Chapter 5: Natalia

My head is still spinning.

No more from the pain I previously felt.

It’s spinning from the answer of my fate and the worry over what might happen to José.

The guards took me to the bathroom first to clean off the blood from my hands and face, then I was taken to Raul’s bedroom, which is where I currently am.

His room doesn’t have an en-suite bathroom like Adriana’s does. If it did, I would have bathed to get the scent of the dead off me. That mere wash I was allowed wasn’t enough.

What’s worse is that the room smells like Raul, and even though he’s dead, his authoritative presence still lingers in the air, haunting the place.

I can smell him in the air, and the essence of his blood still clings to me.

I’ve never actually been inside here. I wasn’t allowed on this side of the house, but I’ve caught glimpses from the balcony on the opposite side.

The room looks like it was made for the ruler Raul thought himself to be. The king-sized bed in the center is covered in black silk that matches the wallpaper, and the pure crystals hanging from the chandelier are exactly what you’d expect royalty to own.

To me, however, he was always going to be a murderer.

I can’t believe he’s dead. Slain like an animal in a slaughterhouse. Adriana, too. Raul put so much effort into her safety and making sure people didn’t know who she was that it backfired on him.

I’ve been in here for the last hour. Just waiting with only the echo of the ticking clock on the wall and the threat of the guards outside the door.

The door isn’t locked. It’s only closed.

I know not to be stupid, though, and think I’ll get far if I braved trying to run.

That’s the point of all of this. I can’t run.

I could never run. Not from Raul, and not from my new captor.

Mikhail Dmitriyev.

That’s his name. The name of my husband-to-be, who thinks I’m someone else.

Since meeting him, I’ve gone from worrying about him killing me, to worrying about when he’s going to fuck me, to marrying him.

Marriage.

What the fuck am I going to do?

I keep trying to figure out if this is really happening, and I’m going crazy with worry. I also feel sick to my core because I know he would have killed José.

Why wouldn’t he?

He killed everybody else. All those people who were unfortunate enough to be on Raul’s estate, and then he killed Raul.

I’ll never forget the way he killed him.

It was effortless, without any thought for compassion.

All the while, when Raul babbled what would have been indecipherable nonsense to everyone, I understood his garbling. I’m sure José understood, too.

That was possibly the first time we’d both seen Raul Alvarez show his love for his daughter. What we were seeing was a combination of the grieving father and one who was trying to take me down to hell with him.

After the way that scheme played out, I’m sure he would have been told Adriana was alive. So, when he saw me, in her dress, he would have known exactly what happened and what was going on.

By the same token, he wouldn’t have wanted me to use the chance to survive.

When our eyes first locked, I expected him to scream the truth of who I was.

He did just that.

The bastard tried to, but he couldn’t say anything with his tongue gone.

So much happened after that felt like redemption.

Raul’s throat was slashed the way he cut my mother’s throat after he raped her. She died as she tried to crawl away from him and back to Papa and me.

Tonight, Raul also got a bullet between the eyes, the same way my father went.

Redemption, yes. For those who are already dead, though.

Not for me.

I won’t get anything like that. There seems to be a different plan for me. One I have no idea how to pick apart.

Right now, as I stand in this room, in this bloodied wedding dress covered in the blood of the men I’ve hated the most, I’m like the fly who flew straight into the spider’s web.

I’m trapped, and now that I’m trapped, I’m not sure what is worse yet. My life the way it was yesterday, when I cried myself to sleep from worry over being a sex slave, or the version of myself now in the fucked-up present tense.

How the hell am I supposed to marry this monster?

What will my life be like?

Or, fuck…

How long until he doesn’t need me?

I’m young, but the things I’ve borne witness to and heard have aged my mind well beyond its years. When shit is happening, the help are always the first to hear the hushed whispers of murder plots and witness those scheming plots unfold.

I’ve heard of enough wives who’ve died accidentally. Either their use had expired, they’d expired and their husbands wanted to trade them in, or they’d seen or heard something they shouldn’t have.

In my case, I think I’ll expire in use.

That’s what’s going to happen to me. This monstrous man is going to force me to marry him so he can rule the cartel, then kill me.

A tendril of panic seizes my body when the thud of heavy boots sounds on the other side of the door and the handle turns.

As the door swings open and I see him—Mikhail Dmitriyev—my heart leaps like a gazelle into my throat then beats like a harsh fist pounding against the walls of my chest.

He walks slowly into the room, and the door swings shut behind him. The dark intensity of his presence forces me to back into the wall as if the black silky wallpaper can offer me the comfort and safety I seek.

A mirthless smile spreads across his face, but it still animates his handsome features.

I notice he’s clean of the blood that was previously on him, and he’s changed his clothes. He’s still wearing full black, though, in a shirt and slacks similar to what he just took off.

As he comes closer, sandalwood and sexy musk fill my nostrils, and I scan over the artful tattoos lining his fingers and climbing up his neck.

Everything is clearer in this light, including the solemn expression on his face.

Thoughts and questions collide in my mind.

Thoughts that do nothing to ebb my fears and questions he might not answer.

As he comes even closer, I think of two things.

