Chapter 28
Several minutes had passed since Zarren left, and I was now torn between wanting to scratch his eyes out and wanting to rip my heart from my chest. It was his anyway. It would do me no good where I was going.
Oh God! I barely survived you, Zarren. I’ll never survive this Mikhail.
I had no idea who he was... What he looked like... What kind of man he was...
All I knew was that I wanted to rip his dick off and feed it to him for something as simple as agreeing to have me.
Zarren said arranged marriages were common in and between mafia families, but it still sounded so archaic.
And wrong. I believed in choices and being independent, which was why I’d never bothered to ask Drake to move in with me.
I had wanted to get engaged, but it’d only been because I believed it was what I needed to do next.
I had the career. The only things missing were marriage and children.
I had dodged a bullet with Drake, and I supposed his betrayal made it easier for me to move on physically with Zarren.
He’d made the pain seem so insignificant.
Granted, he’d done it by being his impossibly chaotic self, but he was successful nonetheless.
Now I’d allowed myself to fall, and for him. Chalk it up to my vulnerability or just idiocy, but I physically ached for him. When his lips had been so close to mine earlier, I’d wanted to do nothing more than fuse my mouth to his until he took control and gave us both what we wanted.
If it was only sex, I could see a day in the future where being away from him might not hurt so much. But it was more than that. I’d allowed him to become so integral to my being like the air I breathed. And soon, I’d be a continent away from him, suffocating without him near.
No, I will not marry Mikhail Bocharov. I’ll die before I allow that to happen.
My refusal should’ve been enough, but it wasn’t for Zarren or his uncles. As much as I’d liked Ekaterina and Reagan, the other men were the ones responsible for this mess I now found myself in, so naturally I hated them.
I returned my focus to my reflection and could see the slight tinge of pink that colored my cheeks. I could also feel his hand on the side of my face. Something had seemed different with him tonight, and I had no idea what the hell it was.
Maybe he sensed the expiration date on this was ending, too. He claimed that a damn song mattered to him, but not my opinions about my own life. Sure, he wanted to know my thoughts on a few lyrics, but not about his asinine plan to hand me off like a fucking possession.
“Fuck this!” I said as I left the bathroom.
I needed to make him see reason before I lost my opportunity. He wasn’t angry tonight, so maybe I could appeal to some small part of him. With that goal in mind, I exited my bedroom and made my way downstairs. Once on the lower level, I craned my neck in the direction of his voice.
And he wasn’t alone. I heard Conor, Liam, and two other voices that were muffled as if they were on speaker instead of being there in person. Creeping closer, I stopped and threw a hand over my mouth at what I heard.
“We’ll be there in a few hours’ time. The girl leaves tonight,” one I assumed was Kingston said to Zarren.
“The flight plans have been turned in already. It’ll be King, the girl, and me.”
“She has a goddamn name,” Zarren said through the phone.
“Aurora,” the man I assumed was Cillian said in correction. “Regardless of what you want to call her, Artem Bocharov will meet us in Moscow, where he’ll take possession of her for his son.”
A sob escaped my mouth, causing three men to turn in my direction. “Whatever,” Zarren said to them before ending the call and tossing his cell phone onto the nearby pool table. “You two need to leave,” he said to his men. “Return in two hours’ time.”
“Yes, Boss,” they both said in unison before they straightened to full height and walked by me without a single glance.
I turned and watched them leave through the door, then whirled around as soon as they did. Zarren was staring sullenly at me, and again, his entire demeanor was different. Earlier, he’d been something, but not resigned to my fate as he now seemed to be.
“I guess you heard that,” he said after a few long seconds.
“And that is it? They tell you to make me jump, and you don’t even ask them how high? You’ve just given up, and—”
“There was nothing to give up,” he said to me, and my eyes narrowed.
“Everything that has happened between us was nothing to you? I’m nothing to you?” I questioned him.
I could feel the tears burn as my lashes desperately tried to hold them back.
His face actually looked pained for a second or two before he wiped it clean like a blank slate.
Now, those piercing gray eyes that had always reminded me of a storm cloud were completely hollow.
His usually sharp features had changed, but I wouldn’t quite call them relaxed. It finally dawned on me what it was.
Surrender! You’re going to throw me to the wolf, then act like you’re the victim.
Anger quickly joined my despair, not replacing it, but combining with it until I physically shook. Tremble after tremble wracked me as he just stood there. He couldn’t even hold my gaze because he eventually dropped it to his feet.
“You fucking coward,” I seethed. “I’m not going with your uncles tomorrow, and no one can make me.”
He did raise his head at that, and simply shook his head as he flashed me a sympathetic smile. Pity. That was what it was, and it only infuriated me more.
“Did you ever fucking give a damn about me?”
“You should pack your things up if you intend on taking any of them with you,” is all he said as he pushed away from the pool table, intending to leave.
“We’re not done here. I want you to fucking answer me.”
“No,” he said.
“No, as in you’re not going to answer me? Or no, as in you never gave a damn?”
“Just no,” he said.
I scrubbed my shaking hands down my face, collecting a few of the tears that had started to slip from my eyes, before staring at him in disbelief. “That’s all you have to say? You uproot my entire world by kidnapping me, and—”
“You’d gotten in the car willingly,” he pointed out.
“Semantics,” I yelled out at him before lowering my voice once more. “You wouldn’t let me go once I got here, so again, you’d kidnapped me.”
He seemed unfazed. “Today, you’re going to leave. Where is just not going to be your choice.”
“I fucking hate you,” I lied to him as my heart continued to break.
