Chapter 11 The Cage in Flames

Chapter 11 The Cage in Flames
Nadja Mayer

My body obeys before my mind can even process resistance. I lift my face slowly, like a robot, muscles rigid with fear. Now we're face to face, separated by less than an arm's length. In the darkness, his gray eyes catch the faint light from the window, gleaming like those of a nocturnal predator. He watches me, his face a shadow sculpted in hard angles.

"You have to learn," he says, his voice low, but each word clear and sharp as broken glass. "In this house, you obey. But obedience here won't hurt you. Understood?"

I try to swallow, but my throat is dry. I nod, a tiny movement.

"Speak," he demands.

"Understood," I whisper, my voice rough and hoarse.

He keeps staring, and it's as if those eyes can see straight through skin and muscle, right into the tangled mess of fear and despair that is my soul now.

"Otávio taught you that man means pain," he states; it's not a question again. "I'm not him."

A part of me wants to believe it. It's a small, fragile part hidden under tons of bad memories. But the rest-the part that still feels the phantom aches of broken ribs, that remembers the taste of blood in my mouth-that part laughs, bitter and silent.

He sees the conflict on my face. He sighs, a sound of restrained exasperation.

"You won't believe words. Only time will prove it to you. Until then..." He pauses, his eyes scanning my face. "Until then, you'll obey. But your obedience will be different here. It's not about shrinking. It's about... trusting. At least a little."

Trusting. The word sounds absurd. Like trusting the lion in the same cage as you?

"You smell like fear," he murmurs, his voice a low growl.

And I start to cry. I can't help it. The tears come, and with them the shaking-violent, uncontrollable-as if my body is trying to tear itself apart to escape this situation, this closeness to this man.

He stops. Immediately. His hands move back just a few inches, but it's enough for me to breathe again.

"I have a thousand flaws," he says, his voice still rough, but now laced with something that sounds like frustration. "But I don't force women."

The words don't make sense at first. They hang in the air between us, strange and disconnected. I don't force women. What does that mean? All men force. It's the only way they know how. It's what they are.

But then I look into his eyes and see something I didn't expect: honesty.

A brutal, raw honesty with no frills.

And something inside me, buried under three years of pain and humiliation-something I thought was dead-stirs. I realize it's anger, a hot, black fury rising from my stomach, burning my chest, climbing my throat...

And I start pounding him with my fists.

My fists are small and ineffective, but they hit his chest, his shoulders. I know it doesn't hurt him; I can see it in his impassive face. But it hurts me. Each punch releases a little of the rage I've felt, a little of the hatred and pain I've built up over three endless years.

"Wasn't that why you forced this marriage?" I scream, my voice distorted by tears and anger. "To make me sleep with you?!"

He grabs my wrists-not hard, but firm enough to stop my useless attacks.

"No, it wasn't," he says, and there's a patience in his voice that enrages me even more. "I've wanted you since the first moment I saw you, but I've never forced a woman to accept me, Nadja. Not even the prostitutes I've been with. When one of them said no, it was no."

I laugh, and it's an ugly, broken, hysterical sound.

"And I'm supposed to believe that? Believe you? A mafioso? A killer like the other one?"

He doesn't answer. He just looks at me, his gray eyes dark like wet stone.

And then, in an even greater surge of fury, I do something I've never done, not even with Otávio: I raise my free hand and slap him across the face.

The sound is sharp-a dry crack that echoes in the silent room.

Time stops.

The atmosphere shifts instantly. The air grows heavy and electric, charged with a violence so thick I can almost taste it. His expression doesn't change; not a muscle twitches on his face, but his eyes darken, turning the color of a storm at sea.

I shrink back, pressing against the headboard. The anger vanishes as quickly as it came, replaced by a fear so pure and absolute it makes me want to vomit.

What have I done? What have I done?

"What the hell!" he growls, his voice now a low, dangerous sound that seems to come from deep in his chest. "Have you lost your mind?"

He sits up in bed, eyes fixed on me, and I make myself smaller, trying to disappear into the wood behind me.

"For a lot less, I've killed men twice your size," he says, each word slicing like a blade. "Without even using a weapon."

He leans in, his hands on either side of the bed, trapping me.

"Never do that again. You hear me?"

I nod frantically, my hair sticking to my tear-soaked face. I can't speak anymore. My throat is closed; my jaw locked in terror.

"You hear me?" he repeats, and there's an urgency in his voice now, a need for response.

"Yes," the sound hisses out of me.

He's tense. I can see the muscles in his shoulders coiled, ready to strike. His hands-those that could snap me in half-are gripping the headboard.

Then he pulls away from me and rolls back to his side of the bed. He turns his back to me for a moment, his breathing heavy and controlled. And then he gets up and does something I don't understand: he grabs the nightstand beside the bed-a solid piece of dark wood-and hurls it with full force against the mirror on the opposite wall.

The noise is deafening. The glass shatters into a thousand pieces, falling to the floor like a rain of twisted diamonds.

But he doesn't stop. He turns, grabs the large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, rips it from its brackets, and throws it against the same wall. The impact is a dull thud followed by the crack of plastic and metal breaking.

I scramble up, my legs shaking so badly they barely hold me. I run for the door, my clumsy hands fumbling with the knob.

But he's behind me in two strides. His hand closes around my arm, and he spins me roughly, pinning me against the closed door.

"You attack me..." he breathes, his face inches from mine, his hot breath on my skin. "And then you run?"

His breathing is heavy, ragged. His eyes burn with a fury that makes my own anger look like a child's tantrum.

"Where's your courage now?" he growls, his fingers pressing into my flesh-not enough to hurt, but enough to remind me he could, so easily.

He looks at me, his eyes roaming my face, my trembling lips, my tear-filled eyes.

"Either I broke the furniture," he says, his voice now low, charged with an emotion I can't name. "Or I broke you."

He pauses, his eyes locked on mine.

"You hear me? Answer!"

"Yes," I scream, tears streaming freely now. "Yes, I hear you!"

"Why?" he demands, his voice still low but intense. "Why did you do it?"

"I don't know!" my scream echoes in the destroyed room. "I think I wanted you to kill me!"