Page 6

I wake up feeling nauseous and groggy. I assume it's a leftover symptom of whatever that asshole drugged me with at the club.

I tried so hard to fight against falling asleep last night, but obviously, I was still drugged, and I slept like a rock all night and woke up with drool all over my pillow.

I sit up, looking around the room. The late morning light is shining through the open curtains, and the room is bright and welcoming, which is in contrast to the fact that I do not want to be here and was taken against my will.

I groan loudly, rubbing my eyes.

On the bedside table is a cup of coffee and some scrambled eggs.

It’s cold.

Whoever dropped this off did it long ago while I was still deep in dreamland.

I pick the eggs up and poke them. They are rubbery and gross. Cold eggs are just a solid no from me.

Then a flash of anger flares through me, and I fling the plate at the closed bedroom door. Rubbery yellow blobs stick to the wood and then slowly trail down to the floor.

I look at the coffee.

I want to throw it, too, but even cold, I also want to drink it.

I sigh, pulling the cup towards me and taking a sip.

It’s good coffee. Even cold.

My entire body feels stiff and bruised.

When my coffee is gone, I push the blankets off my body and stand up. A wave of dizziness washes over me, so I stand for a minute, waiting for it to go away.

I am still wearing the dress I went clubbing in.

I walk around the room, examining everything, looking for a way out but finding nothing.

I do find a pair of pale blue sweatpants and a few t-shirts alongside some clean undies. I guess my kidnapper is not a complete savage since he was nice enough to give me fresh clothing.

I sigh and roll my eyes, picking it up and walking through to the adjoining bathroom. Maybe a shower will help make me feel better and wash away the rest of this drugged feeling.

While I am showering, the thing that is worrying me the most is the man who I bit.

He will probably be in a lot of trouble for letting me get away, even if it was an unsuccessful attempt. I know my father would torture him to death if it happened back home, and I assume this asshole who took me is of the same persuasion.

They are, after all, all mob bosses.

I can’t believe I fell for his shit at the club. How naive does that make me look? I’m so angry with myself.

I wonder if that guy I bit is being tortured right now. I’m glad I tried to get away, but not at the cost of another man’s life. He is just an employee. He isn’t the one who decided to kidnap me, so it sucks that he'd be the one punished for my escape attempt.

I sigh, climbing out of the shower feeling only marginally better.

I wrap a towel around my hair and then realize there is a hairdryer set up by the vanity basin.

What the hell? Does this guy kidnap girls often?

But the hairdryer is brand new.

I toss the towel off my hair and take my time blow-drying it. I’ve got nothing else to do, seeing as I am locked up in here.

It’s odd, but I’m so used to being locked up in my room, by my own choice, that it doesn’t feel much different being here.

But why am I here?

The only thing I can really conclude is that I was kidnapped by one of my father’s enemies or rivals. Or maybe someone my father pissed off, and that list is way too long to go through in my head.

I guess if I can try and figure out what my father did to this guy, I can possibly figure out a way to convince him to let me go.

Does it even matter?

I’m a prisoner here as much as a prisoner at home.

At least at home it’s the devil I know.

***

The next two days are so freaking boring and stressful at the same time.

I don’t see a soul the entire time. Sometimes I hear people walking past my door, but no one comes in.

Whenever I fall asleep, I wake up with food next to me.

This morning I woke up and it was still warm. Even when it is cold, though, I eat it, because I don’t want to starve to death waiting to figure out what this asshole's plan is for me.

Today I follow the same routine I have been following every day since I was taken. I drink my coffee in bed, poke at my cold eggs, shower and then pace up and down in my bedroom.

It’s strange how quickly you can develop routines for yourself to keep your mind from going insane.

I’m still angry that I was attracted to the asshole who took me, and I am still constantly worried about the man that I bit.

Sometime in the late afternoon, I hear the door lock opening and freeze, feeling sudden panic.

A housekeeper walks in with a bodyguard behind her.

“Miss Sasha, please put this on,” the housekeeper says, handing me a blindfold.

“Why?” I demand.

“If you don’t do as she asks, I will be happy to help you comply,” the bodyguard says with a rough, deep voice.

I’d rather not piss anyone off just yet.

I take the blindfold and slip it over my eyes. It’s pitch black. I bite my lip when I feel someone take my arm and start leading me.

Without a word from the housekeeper or the guard, I am led through the house to an unknown location. I can smell food. Not scrambled eggs. Really nice food.

“Sit,” a deep voice commands.

I sit with the guidance of rough hands.

“Eat.”

“It’s a little hard to eat when I can’t see what I’m doing,” I say, annoyed.

“You can take the blindfold off for a moment.”

I slowly lift the fabric off my eyes and see that I am in a dining room. It is extravagant beyond words, and I actually gasp a little at the sight of it.

Crystal chandeliers hang over a long, dark reclaimed wood table. The curtains are all closed, so I can’t see what the view outside is, but I imagine it must be as magnificent as the inside.

The food on the table is also over the top.

Salmon, avocado, fresh salads, homemade breads, carpaccio, and to my surprise, a pink gin and tonic.

I eye it all suspiciously.

“Is it poisoned?”

The security guard standing to my left snorts a loud laugh. “If he wanted to poison you, I reckon he would have just put something in your eggs and not wasted time making this meal.”

“True,” I mutter, feeling a little stupid.

I eat the food, savoring it far more than intended. It’s amazing how delightful good food can taste when you’ve been eating mostly cold scrambled eggs for three days.

