C3 Kidnapped

Avery's head spun as she opened her eyes. She also felt a ringing sensation in her ears. She slowly opened her eyes as she tried to figure out where she was.

The last she remembered, she running from Nicholas's thugs...

Her heart skipped a beat as she realised that her hands were tied behind her. And so were her legs. She lay on a cold, tiled floor and no one was around.

She forced saliva down her chapped throat. She didn't need anyone to tell me that she'd been kidnapped!

Did her brother, Nicholas have to go this far?

She was an adult, fully capable of making her own decisions, especially the ones that had to do with her marriage...

She had just been tied up and locked in a room by her brother just because she refused to marry the man he'd chosen for her.

She defied him for the third time, by running away, but then he'd caught her, yet again.

Her parents died by drowning, while they were traveling. It happened when she was seven and since then, her brother and only sibling, Nicholas had been taking care of her.

He saw to it that she didn't lack anything, apart from love and care. And she must say, even though her brother was the one who trained her through high school and college, he was a douchebag.

Her parents left a huge fortune to them after their deaths so she wouldn't say that her brother went through toils and sufferings to bring her up.

He cared little for her and cared a lot about money and power. The moment she'd graduated from college, he tried to arrange a marriage between her and his business ally who was twice her age.

Of course, she went against him!

She didn't have a boyfriend or an active love life but that didn't mean she wanted to enter a loveless marriage with an unattractive stranger.

She couldn't hide the fact that she was appalled by her potential suitor, the day she met him. He was not tall and she was into tall guys, he was pot bellied, slurred his speech and he looked twice her age. Her brother noticed her lack of enthusiasm towards the marriage, then he tried to force his will on her because he knew she was his ticket to joining the higher echelons of the society.

One day while they argued about it in the dinning room, he roughly grabbed her arm and said

"You ungrateful brat! You certainly don't recognise affection when you see it because I've been nothing but affectionate to you since mom and dad passed, only to get it all spat back in my face. You'll marry Garry Tetrad or I'll cut you off!"

Then, she couldn't care less if he disowned her or whatever, because he hadn't exactly been the brother of the year.

She only cared about not marrying the fat oaf Nicholas wanted her to marry.

The next evening, she escaped discreetly.

Too bad she wasn't so discreet about it because she got caught by her brother's thugs after walking about ten feet away from the gate.

He had her locked up but she didn't want to give up. After a third try, she finally escaped but she still wasn't lucky because her brother caught on and in no time, his thugs were hot on her trail.

She couldn't let this arranged marriage ruin her dreams, she had always dreamed of becoming a singer. Her mom always watched her sing, saying she took after her voice. It made her think of her mother and aspire to become a famous artiste.

She deserved to be what she dreamt of, not shackled into marriage with a pot bellied man or tied up and locked in a cold and isolated room.

Nicholas couldn't do this to her, he couldn't leave his little sister like this, she had to reason her freedom with him, somehow.

She gulped down her saliva again and cleared her throat.

"Nicholas... Nick, brother" she called, the loudest her voice could go. "I'm -- I'm sorry, Nick. Please let me out, I'll do whatever you say"

She got no answer. In fact, she swore she could hear a pin drop.

"Nick.... Nicholas " she dragged on.

After a few failed attempts to get her brother to release her from this place, she heaved out a tired sigh and fell silent.

How long was he planning to punish her? Until he fixed the wedding date and finished the wedding preparations? Maybe then he would let her out and keep her under heavy scrutiny while he got people to prepare her for the exchange of lifelong wedding vows with the fat oaf he'd placed as her husband?

There was no way in hell she was going to let that happen. If going missing on her wedding day was all it took, then she was ready to try everything...

Her thoughts were interrupted when the door to the room swang open. Finally, she sighed as she got on her knees. Nicholas was finally going to --

Three men walked in and none of them were her brother.

