CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Mercedes watched from her window as the Lincoln Continental drive out of the compound, escorted by two other small cars, and with each passing second, the rate of her heart beat sporadically rose.

When she was totally certain that Don Fabrizio and his men had left the compound, she raced towards the door and pressed her ear on it, willing the footsteps she wanted to hear to be approaching. She was feeling a high level of excitement and thus, she couldn't contain her joy when she began to hear the footsteps.

She ran to her bed, now and began to count in her mind from one till whatever number it would take for that door to be unlocked from outside and for the one she was expecting to walk in. It usually took until the count of ten, but those ten seconds always felt as long as a month.

One. Two. Three..

The sound of the key being taken out of its place, which had become familiar to her over the course of her involuntary stay here, was heard.

Four, Five, Six ,Seven..

The sound of the ke