One, he thinks I’m Adriana, which is what’s keeping me alive.

Two, he needs me. Right now, he needs me, and even though I don’t know how long the need will exist, I need to find whatever strength I can from that knowledge.

So, being this weak woman isn’t going to help me.

I need to find strength although I’m afraid. Just like before.

“Are you afraid of me, Malyshka?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

“Ma…lysh…ka?” I stammer.

“Baby girl in Russian.”

That shouldn’t heat up my body the way it does, but nothing about the last twenty-four hours has been normal. Should I be surprised if I’ve finally gone crazy?

God knows enough has happened to push me right over the edge. But since it looks like I’m still hanging on, I won’t let go of whatever thread I’m gripping on to. I’ll keep holding on for as long as I can.

“Did you kill José?” I manage.

Curiosity fills his face, and when he leans in and places his hands on the wall on either side of me, I think he might kiss me.

He towers over me, and my heartbeat doubles when I get that suffocating feeling again.

“Interesting, Malyshka. You showed more emotion for the old man than you did for your own father.”

Shit.

I wasn’t thinking. My mind and body were simply reacting as anyone would if they were watching their biggest enemy fall. I was being myself. Natalia de Leon. And I forgot to be Adriana Alvarez.

He’s right. I barely showed an ounce of remorse for Raul. Anyone seeing their parent in such a way would have lost their minds. Having lost both parents in violent ways, I know exactly how I should have behaved.

The hysterics should have hit me the moment he told me he was going to kill Raul.

I, however, was so worried about Raul identifying me, I forgot the act.

This man is no fool, and what scares me is how he might kill me if he finds out I’m not who he thinks I am.

What do I do now?

Does he suspect I’m a fake?

I have to think fast and say something plausible that might explain my shock.

“That’s not true. It all happened so fast,” I lie. “You killed my father so fast. I barely had time to process what you were doing. You just killed him. You killed him right there in front of me.”

My lips tremble on their own. I don’t have to instill grief into my body. Neither do I have to pretend to cry. The tears are never far off. My soul is always weeping.

So, the tears I summon now are real, just not for what he thinks they’re for.

“José is all I have left,” I add. “He’s been my bodyguard since I was a baby.” That’s true.

“You better hope that’s all it is, Malyshka, or he’s dead.”

“So, he’s alive?” I’m so eager for the prospect that I don’t fully take in what he’s saying to me.

“Are you screwing the old man? The answer better be no, and better not be a fucking lie either, because I want the cherry between your legs to be mine.”

My body heats up again, and I’m appalled when I feel moisture beading between my thighs. Perhaps it’s due to relief on some level that José is safe, because the wild images flooding my mind of this man fucking me against this wall are completely inappropriate.

Briefly, he presses his forehead to mine before he backs away.

“Answer the question, Malyshka.”

“He’s just my bodyguard,” I reply. “That’s all.”

“Good, and lucky for you, I seem to believe you. Next question. Are you the virgin I’ve heard you are?”

A shudder runs through me when I detect the shimmer of greed in his eyes.

“Yes.”

His smile widens. “I like virgins. I like being the first man to break them and train them to please me.”

Them. I wonder how many of them he’s had. He sounds like the virgin Pied Piper, and I’m just going to be another statistic in his catalogue of women.

“Were you serious about the wedding?” I risk asking and changing the subject.

A slow, easy grin brightens his face, and I know straightaway that I’m going to be some plaything to him. Another person who will think of me as a thing. A non-human being they can toy with.

“Yes. I was serious as fuck about the wedding.” He cups my blood-stained face and presses his thumb into my neck. “Any objections, princess? You look like you have plenty to say. I’m interested in hearing it.”

“We don’t know each other. How can we get married? We just met.”

“Shit like that doesn’t matter to me, and definitely not when you were going to marry Felipe Naveed. I’ll take you for myself and break you just for that.”

Break me?

I could almost laugh.

I’m already broken. I just hide the pieces of my soul well.

I suppose, though, that’s just a part of me. Something inside keeps me going. It’s something stronger than hope. It exists deep within my core, right in the essence of what makes me, me. It forces me to keep surviving even when there seems to be nothing left to live for.

If that part of me breaks, I’m dead.

“Your marriage to me will seal the deal on my control of the cartel. It is formalities and the easy way to conquer your father’s empire without rebellion. But I could do it the other way, princess. The harder, hellish way where I kill you and reign hell on Mexico. So, Malyshka, your choices are marry me, or die.”

My mouth goes dry, as if someone has stuffed it with sand.

Marry him or die? Those are my choices. They both sound like the same thing to me. Like death. It’s just that one might prolong my life a little longer.

“What’s it going to be, Malyshka?”

“I don’t want to die,” I choke out, because that’s the truth. I don’t want to die, and anything I do now will be because of that.

He nods and brushes his lips so briefly over mine it’s as if the mere kiss never happened.

“I didn’t think so. Now that’s settled, I’d like to see what’s under this dress.”

“What?”

He tugs on the edge of the bodice of the dress on a spot that’s still white. That’s when I remember his taunt to fuck me.

“Strip. Now. Take everything off, Malyshka.”