MY SITUATION JUST went from bad to worse. So much worse. I’ve been locked in some kind of medieval-looking cell in the basement for days. I’ve only been able to keep track of the time because they feed me twice daily. A small breakfast in the morning consisting of toast and fruit, and then a dinner in the evening that is basically the same as the first meal but with an extra piece of bread. They’re barely feeding me. Only sustaining me enough to keep me alive. And that makes the fear creep even further into my bones.
It’s on the third night of my captivity that Mateo finally comes to visit me. I watch him with rapt attention as he calmly takes a seat on a stool outside of my cell.
“So, you are alive,” I say sarcastically.
He glares at me with a pissed off look on his face, and I snap my mouth shut, instantly regretting my words. God, I can’t control my mouth even in a situation like this where the only possible outcome is probably death at this point. But I’ve been waiting for him for days. He’s my only lifeline here, whether I like it or not, and he couldn’t even be bothered to come see me.
Mateo’s dark eyes take in my appearance, and his lip curls in disgust. I’m sure I look like hell, considering I’m still covered in his blood, and stink like I haven’t showered in almost a week because, well, I haven’t.
He’s wearing a three-piece suit, so I can’t tell how his wound is. Not that I care. I stabbed him for a reason. I wanted to kill him in that moment but only because I wanted to save myself and my innocence. I’ve never hurt anyone before, and I’m very conflicted about it. I almost feel bad for what I did. But right now isn’t time to get into my head. I need to get the hell out of here, and he’s the only one who holds the key to my freedom.
“I have a question for you, Aria,” he starts, and I hate the way my name sounds coming from his mouth. I would find it sexy in any other circumstance. But it’s distracting, unnerving in a place like this. “What exactly were you going to do after you killed me?” he muses with a smirk on his face that irritates me.
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I confess in a whisper.
He chuckles darkly. “You hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he repeats with a shake of his head in disbelief.
“I’m sorry!” I blurt out. Am I truly sorry for stabbing him? No, of course not. I would do it again if I had the chance, except I would go for the throat next time, just like he taught me. What I am sorry for is getting myself in this impossible situation because I tried to kill him, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“You’re sorry?” he scoffs, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
“I was scared. I thought you were going to rape me,” I confess.
He flinches at my accusation. “I told you before that I don’t rape women. You should have listened to me the first time.”
“You could just be a rapist and a liar!” I exclaim, exasperated.
He’s up and out of his seat before I can even blink. He wraps his large hands around the bars, his knuckles turning white under the strain. His eyes look evil as he threatens, “Put me and the word rapist in the same sentence again and see what happens to you.”
“I don’t know you at all. I’m just trying to get you to see it from my perspective,” I explain, my voice just above a whisper. “You bought me at an auction where women were sold to the highest bidder like prized cattle! What am I supposed to think?”
His expression falters, but then he quickly builds up all of those armored walls once more and shuts me out of his thoughts in an instant. “If I needed pussy, I could have it at any second, any minute, any hour of any day. I can get sucked, fucked or anything I want anytime I want. Do you understand?” he asks through clenched teeth.
I nod emphatically.
He releases the bars and returns to his seat. After a few seconds, I watch as he pulls a coin out of his pocket and begins methodically gliding it across his large knuckles. The motion is almost mesmerizing, but the silence starts to drive me insane. It’s almost deafening as neither one of us speaks for several long minutes and he just keeps flipping around that stupid coin of his. And when I can’t take the tension or quiet anymore, I tell him, “I’ve apologized. There’s nothing else I can do. I think my punishment should end.”
“Your punishment? You think this is your punishment?” he sneers. “Oh no, cariño. This,” he says, motioning towards my cell, “is just where you’re being kept until your true punishment begins.”
Dread and panic threaten to overwhelm me. “Please. Please just let me go,” I beg him.
“If I were a better man, Aria, I would let you go. But, unfortunately for you, I’m not.” He pauses for a moment. “You see, my men need some kind of retribution for what happened. If I set you free, they would see me as weak. And I simply can’t have that,” he explains with a tight expression before glancing around, lost in thought.
Tears cloud my vision, but I refuse to let them fall. “Please, Mateo,” I beg. The mention of his name has his eyes snapping to mine. “I’ll do anything you want. Anything,” I stress. I know he paid for my virginity. Surely, he still wants it.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for bargaining, cariño.”
I watch the coin flip over his knuckles, annoyed that he’s still playing with it. It obviously has some importance to him, because I can see how worn and scratched it is even from here. Maybe he’s a gambling man. Well, if he wants to gamble, maybe I can convince him to bet on this. “Why don’t you flip that coin and decide my fate then?” I question.
“What?” he asks as if he might have misheard me.
“You know, heads I get to leave this cell. Tails, I stay.”
He flips the coin to his pinky and then snatches it in his hand. “You want to determine your destiny like this?” he asks with a dark quirked brow.
“I have a better chance with the coin, don’t I? You already told me I’m not getting out of here. At least, this way, my odds are fifty-fifty.” Maybe I’m just stalling for time or for a miracle, I don’t know, but I just hope something, anything works in my favor at this point.
Mateo’s dark eyes pierce mine as he considers my proposition. Then, with a nod of satisfaction, he stands and flips the coin in the air. It lands on the back of his other hand, and he covers it quickly, neither of us knowing the outcome. “Heads, you leave. Tails, you stay right where you are,” he suggests, repeating back what I said earlier.
I give him a slow nod. Oh god, I hope it’s heads.
He removes his hand from the coin and stares at it for a long time before finally revealing to me the outcome.
I see the eagle devouring a rattlesnake and realize…it’s tails. My heart sinks into my stomach, and I bite my lower lip so hard I can taste blood.
Mateo almost looks disappointed for a split second before he puts his usual, stoic mask back into place, not giving anything away about his inner thoughts. “It appears Lady Luck won’t be intervening today,” he tells me with finality. And with that said, he leaves.
I wait until I can no longer hear his footsteps before I let the first of what will no doubt be many tears fall. I lie down on the hard, unforgiving floor and curl into a fetal position as all the horrible thoughts of what my true punishment might actually be threaten to consume me from the inside out.