“Good!” he sneered. “Now go pack your things before you leave with nothing but that tattered nightgown on your back.”
“Tattered? It isn’t ripped.”
“But it will be if you stand here any longer.”
My core and heart ached simultaneously, and I now knew what it was like to feel both pleasure and pain at the same time.
“Was I ever anything more than a warm body for you?” I asked him, and nearly went to my knees as his gaze flickered dismissively over me.
“I can’t believe I ever thought you cared about me. ”
With that, I quickly turned. I had gotten no more than two steps away when I stopped. “Bellezza!”
The endearment hadn’t been what unleashed the torrent of tears that had threatened to erupt. It had been the pained tone in the way he’d said it. I paused even as another sob escaped me.
“You’re more wrong than you’ll ever know,” is what he followed it up with.
I sacrificed my pride once more, which seemed to be a common occurrence where he was concerned, then stormed over to him.
Before I knew it, I slapped him. The loud sound echoed in the air, and I winced at the burning of my palm.
He didn’t seem the slightest bit fazed by it as he lightly grasped my throat and tipped my chin up.
“Wrong about what? You hate me because I’m—”
He shook his head, silencing me. Right after, he twisted his hand enough to allow himself access to my chin and quivering bottom lip. As his thumb brushed back and forth over it, I tried to read him, but couldn’t.
“One might get the wrong impression by this and think you actually care,” I murmured.
“Because I do. Goddamn hell, I fucking care,” he said before lowering his head to mine.
His warm breath tickled my chin as his thumb continued to stroke my lip. “Zar—”
Before I could even say his name, he closed the distance between us. His mouth came down hard on mine. My pulse quickened, and while a small voice screamed at me to push him away, and even slap him again, it was silenced by the need bubbling up inside of me like a fountain.
The moment his tongue thrust between my lips, his hand moved back to my throat.
A moan escaped, but he took that as encouragement.
His other hand brushed against my cheek with the softness of a feather.
This man was a walking and talking contradiction, but one thought kept repeating itself in my head.
Mine! He’s mine!
Only he wasn’t, and knowing that, I slipped my hands between us and pushed hard on his chest until he finally tore his mouth away from mine. As he did, his teeth nicked my bottom lip, and I could feel and taste the coppery tang of my blood as a few droplets rose to the surface.
He still had his hand on my throat, only dropping it when I tipped my head up to look at him. Those gray eyes revealed the fury of a storm at sea, and I almost felt like one of those small ships before it capsized and was never seen again.
It was exactly what this had always been.
Zarren’s charm, or maybe it was seduction, had lured me in, and now I was caught in the waves.
And while I’d always assumed there would be a lifeline, I was now forced to face the cold, hard truth.
I was a vessel lost at sea, and once I left this place.
.. left his arms... I’d be swept away somewhere so dark I’d never be recovered.
Not my body... my heart... or my soul, all of which I had stupidly given this man.
“I never wanted to feel anything for you, Bellezza, but god help me because I did... I do...”
“If you care for me as you claim—”
“Care?” he asked before chuckling sarcastically, then sobered up. Fire flared in those stormy depths, and the heat singed my face as he stared down into mine. “That word doesn't even begin to describe what I feel for you.”
“Which is?” When he didn’t respond by doing anything more than closing his eyes to me, I waited for them to reopen before adding, “What do you feel for me?”
“Goddamn it. Isn’t it obvious?”
I shook my head. “Every time I think I have you all figured out, you do something to change everything... You do something to make me question everything... Like why did you have to step in and save me from those men?”
“My family needed you for—”
“Bullshit. You didn’t do it for them. You did it for me, and in doing so, you’ve ruined every fucking thing.”
And he had. If Zarren hadn’t done something so foolishly noble and unbelievably endearing, I would’ve disappeared into the woods and possibly be free right now. I’d hesitated, and every confusing emotion I’d had about him came to the surface.
“What are you talking about?” he asked as he stroked the side of my face.
Resisting the urge to turn my face into it, I squeezed my lids shut for a few seconds before reopening them. “I couldn’t let you sacrifice your life for mine, so I stayed. I gave up my freedom to save your fucking life.”
“I’d give up my life for you again,” he admitted.
“Then don’t let them take me.”
“I can give you almost anything but that, Bellezza.”
He sounded so genuine, which only hurt me more. I never thought it was possible to die from a broken heart, but with each word he spoke, another piece of my heart broke off, and the shattered remnants pierced everything around them.
“And I told you time and time again that you should’ve let me die.”
“I should’ve,” I said, but I knew I never would have.
“As I’d desperately tried to stop the bleeding so you didn’t die, my entire future bled out instead.
And I’d do it all over again because in those precarious moments, I realized that I liked you.
.. That I cared about you... And that maybe I’d even fallen for—”
“You should’ve fucking let me die!” he said more emphatically, causing me to back up until my backside hit the pool table.
Grabbing one of the two cues, he brought it down hard right as his knee came up, breaking it in half.
He brought the smooth end of one to my raised hands while pressing the rough, sharp edge to his chest. “Here’s your chance, just know it won’t change your fate.
.. Or mine... So do it,” he urged as he stepped closer to it.
Using my free hand, I knocked it away, ignoring the loud clanging as it hit the floor. “I won’t because, unlike you, I want you to have a long and great life even if it isn’t with me. That’s what it means to care about someone more than yourself. What it means to love some—”
His hand darted out, cutting me off mid-sentence. I almost expected him to grab me by the throat, but instead, he traced his calloused fingers over my chin, jaw, and bottom lip before he yanked me against his chest.