[XAVIER]“Does Vladimir know?” The man in the hat inquires.I, on the other hand, ignore the question. “Do you know where she is?”He shakes his head. “No. But I did find someone who does.”My eyebrow curves. “Who is it?”“If Vladimir comes to know any of this-” he cautions, adjusting his hat, disinterestedly looking out of the car.“I can handle my brother,” I glare. “This asset of yours, is it credible?”“He is.”“I suppose you know I’m not paying you for the gift of gab.”He huffs out a faint laugh. “I know, that’s why I brought this,” he took out a white envelope from his laptop bag and offered it in my direction. “See for yourself.”I took the envelope from his grasp and opened it carefully. Inside, there was a picture and a few documents. However, the picture caught my attention. Even with only her side profile visible, I recognized Aurora with ease. Outside some café she was meeting up with a man. There was a date on the bottom right of the picture. Taken a week before she swap
[ZARINA]Lizzy asked me to focus on the good things in my life. And as I sit in my room, alone and with a clearer head, I wonder if our definition of good things in this so-called life is the same.Is it?I have indeed grown to care for the people here. Lizzy, Rose, Julie and, of course, Hazel. They all were nothing but kind to me. But sure enough, it does nothing to change the fact that I do not belong here. This is not my life. Since the very first day of my abduction, they expected me to be someone else. I was a replacement. That’s all I was. That’s all I’ll ever be.I still need to contact Xavier though. We need to talk about what happened that night. If it meant anything to him.He wouldn’t have taken so long to come and see you if that were the matter.I shake my head and toss that thought aside. He may just be occupied with something more important. I shouldn’t judge. He loved Hazel so much, I’ve seen it, I don’t imagine it being a cakewalk to see her gone and not able to do an
[ZARINA]I officially have no idea what’s happening anymore. I should be happy, right? Excited even. I should be finally relieved that I’m about to be free in less than ten minutes. Even the thought of being free gives me goosebumps, a good kind of goosebumps. I am so happy that I can barely stand straight or in one place for more than five seconds.I bolt off to my room, allowing my mind to not dwell on anything else but the things I would need when I’m gone. Out of here. Out of this mansion. On my own. I reach for the double doors of the closet and that’s when I see how my hands are trembling. I hear nothing but the blaring drums of my own heartbeat. When a tiny drop of moisture trails down the back of my neck, I realize that I’m sweating too. Is this what excitement feels like? Because if that is the case, I have not been excited in a long, long time.I’m halfway done packing a small backpack with all the essentials I can think of when Lizzy hurricanes in, only to stop dead in her
[ZARINA]It’s surprising how rarely I think of my mother these days. Back in the orphanage, it used to be a constant voice in my head, an alarm to wake up every morning, and a lullaby that compelled me to sleep.That woman abandoned me when I was just weeks old. A person has to have a heart of stone to do something so cruel, right? All those years, from one custodial to another, I imagined every circumstance, reason, and excuse for her to not want me. And each of them hurts just the same. The most sensible reason of all, and which also seemed to be the most common for most of the kids in the orphanage like me, is that I might have been a child conceived before the marriage. It makes a bit of sense than any of my other imaginations. It makes me want to hate her less.Then again, they are nothing but imagination. A fiction, I let myself dive into just so I can simmer down the hate that sometimes my chest bubbles up with.Angela indeed convinced me to escape the orphanage. She filled me
[ZARINA]I run.I run until my chest hurts and my leg burns.I run until my vision blurs and my head spins.I don’t turn or scream or cry for help.I run until something clasps around my wrist and yanks me back with force, it sends me flying back into someone’s warm arms.“What the fuck happened, Zarina? What the fuck?”I hear but I don’t understand. I hear, but I don’t hear at all. My heartbeat is too brash in my ears, too strong and reckless against my rib cage.I see him. I see his eyes. The confusion, the anger, the fear, and the anxiety behind them all are what I see. They whirl in his coffee eyes like the most destructive tempest, they melt in the way his arms tighten protectively around my frame, liquefying as warm and comforting whispers in my ears.“Sh-she is here!” I say pathetically, trembling like a bloody leaf. “She is here!”“Who is here?” he asks urgently, shooting his gaze everywhere around them. “Who is she?”“That woman,” my voice breaks, but I gather up the courage
[VLADIMIR]BANG!It was the sound of the door Zarina slammed in my face.Part of me was livid when she tore herself off me, leaving me wanting for more, and the other part - the saner, the sounder, the more rational - was glad she did, before noticing the massive bulge in my pants.Before letting my fucked-up brain wrap around what the heck had just happened, there was an urgent need for me to take care of the situation she left behind. I hurried to the bathroom, pulled the zipper, and pumped until every drop of my essence fired out.Fuck, that was hot!She is hot! She is so fucking hot!Gosh, she has not a single clue what she does to me, what I want to do to her. It’s so hard to be around her and not hold her absolutely close, to not have her the way every inch of my length demands.But I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t repeat the mistakes that destroyed me in the past, not just me but everyone I cared about. I cannot let this barbaric side of me succeed, I cannot.But it’s hard, I swe
