Page 12 of Deceptive Vows

I signal for Sebastian to come over. When he does, I hand him Adriana.

“Take her upstairs to wait,” I tell him. “Leave the old man.”

“No, please don’t hurt him,” Adriana begs.

The shrill tone of her voice and the desperation in her eyes as she begs shock me.

She’s a mess after seeing me kill her father and looking at Felipe’s head, but it’s now she really looks like she’s about to lose her shit.

Now that I’ve threatened the old man’s life.

“Please don’t kill him.”

“Get her the fuck out of here,” I bark, and Sebastian, along with another man, hauls her out and carries my wife-to-be away.

I glance at the old man and wonder how deep her relationship with him is.

He looks like he’s in his late sixties, but that’s nothing these days. I’m not sure if the relationship is romantic, though. She screamed for him the way a child would for their parent. It was how I expected her to react for Raul.

I’ll need to talk to him some more. Depending on what he says, I’ll establish if he’ll be useful to me or not.

Then I’ll go and see her.

4

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.