Chapter 11

MARIELA

What should I do now? Where I go? I looked at the ceiling looking for some way out, there were no windows here, just the cubicles. I'm lost and I feel like my plan didn't work. I entered a bathroom stall and sat down to think. Maybe I should run, I don't think Damián can catch up with me. Also, if I'm lucky, the girl at the reception can help me. Alexander is just a few steps away and I just have to get to him.

I can do it, I can. I left the cubicle and quietly opened the door. Damien had his back turned, looking at his cell phone while he smiled and talked to someone. He is very close. I have to risk it or I will never get out of here. I opened the door quietly and, at the least expected moment, I ran out of there.

“Hey!” He yelled behind me. I knew he couldn't shoot me here or they would quickly call the police. I ran down the hall with Damián following my steps until I got to where the receptionist was but she was gone.

Shit!

"Mariela, stop!" I heard Damian's scream. I went out the door to the street and hurried to the other restaurant, I looked for Alexander but he was not on this floor. Damien crossed the door too, I went up the stairs immediately; Damien grabbed my ankle, making me fall.

“Let go!” I yelled, trying to kick him.

"I won't hesitate to shoot you, Mariela," he pointed the gun at me.

"You wouldn't." I turned and kicked him in the face with my other foot. His hand released me so I immediately got back up and advanced to the second floor. Here there was more privacy, there were almost no people. I looked at Alexander and Natasha at the table in the last row, they were talking animatedly as if Alexander didn't care that I was lost.

As I put one foot forward to move forward someone grabbed me from behind and covered my mouth to stop me from screaming. Damien carried me until I was hiding behind a wall.

"Did you think you would escape?" He whispered “this will cost you dearly” he said “When Natasha finds out...”

"Hmm," I stammered.

"How the hell do I get out of here?" He asked himself. I struggled several times with him to get him to let me go but it was useless, it didn't seem like it but this boy was much stronger than me. “We'll go out but if you yell I won't shoot you but Alexander, I don't agree that Natasha has to marry him just for that damn money. did you understand? If you scream I'll kill him.”

I feared for Alexander and just for that I nodded. The man took my hand from my mouth, and we moved toward the stairs and down. His gun was pointed at my back and no one could see it because he covered it with a cloth. We left the restaurant, crossed the street, and he put me back in the truck.

"You almost got away from me, huh?" He sighed in relief. I had made him sweat. “Natasha would have killed me if that had happened.” Seconds later I watched Alexander leave the restaurant, he got in his car and drove off. The hopes of being released left with him. Natasha came out seconds later, she was smiling, she got in the car and sighed. “What happened?”

"What I supposed. Alexander is very sad because he thinks that his beloved Mariela abandoned him. He made it up to me that she had gone shopping in Chicago to buy things for the wedding but it was clear that he was trying hard not to cry. The poor idiot fell in love with her.”

I felt something in my chest when I heard her say that. That couldn't be true, Alexander couldn't be in love with me... we didn't get along. Natasha has to be wrong.

"And the contract?"

“I wanted to get information from him but he didn't tell me anything about it. He never mentioned it, I tried to ask him those kinds of things but he still knew how to answer which means that our friend here deceived us.”

“I didn't deceive them, it's obvious that Alexander won't tell anyone about that contract if he didn't even tell his best friend Augusto.”

"I don't believe you anymore," she snapped.

“Let's go?” Damian asks. It seems that it is not convenient for him to say that I escaped from him.

“It's the truth. What are you supposed to do with me?” I wanted to know with some fear.

“Hmm we'll see, maybe you'll be useful for something. Damián is coming to dinner with his friends today, I offered to cook them dinner.”

“To the house? With Mariela there? You're crazy,” Damián told her as he started the car.

“I want to show Alexander that I'm not hiding anything from him, that he can trust me because I could also be an excellent wife.” she laughed.

Although I knew Alexander would arrive at Natasha's house, I was not excited because it was known that they could hurt him and it was the first time I felt that if something happened to Alexander I would die.

When we got back to the house they took me to the same room and locked me up. My hopes of escaping were replaced by resignation. I'm not leaving here, I have no idea what Natasha plans to do with me, the only thing left is to wait. I went to the bed and lay there.

•

At about nine o'clock at night cars arrived, Augusto, Margarita and Alexander. They went down and entered, I could perfectly scream but it wouldn't help. These walls were soundproof, which is why Natasha had chosen this room. I'm tired of being here and I'm very hungry. How will Cookie be? I just hope he’s still in the house...although, on second thought, I won't even see him again. The door opens and Damián enters with two trays of food.

"Apparently you'll be my dinner partner," he tells me, leaving the tray on top of the bed. Damián sits on the sofa and turns on the television in front of me. “You should eat, you need to be strong.”

“So what? So that this time I does succeed when I wants to run away?” I wanted to know. My mouth is dry. He laughed.

“Maybe.” He replied “The food is not poisoned, eat.”

Damián looked that I didn't want to eat, although everything looks very tasty. And it smells good.

“You do not believe me? I'll show you.” Damian took some of my food and ate. “It has nothing.”

That calmed me down, I took the spoon and started eating like I hadn't done it in days. Because yeah, I haven't in days. When I finished eating, I left the plate near Damián so he could take it away.

“Your friends are very calm, as if they don't miss you.”

"They're not my friends," I told him, "I don't even know them."

Because if they were my friends they would be looking for me, if Alexander was in love with me as Natasha said he would also be desperately looking for me, not having dinner with his ex-girlfriend. I am very angry now, with him and with everyone.

"Why aren't you with them?" asked.

“I don't belong to his social circle” he tells me “that's why I'm here with you.”

So that's why Damián was desperate for Natasha to rescue me, it seems that he needed the money.

"How much do you want to set me free?" I asked.

"I will not betray Natasha."

“Why? If she treats you very badly.”

"Because... she's the girl I love."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Yes, I've loved her since we were kids. My mothers worked here all her working life, that's why we knew each other. As Natasha grew older, she became more beautiful, but I think that sometimes she knows that she has power over me and that I would be willing to do whatever she asked of me.”

"Even kill?"

He didn't say anything.

“Maybe.”

“I don't think you're a murderer, Damián, why do you help her if you know she's going off with someone else?”

“Because I love her and it's the only way to be close to her otherwise she wouldn't be here.”

“I understand.”

“I don't even know why I'm talking about this to you,” he murmurs.

"Because you know I'm not a bad person," I told him.

Silence.

"Are you and Alexander really only together by contract?" He asks me minutes later.

“Yes, Alexander bought me. He gave money to my parents so they wouldn't go broke and then they gave it to me in payment. The contract is for a year.”

“Wow, Alexander is a sadist.”

“I think so.”

"Is that why you want to escape?"

“Maybe.”

"I hope you're not making the same mistake as Natasha." He looks at me.

“What mistake?”

"The one of falling in love with him. I've heard a lot about Alexander, like how he doesn't take any girl seriously after his wife died. He goes out with women to have fun and then leaves them after months, that's how he is, it's his nature. When a man falls deeply in love with a woman and then loses her, he never feels that way for anyone else. Even if he tries, that's why they become womanizers and unintentionally hurt the hearts of the poor girls. Don't fall for that game, Mariela.”