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“Come here,” I say, reaching into my pocket.
She hugs herself as if she’s cold but steps toward me, never taking her eyes off me as if she could run from me if I pounce. But she comes. I’ll give her points for that. I take her arm. She resists at first, but I draw it out, hold her hand. I look again at the chipped, bitten-down nails. I turn it over to look at her palm, tracing the scar I left. One of many to come, I think, even if they are the kind you don’t see. The thought weighs heavy on me as I slide the ring onto her finger.
Madelena gasps, clearly not expecting this. I shift my gaze to hers and watch her take it in, watch the play of emotions on her face. Confusion. Curiosity. Caution. Confusion again.
She draws away when I release her.
“I will come for you in one year’s time. You will be my bride. Prepare yourself. Do whatever you need to do to wrap your brain around that. Because you are right. You will sleep in my bed. You will be mine in every way. And if you fight me, it won’t be you I punish.”
“What does that mean?”
“You love your brother very much, don’t you?” It’s a low blow, but there it is.
“Wh… What?”
“Just be ready, Madelena.”
“How dare you—” she starts, but I stalk toward her, take hold of her, and spin her around so her back is against my chest and I have my hand over her mouth.
“Close your mouth. It’s not your turn.” She opens it again. “And if you fucking bite, so help me…”
She shuts her mouth. It’s the first smart thing she’s done tonight, yet her stubby fingernails don’t stop digging into my forearm.
“You just make sure you keep yourself on my good side. Because being my wife will offer you some protections. But being my enemy?” I lean my mouth close to her ear so I’m sure she hears my words, feels them to her core. “That will only get you one thing. My wrath. And you do not want that, Madelena. You do not want to be my enemy.” She shudders. Good. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, I understand you, Santos. I’ve always understood you.”
“Good.” I release her, unsatisfied. “That doesn’t come off,” I say, pointing to the ring. “You eat with it, sleep with it, shower with it.” I step toward her and, with a finger under her chin, tilt her face up to mine. “And when you use your little fingers to finish what I started tonight, you think of me as you press that diamond against your soft little pussy when you come.”
“Get off me.” She jerks her face away, but I see how red her cheeks are.
I grip her jaw and make her look at me. “It never comes off. Clear?”
“Crystal!”
I nod, take one more look around the room and cross it to the door.
“Why did you even come here tonight?” she asks.
I look over my shoulder.
She holds up her hand and I look at the oversized diamond on her small finger. She’ll feel the weight of it every minute of every day. She’ll think of me every time she looks at it.
“You didn’t fly all the way here to give me this in the middle of the night.”
With those words, with all that just happened, I feel more wretched than I did when I got here. I don’t fucking know why the hell I came.
“I buried my father today,” I say, feeling those words deep in my gut, feeling them devour me from the inside out. That beast I keep buried in that black hole that lives inside me, that is so much a part of me, throbs and comes alive. It wants to smother me, to swallow me whole.
But it’s not that that does me in in the end. It’s her. It’s the look on her face, how her mouth opens into a surprised O. It’s the way her eyes soften. It’s the step she takes toward me.
It’s those things that have me turning away and walking down the stairs and out of that building into the back of the waiting SUV. It’s those things that have me telling the driver to take me to the nearest hole in the wall that’s open all night and drinking myself into oblivion. Because even though as a rule I don’t drink now, I used to. I know what men are capable of when they drink. I know what I’m capable of.
But some nights, it’s not a choice.
And tonight is one of those nights.