Her gaze settled on the one in the middle as he walked towards her, while the other two men were walking behind him. The two men behind him wore suits while he wore jeans and a tee shirt. An attire which did a good job of cladding his powerful frame. From what she saw, he had shiny black hair, it's long strands, framing his beautifully chiselled face.

Damn, he was gorgeous. Like the type you saw modelling for fitness magazines.

And his build...

It felt like the three men were walking towards her in slow motion, each step they took made her heart do a giddy dance. Were they her brother's thugs?

She had seen my own share of Nicholas's thugs because she'd been caught by them severally, but she hadn't seen anyone like this jean clad stunning man. Was he newly hired? Why wasn't he in uniform then?

The two men in suit stood at a distance while the one wearing jeans squatted in front of her.

Seeing him up close like this wasn't helping her nerves and her heart. His appraising gaze which roved over her wasn't helping too.

He stared at her in silence, then finally spoke.

"How are you doing, Clara?" She detected an Italian accent in voice. Did Nicholas hire a thug all the way from Italy just because of her? Why so?

"How long were you planning to hide from me, Clara?" He trailed an index finger from her temple to her jaw and she suppressed a shudder.

"Who are you?" She didn't expect her voice to come out squeaky, when she asked that.

The strange guy let out a guffaw

"Who am I?" He pressed his index and thumb on her jaw. He turned to the men behind him. "She's asking who am I?"

She felt different degrees of shivers go down her spine. This man was strange, none of her brother's thugs interacted with her, talk more of hurting her.

She felt an alarm. This man wasn't sent by her brother.

"You're hurting me" she whispered against the man's finger. He then let go of her jaw as if it stung.

"You know, Clara. I should do more than just hurting you" he said in a low tone. "Did you think you could just run away from me after the seven years we shared? You thought you could just leave me like that?"

What the hell was he saying? Now she was confused. She hadn't met him before, talk more of spending seven years with him. And she wasn't Clara, who was Clara?

"And to think of the way you got back into my life. If my boys hadn't caught you for me..." his voice trailed as if he recalled something. "Tell me Clara, who was chasing you back there?"

"I'm not Clara" she blurted out. "I'm Avery" The more time she spent with him, the more she got more frightened and confused. It was now obvious that he wasn't sent by her brother to catch her. He kidnapped her by himself. But why? What did she do to him?

"Of course you aren't Clara!" he exclaimed, chuckling. "Three years! It took me three years to find you. And it wouldn't have taken that long if you hadn't changed your name and hidden so well from me. It was as if you planned it all along" he slid his warm palm on her face. "I'm sure you weren't expecting me to ever find you"

Now she couldn't hold back the shudder as she felt his warm calloused palm on her face.

God knew she wasn't supposed to be feeling this way especially with the kind of situation she found herself in right now. This man was obviously talking crazy and she couldn't reign in the different emotions that coursed through her body. "Look, weirdo, you're talking gibberish because I have no idea who you are or why you kidnapped me in the first place" she raised her voice, although she didn't mean to, blame her heightened emotions. "You probably should release me right now because my brother, Nicholas won't stop searching until he finds me and when he does..." She trailed off like she expected him to know the rest.

She didn't expect him to, but he laughed. Hard and loud. Like she was some kind of joke.

"You have no brother, cara mia" he mumbled as his thumb stroke her cheek, causing a difficulty in her breathing. "And I'm sorry for tying you up. Although you deserved it. I'll call Alessia to tidy you up. I have a surprise for you"

And with that, he walked out. She couldn't even call after him because the shock she felt made her unable to say the words she formed.

Okay, so she was kidnapped by a man who wasn't sent by her brother, a gorgeous man who apparently mistook her for someone else.

Minutes later, the door opened and some women entered. Gasping, gaping and talking within themselves.

Now she didn't know if she should be relieved by the fact that she wasn't going to marry the pot bellied man Nicholas chose for her or alarmed by the fact that she was kidnapped and was in an unknown place.

What a hell of a day!