If not for bad luck we'd have no luck at all.

—Edna Buchanan

***

Locked. The door is locked.

I slump down to my knees, my fingers clawing the handle, as tears of helpless, absurd outrage spurt out of my healthy eye. Of course, it's fucking locked! They are mafia, not kindergarten teachers on a picnic, for God's sake. They don't make stupid mistakes.

Men with two functioning eyes can run way faster than me, so one of the goons—at least it's not Creepy—yanks me away from the door by the hair, and drags me on my back, along the floor, sobbing and kicking. If he pulls me any harder, he'd scalp me. The bandage holding the patch over my right eyes starts to slip, and everything hurts. Everything.

Scali is also subdued by the time I'm brought back to the interrogation room.

He glares from under once perfectly styled hair. Now it hangs in clumps over a bruised, sweating face. His lip is split and bleeding, swelling into a clot. Red spittle trails down his chin, disappearing when it hits the collar of his crumpled tee shirt. Despite all that, he's the most beautiful man I've ever seen in my life.

Good thing they don't have any mirrors in the hall, because I don't want to know what's been done to me.

I used to whine that I have average eyes, upturned nose, indifferent mouth, a square jawline, a wide chin or pimples. Like Scali said on the day we've met: my face is utterly forgettable.

Today, I'm afraid that it would be memorable for the rest of my life. The face that makes people look away with horror or pity.

Once again, my dreams have become nightmares. Why o why I haven't I lead a life with no dreams? Any more dreams coming true sideways—and it will kill me.

"Take them to the dungeon," Johnny says.

Beating up Scali serves as a pressure release valve for his ugly Smurfs. As the drag us away, the silence is almost companionable. No rough hands grope me either, thank God. Scali's wide chest labors for every breath, but he walks upright.

However, my skin crawls from all the silent glaring going on. Johnny's men's hatred for him hangs in the air, palpable, suffocating, threatening to explode at any second.

My mind roots through the scary scenarios like a pig though garbage, mixing fears for myself with my fears for him. He has internal bleeding. They would rape me. There are broken bones. I have concussion. The infection could set in... The list of ugly possibilities is endless.

This litany of the worst outcomes distracts me from observing Viking Smurf when he fights the old-fashion key-chain to open the door onto a spiral staircase through the only still-standing tower of the castle.

Unlike the princesses in the fairy tales who room in the attics, we descend the narrow, uneven steps. The stone steps were polished by plodding feet over the centuries to a glossy shine. They are slippery, yet nobody bothered to add a railing.

What lies ahead doesn't scare me the way it should, because my squarely mind simply doesn't have the frame of reference to be afraid of a medieval dungeon.

Internal bleeding, rape, broken bones, concussion, infection—these threats are tangible to me.

But rotting in a dungeon? That's too abstract to be afraid of in 2017.

I don't start shaking until the staircase spits us out into the bare circular room at the tower's ground level floor. A slit in the stonework, barred with the rusted iron bars, is what passes for the window. I can see grass out of it, almost flash with its base.

The stone floor is empty apart from the mouse droppings and the rubble, desolate and harsh.

They have to lit up a flashlight, though the British word for it—the torch—would be more apt under the circumstances.

"No," I murmur, "this can't be real."

"Better believe it." Creepy points at the hatch in the middle of the room I took for a drain because it looks like a service grate on a city street. "This way, Ma'am."

"You must be kidding," I stammer through chattering teeth.

Viking Smurf jingles his keys again. Another goon is unrolling a coil of rope. My Lord, they are not kidding.

Creepy pushes me closer to the grate. "But you can stay up here for a little longer, if you're nice to me."

His hand shoots toward my breast.

If only he knew how much I want to slice his hands off! I wisely keep this desire to myself and slouch, then edge toward the hatch. It's like peering down a well: the white circle from the flashlight picks out a stone floor far below, covered with rubble, straight down. And nothing more.

Creepy sticks to me like a chewed-up gum to the underside of a bus seat, to grind into my backside.

I circle the grate, pushing him away, hissing, "No, no, no... I don't believe it."

Creepy snorts.

Viking Smurf yells for him to knock it off and fucking help them already.

The rest of the goons still hold Scali, watching his every twitch for a sign of an impending attack. Frankly, I doubt Scali has any fight left in him after the beating he's received, but his eyes glower with defiance.

Viking Smurf's muscles bulge, veins rope through them as he grips the metal hatch. Creepy grunts and pants next to him, pretending to do his share of heavy lifting. Together, they lift the hatch and slip it out of the way. Yeah, it's just like a manhole, except there is no access ladder.

