Valentina moved from the bed to the door, and then back to the bed.
The room grew smaller by the second, as the walls began to close in on her.
She hated being alone.
Sitting at the edge of the bed gave her legs room to tapdance on the floor, which gave her consciousness some escape from the silence.
But as the seconds moved into minutes, and the minutes travelled even further, she jumped to her feet, unable to bear the solitude anymore.
Valentina began to look around the room.
There wasn't much to look at, but she had to keep herself busy.
Dragging the only chair in the room to the closet, she stood on it, so she could grab the box at the top of the closet.
"Hmmm," she mused, returning to the bed. "What do we have here?"
Her fingers filtered through the box. There were magazines filled with random home items.
"Nope!" She flung those to the side, and continued to dig.
Papercuts, clips, rusty lighters, and a piece of prosthetic finger later, she finally touched something that was worth–something.
She pulled it out, and her eyes squinted as she studied the device in her hand carefully.
"A transistor radio?" Her eyes widened.
She dug into the box again, and found a charger.
Valentina's head spun around in search of a socket.
When her gaze stumbled on one, her heart leaped for joy.
She dashed towards it, and plugged in the radio.
Crossing her fingers, she prayed silently that the radio worked.
She needed the noise. Any voice at all that wasn't hers or her heartbeat.
Natalia has still not returned from wherever she was taken to, and her entire being needed any distraction at all to keep her from thinking the worst.
She counted the seconds in her heart, as her eyes darted between the radio still projecting red light, and the door.
Thirty, twenty, ten, three, two, one!
"Blue!" She blurted, and stood up.
Pulling the plug off the radio, she proceeded to press the on button.
Her breath came out sharply when music began to blast out of it as soon as the radio came on.
Valentina's smile lit up the entire room. "Finally, sound!" She jubilated.
Holding the radio tightly in her hand, she hurried to the door and dragged it open.
For ten minutes after Natalia was taken away, she had stepped out in hopes of finding a way out of the solitude.
But every path she took led to a dead end. It was walls all through the hall, which confused her on how they had even arrived there in the first place.
There was one thing she found though, and as she stood in the hallway with the radio playing a sound, she looked directly at it- the blinking red light letting her know exactly what she wanted.
Someone was watching.
At the entrance of Neravalle, Luciano's car rolled in.
He pushed the door open even before the car stopped, and hopped out of it.
"Send a message to all of the border heads. I want to see them by the evening," he dished out orders to his driver, although already quite a distance away from him.
Luciano went straight to the camera rooms in search of something his thoughts had formed on his way back home.
There was a spy in his camp, and he knew exactly how to fish them out.
"Carpo!"
The words echoed around from bowed heads as soon as his feet touched the paths that led to his destination.
There were a couple of boys strategically placed along the paths of the camera room, to stop entries that were not ordered.
But they all cleared the way for him, seeing the determination in his glare.
Luciano burst into the exact room out of the three he thought to find what he was looking for, but came to an abrupt halt when something caught his gaze.
At the hidden hallway, Valentina who had now dropped the radio device blasting out music to the ground, danced carefreely.
Although she didn't understand the lyrics because they were in Italian, the rhythm spoke to her soul.
It was soft, sensual, and had her swaying her body from side to side.
Her hands rose into the air, as her hips moved like waves.
Feet bare, she easily glided through the ground, with her eyes closed, and a smile spread across her face.
In the camera room, Luciano stood rooted to the spot.
Not even his boys situated in the room felt his presence. Which was odd in itself, because his presence always commanded attention.
They too were lost in the enigma that was Valentina.
Luciano found himself cold to the bones as his eyes fixated on her.
She moved like she was married to the music. Like she lived inside of it, and it lived inside of her.
Every move she made rode her already cropped shirt higher, revealing a flat stomach, and also pushed her flowy skirts down to her lower waist.
Luciano's gaze trailed to the nape of her neck, as she brushed her hair all the way back, and his pulse raced with desire.
He couldn't tell if she knew she was being watched. It didn't look like she knew she was being watched, but that added to the appeal of the moment for him.
A tent began to form in his pants, as the music got even more sensual, causing her hands to grab her breasts, and roll her chest in a circular motion.
"Oh Mio Dio!" One of the boys watching swore through his teeth.
Luciano silently nodded in agreement.
Everything became a thousand times more intense, as she fully faced the camera now.
His hungry eyes drank her in, yet his thirst only arose.
He knew-he knew he could never fully quench his thirst until he had a taste of her.
That thought alone was trouble in itself. Not only was he a taken man, she was a taboo.
Yet, desire swirled in him like never before, as he watched her.
Over in the hallway, the music began to fade.
Valentina hoped she had gotten the attention she needed to pass her message.
She lifted her head, and brought her sensual eyes directly to the camera.
As she felt the music reach its final lap, she ran one hand through her hair, as one finger trailed from her thighs.
Up it continued to move, stopping just for a second at the cleft of her breast.
Cazzo!
Luciano's breath strained, as his gaze caught that move.
He watched as the fingers continued to move, until it reached her face.
She paused, her eyes smothered with even more allure, and then she flipped it.
"Fuck off!" Her mouth curved seductively.
As if she knew he was there. Watching her. Taking her in, in ways he wasn't supposed to.
Luciano's mind erupted with an intensity that shook the foundations of the control he had honed through the years.
Through both lenses, their gazes held, and locked.
One unyieldingly determined, the other, filled with covetous desires.
They didn't really know if they could both see each other, but it was the possibility that turned up the heat in their eyes.