After dinner, they demand I put the blindfold back on.

Then I am led to a bathroom. The bath is filled with milky hot water, rose petals, aromatherapy oils, and there are candles everywhere.

What the fuck is going on?

I feel like I am being prepped for sacrifice or something. I’ve seen it in the movies.

“I’ll be right outside.” The guard nods towards the woman who first came into my room to fetch me this morning. “If she tries anything at all, just scream.”

“Oh, just get your big lug ass out of here, we will be perfectly fine.” The housekeeper chases the massive guy out of the bathroom.

I can feel the shock in my eyes. I can’t believe she spoke to him like that and he didn’t slap her or something.

“Okay, honey, let’s get you undressed and in the bath.”

I bite my lower lip.

She smiles. “It’s better if we just do this. Enjoy it, try and relax. I’ll help you wash your hair, and then we are going to get ready.”

“Get ready for what?” I ask skeptically.

She smiles tightly again, but clearly, she is not going to answer me.

I miss Marie.

“Okay.” I shrug, stripping out of my clothes. “Can you tell me your name?”

“I’m Penny. Penelope.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Penny,” I say, climbing into the bath. It feels so luxurious I sink right in and close my eyes.

Am I being marinaded? I chuckle at the thought. It’s silly to be laughing now, but how else should I deal with the fear that is bubbling beneath the surface?

Penny takes her time washing my hair and scrubbing my skin.

When I climb out, I am glowing.

After the bath, two girls come into the bathroom to do my hair and makeup.

I am so confused.

Then they ask me to put the blindfold on again, and I wonder what the point of doing my makeup in the first place was.

I am led into another room, wearing nothing but the robe from the bathroom, and when I feel hands pulling it off me, I freeze in horror.

“It’s okay, honey, it’s just me,” Penny says gently. “Lift your foot. Step forward. Okay, the other one.”

I do as I am told, then stand with my arms out while they dress me. It feels formfitting at the top, a corset style dress with thin shoulder straps.

Once I am dressed, they tell me to wait, and I run my hands over the fabric, realizing it is silky and smooth and edged with lace.

After around fifteen minutes, Penny is leading me somewhere again.

“Careful of the steps,” she says, holding my arm.

Finally, I hear the words I have been waiting for.

“You may remove the blindfold,” the security guard says, and I pull it off quickly.

I gasp with horror. I’m wearing a wedding dress.

A fucking wedding dress. What the fuck.

My eyes dart left and right in absolute panic.

I’m standing at an altar, wearing a wedding dress.

The man who kidnapped me is walking towards me. There are security guards all around us.

The altar is beneath a beautiful archway decorated with roses and soft white fabric. It’s early evening, and there are fairy lights glittering around us.

If not for the shock, I might even say it was pretty.

But I can’t. I can’t seem to get any words to come out of my mouth. I am just staring in horror at the asshole who kidnapped me, now standing in front of me wearing a black suite with a flower in the front pocket that matches the flowers of the archway.

I do the only thing a girl should do in this situation.

I spin around, kick the altar with all my strength, and when it tips over, I run.

Luckily, the dress is not one of those princess dresses with a giant goofy skirt. It flows behind me in a white stream as I bolt across the garden, realizing I am in the same predicament that I was the first time I tried to escape.

I have nowhere to go.

It doesn’t take the asshole long to catch up with me this time, and when he does, he pins me against the wall along the side of the house and growls darkly, “If you don’t go along with this and marry me, I am going to kill your father. So, if I were you, I’d think very carefully about your next move.”

I bite my lip, thinking my next move is to kick him in the balls and try run away again. If he thinks threatening to kill my father is a bad thing, he doesn’t know me at all.

I don’t care if my father dies. I wish he was dead.

I gasp at my own thought.

Who am I to wish another person dead? I can’t believe I just thought that.

He grins down at me, thinking that I gasped because of his threat.

“I can assume, then, that you will marry me willingly?” he laughs darkly.

I don’t want to marry him, but it doesn’t look like I have a choice. Besides, what difference does it make? My life is a prison whether I am here or there. I have been in prison my entire life, and now it’s just a change of scenery.

However, instead of using this situation to keep my father safe, I want to make a different request.

“On one condition,” I say boldly, tilting my head up towards him and staring directly into his eyes.

“The condition is that I don’t kill your father. You don’t get to add more conditions.”

“Well, then, I want to change the condition of our agreement to something else.”

He pulls back a little, looking confused.

“And what might that be?”

“You obviously have it out for my father, for whatever reason, and I want to ask that if you ever declare war on him or attack his house, you will find the housekeeper named Marie and let her escape unharmed. You won’t hurt her in any way.”

“A housekeeper?”

“Marie,” I nod.

He laughs.

“I’m not joking,” I snap.

His cold blue eyes narrow and pierce into mine. “Fine. Done,” he says.

I bite my lip and nod, closing my eyes for a moment to try and calm my thoughts.

“Done,” I repeat.

He takes a cautious step away from me, half expecting me to try and run again, by the look on his face. But I have made the deal I want to make, and I will marry him willingly.

Well, I will marry him without argument.

He takes another step away from me, and I step forward to follow him, walking obediently next to him back to our wedding ceremony.

He keeps glancing over at me, but I keep my eyes forward and my face blank. I’ll do this, and I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing any emotion from me. I’ve made my choice and sealed my own fate, and hopefully, at the end of the day, my choice can save Marie’s life.