Bought Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle

Natalia

Iexpect Dane to rage at me. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he yells or hits me, but the cool and quiet anger radiating off of him is even worse. For a moment, he doesn’t move.

The plate shattered into tiny little pieces of glass and the egg and steak splattered against the wall before sliding down and falling to the floor. My heart slams in my chest as I look at the mess I made and realize just how badly I really fucked up.

Someone like him isn’t going to just let me walk away from this. I don’t know what he’s going to do to me, but I have no reason to think that it’s going to be good.

“That’s your decision then?” He says, his voice calm and low. It’s so quiet in the house that his voice should envelope me and hurt my ears, but he’s speaking so quietly that I have to strain to actually hear him. And then, as soon as I do, I wish that I hadn’t.

“I’m sorry,” I say, turning to look at him. My hand is still out from my body like I’m in the process of throwing another plate but I can’t seem to drop it. I can’t seem to do anything but turn to him and apologize, like I really think that that’s going to help matters. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

“Right.” Moving faster than I would have thought possible, he bends down and puts his shoulder into my stomach, standing and flinging me up so that I’m upside down over his shoulder.

I’m in shock over what’s happening and I know that I should fight back and try to get away from him, but for a moment, I just hang there uselessly. He makes his way across the living room to the hall and is halfway down it before my instincts kick in and I start hammering his back with my fists.

“No!” I scream, the sound stunted a little by the way I’m resting on his shoulder. “Stop it! No! Help!” I keep pounding into his back with my fists even though they’re bouncing uselessly off of him. He’s just so fucking strong, it’s like he’s made of metal, and nothing I can do to him will hurt him.

“Stop it! Put me down!” I have no idea if anyone can hear me screaming, but I have to try to get help. Maybe someone in the condo will hear me and call for help. All I need is one police officer to come here and I’ll be fine.

They won’t make me marry him, I’m sure of it. It won’t matter to anyone that I was sold to him. I’m sure that that’s illegal and they won’t make me go through with it.

They can’t. I won’t.

“Keep screaming,” he says, grabbing me by the waist and throwing me off his shoulder. I yelp as I’m launched through the air until I land on a soft mattress and bounce once.

As soon I can, I get my feet under me and try to jump off the bed, but he’s at the bedroom door and he closes it, locking it, then slips a key into his pocket.

Oh, fuck.

This is where it happens. I’m fucked now. Glancing around the room, I’m only half surprised to see a pair of manacles hanging on the wall. He wasn’t joking about strapping me up to them and force feeding me. Reaching up, I grab my throat, trying to imagine what it will be like to have something shoved down it each time I want to eat.

Or maybe it will stay there all the time. I have no idea how that works--if they put the feeding tube in at every meal or if it just stays there. It will hurt, I know that.

I’ve done my best not to cry in front of him, but tears spring to my eyes and burn my cheeks when they fall and I can’t do a damn thing to stop them.

“This is my room,” he tells me, advancing towards the bed. “And it will be where I keep you. What do you think?”

I have to swallow hard before I can find my words. “I think that you’re a monster,” I finally manage. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you belong to me,” he tells me, “and until you understand that, I have to make sure that I don’t lose you.”

The scratches I left on his face are angry and red and I feel a stab of guilt about them, but that disappears quickly when I remind myself that he wants to strap me to the wall.

“That’s not love,” I tell him, scooting back on the bed so that I’m as far away from him as possible. “You know that, right? Or are you too fucked in the head to even realize that what you’re talking about isn’t love?”

This makes him chuckle. “I never said that it was love, Natalia. I said that it was about me protecting what belongs to me. You need to make sure that you listen to what I say because I’m sure that things will make a hell of a lot more sense. Now, get off the bed and stand by the wall like a good girl.”

I won’t. It’s what he expects, and I may end up pinned to the wall anyway, but I’m sure as hell not going to make it easy on him. I’ll fight him every step of the way if I have to and I let out a low growl. The sound surprises me but it doesn’t seem to even faze him.

“You know, I honestly would have been disappointed if you’d wanted to do it the easy way,” he says, then lunges at me.

Shrieking, I try to scramble off the other side of the bed, but he catches my ankle and pulls me back. I grab for anything that I can use to fight him off, but there’s nothing here that I can use as a weapon. What, am I going to hit him with a pillow and hope that that will make him let me go?

My fingers slip on the headboard and I push forward, grabbing it right as he pulls again. I swear, it feels like my joints are about to all come loose with the pressure he’s putting on me from behind and I scream as the pain shoots through my body.

“Let go, Natalia,” he tells me, and I do.

I hate myself for it but I know that I don’t have a choice. He’s going to get his way with me, no matter what I do, so I might as well try to keep things from being too painful.

That’s what I tell myself, but the truth is much more complicated. I honestly don’t know if I have any more fight left in me. He’s so much stronger, so much more willing to do terrible things to get what he wants. I’m not that person, never have been, and I don’t care to start now.

This life, this mafia life, is not one that I ever wanted. I never thought that I’d really be kept in it, not when I became old enough to really think about running away. But what did I do?

I made up excuse after excuse about why I couldn’t leave. I talked myself out of making a run for it time and time again, always telling myself that it was too dangerous, that I didn’t really stand a chance out there.

How many times did I stay home instead of trying to run even though I didn’t have the money? I’m a fucking wimp and this is what happens when you don’t stand up for yourself.

The irony that I’ve been trying to protect myself now more than ever before isn’t lost on me. Right when I grow the balls to try to save myself, that door closes. I might have been able to escape from my father, but I sure as hell won’t be able to get away from Dane.

He pins me against the wall with his hip, reaching up for a manacle. It’s going to be cold on my wrist and I shiver, refusing to look up at him.

“Is there anything that you want to say before you get locked up?” The metal brushes against my wrist as he waits for me to respond but I shake my head.

The sound of the metal being twisted and then locked into place makes my heart drop low into my stomach. I sag into him, taking support from him while I can, because I know that he’s going to leave me in just a moment and then I’m really going to be all alone.

He locks my other wrist into place and I look up at him, tears flowing freely down my cheeks. Before stepping away from me, Dane takes my chin in his hand and lightly caresses it, his fingers so gentle against my skin that I would cry if I weren’t already.

“So beautiful, Natalia,” he tells me. “So fucking beautiful, and you belong to me.” He speaks to me like I’m a prize that he won, like I’m something that can be bought and traded, and even though I hate it, it’s true.

I’m nothing more than a commodity.

With a grin, he leaves, and I hold back my sobs until he’s unlocked the bedroom door and disappeared from sight.