"Who's first?" Viking Smurf asks.

"The girl," Scali says, at the same moment as I yelp, "Me!"

I've never been so eager in my life to drop into a stonewalled garbage chute, but spending another second with these men is worse. They are all Creepy Smurfs to me.

"Yeah, right," Creepy exclaims. "Keep dreaming."

The laughter that erupts after his words promises nothing I want to be a part of, so I fumble for the rope with my still tied hands.

I have to go first, and as soon as possible. The dungeon is better than the company of these men without Scali's protection.

The tie binding my wrists is not as tight as it could have been, so I could break my fall some. The fall is long, yes, but it's not terrible, maybe two-story height, maybe a little less. On a good day, and with decent handholds, I would climb it up, down and sideways. On a bad day, like today... I'll still take my chances vs staying alone with the goons.

Scali's eyes meet mine for long enough for me to read a nearly undetectable nod. He has my back. I should jump.

I harbor no illusions about him belaying me like a pro, but I grab the rope and jump down the well anyway, trusting him to help any way he can.

From us yelling that I should go first to my moronic leap of faith into the dungeon, it takes no more than thirty seconds.

My reckless dive deserves a broken neck as a reward, but Scali somehow pins the unwinding rope with his weight just in time to prevent me from hitting the floor. My palms burn, scraped bloody. I twist a knee, but the pain is going away as I hobble to the farthest corner of the room. I can walk it off, lucky me.

There are lucky people out there who win lottery jackpots and meet rich soulmates while working as baristas in funky coffee shops. My luck runs more along the lines of diving into a dungeon cell without spraining an ankle. Fucking A!

Overhead, the inevitable cusses and punches make me feel almost guilty about my escape to the place of punishment. They unleash their frustration at losing me on Scali. Finally, Viking Smurf barks for them to stop fucking around.

The goons half-lower, half-drop Scali after me. He wiggles like a worm on the hook. The rope is dropped after him for a good measure.

For a second I stare at it in puzzlement, then I remember the preposterous story Johnny had concocted for the police and the mafia bosses.

Scali was showing his girl the dungeon and accidentally the two idiots got trapped inside. No cop worth his badge should ever buy this bullshit, even if they move the grate away after we're dead. Except for those whose income is generously supplemented by the Mafia Inc.

"Maybe he can strangle you in there, bitch," Creepy suggests from the hole in the ceiling, the only exit from our royal chambers. His voice echoes off the stone walls, sending the shivers down my spine.

"I'll bury you alive," Scali repeats like a broken record.

They literally piss on him. And spit.

I gag, but my stomach is stronger than the revulsion, so no vomit comes out. I just swallow the unpleasant lump in my throat. Which is hardly my favorite meal, but at least I don't add to the disgusting demo of the bodily fluids spreading on the floor right underneath the hatch.

Scali lurches away from the ungodly shower instead of rolling with the feline grace, he is capable of when in shape. By the sweat coating his forehead and the strain around his eyes, staying on his feet is already costly. At least his eyes are intact... But damn it, he looks rough.

The metal cover scrapes the stone, while being lagged into place, then rattles on its metal frame. The chain and the lock jingle, sealing the entrance.

Scali and I now share an empty stone cylinder, about ten feet in diameter, and about twice as much in height. The only light comes from the openings between the metal bars of the grate. It's not much.

Once my one functioning eye adjusts to the dimness, all I can see on the floor is a dusting of rubble. Condensation trickles down the walls. Medieval dungeons at least had rats and rotten straw for the prisoners. This one doesn't. In two days we'll be licking water off the walls...

There is one chilling hint that this horrid place was used in the modern era: an old-fashioned, cumbersome security camera is bolted high on the wall with a blinking green light. On top of everything else, we're being watched.

The stone ceiling is both too high and too close, pressing down on my head. Under its phantom weight, my unhurt knees buckle. I plop on my butt, the dump of the stone seeping through my jeans, even through my hoodie, flannel shirt and tee. To control the spreading shivering, I hug my legs. The toes of my bare feet curl instinctively, to stave off the chill from creeping into my bones.

I don't even know what makes the shakes worse, the fear or the cold. My eyes drift to the outline of the rope snaking across the floor. Maybe I should ask Scali to strangle me with it, since it would be a kinder fate than the imprisonment here.

As if guessing my thoughts, Scali limps over and crouches next to me with a shushed groan. His head rolls back to rest against the stone, because everything around us is a cold, hard stone. Everything.

"Matteo," I ask, "Matteo, whatever we're going to do?"

"Wait," he says and manages a tormented smile. "We're going to wait."