. Why should she respond to theirs?
     
                  She immediately fell back asleep, pillow over her face.
     
                  But she was soon awoken again to a hand grabbing both of her wrists and yanking her up. Before she could even fully awake, Emma found herself off the bed and stumbling behind a man.
     
                  Antonio.
     
                  Without clearly thinking, she yanked her arms. She couldn’t pull away but her movements caused the man to stop. Turning around slowly, he gave her a piercing cold look that made her freeze from the inside out.
     
                  Hair still sticking to her cheek, Emma glared at him. “What the hell do you think you are doing?”
     
                  Antonio turned back around and began dragging her again