[ZARINA]“No!” I yell, “No no no no no no no, it’s all wrong, all wrong.”For the past two hours, I’ve been trying to cook something decent and edible for myself. Something uncomplicated, something that shouldn’t be this challenging. But all my attempts confirm to be in vain. It took me ten minutes just to make sure the stove was working.This is all so new for me.Not the cooking quite so but this kitchen. Everything is modern and stylish; half of the things, the utensils, the food. I don’t even know what to do with them, how to use them, how to cook.Back at the orphanage, things were simple. We had limited kitchen wares and a fixed portion of food for each mouth. So, imagine my surprise and powerlessness when I tried to figure out this place. It’s even more complicated than those stubborn math problems. I don’t know what to do, or where to start.I should have paid a close eye to Vladimir when he cooked us breakfast and dinner the previous day. Should have woken up early, instead o
[VLADIMIR]I wake up in a room I do not recognize as mine. Panic surges through my bones like a bolt of electricity. But the moment my head snaps to the right side, my heart calms down and a small smile tickles the corner of my lips.Zarina is sound asleep next to me and I don’t think there can be a more captivating sight than that. For the first time in a long time my heart is at ease, contentment thrives and I feel light as a feather, a new-fangled kind of feeling that cannot be explained via words. It’s warm and light and unnervingly easy-going. It makes me want to wrap her up in my arms and kiss her until we both are panting and wheezing and struggling for the next breath.Despite being drunk like hell; it does not take long for me to recall the events of the previous night. Bringing the same blinding rage and irritation right up my chest.Fuck!I don’t think I can deal with this shit right now, not when Zarina is finally accepting me. If what happened last night was any proof, th
“My world is a less scary place with you in it, baby. I will kiss you a thousand times every day if that’s what it takes to keep you in love with me for the rest of our days.” [VLADIMIR] "Do you take Vladimir Perazzo as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?” I would be lying if I said those words spoken by the priest don’t fill me with dread. Because they do. Something inside me is awfully worried for no specific reason. Perhaps it’s the fear of being tricked by fate again. Perhaps I’m afraid that the past would repeat itself in a much more monstrous and hurtful way. It’s just there. Ticking like a bomb. Making me break into some serious amount of sweat. But I hold it in. Not because there’s no other choice now that dozens of people are watching us, but because the woman standing in front of me is looking at me with so much love and w
[ZARINA]“Mir, this is...” I gasp.“Do you like it?” pressing those words into my ear, he grazes his teeth below my lobe.“...gorgeous. It’s gorgeous.”After our deep and long conversation, the previous night, Mir and I woke up with someone causing a ruckus at the door. It was only then it dawned on me that I ended up sleeping in his room. Something Aunt Alessia had been warning me since the moment we got here. Even though she was quick to assume that we had already done the deed, she expected us to be patient until the marriage and keep our desires to ourselves.And now that we’ve broken one of her directions, she sure sounded angry beating the door outside. To be honest, I panicked a little originally. Not wanting to give anyone a reason to be upset with us. But Mir had different thoughts regarding the matter. He blatantly and outrightly ignored all her screams and peeled the covers off me instead. Despite my reluctance and attempts to reason with him, he moved between my legs with
[ZARINA]Frozen to my spot and shocked to the deepest of my bones, I struggled to get some air into my lungs.Did I really hit him? But why? Was that because he was doing something I did not approve of? Or because...he wasn’t himself?No matter what the reason was, my face seared with embarrassment. My heart palpitated poorly against my ribs and the knots in my stomach tautened to the extent I couldn’t breathe.After fixing me with a glare for a minute too long, Vladimir retreated and stormed into the bathroom. He shut the door so loudly that my entire body shivered. My nerves caused havoc; wild goosebumps crawled like insects all over my skin. Regret pierced my chest like a cruel knife, and the more I thought about it, the deeper it burrowed.It hurt. So much. But why? He was the one who crossed the lines. Why was I on the verge of breaking down? Why were my eyes damp and blurred with tears? What was this pain...Sucking my lips, I leaned my head against the wall behind me and closed
[ZARINA]After Mir left for God knows where, I spent most of the day following Aunt Alessia around. She’s a nice person. Talks really quickly and maybe a little oftener than I’m used to, but seems like she’s only excited to have Mir back. It’s been a while, she said, as long as Mir’s grandfather (her father-in-law) was alive, he used to visit nearly every month without fail. But after the old man passed away, he stopped visiting.He stopped caring.She also told me that Mir and his grandfather were really close. Together, they hung out more than Mir and his father ever did. The way she said those things, I felt as if Mir and his father did not have a smooth relationship. Though Aunt Alessia seemed as chatty as one could be, she seemed mindful not to bring up the subject of Mir’s parents.It was only then I realized I knew nothing of Mir’s past. Sure, I know about his failed marriage to Aurora and that he had a brother and Hazel as a niece, but...what about the rest? He mentioned nothi
[VLADIMIR]“What is this place?” Zarina asked, her gaze pinned on the enormous villa in front of us. The heavy curiosity in her voice did something silly to my chest, and just like that, the desire to kiss her rose once again and darted down my veins. But I suppressed it all by removing my gaze from her. It had become a pattern of sorts. Whenever I needed time off from my chronic horny aspirations, I would look away and try to think of something less provocative. Like a bald head or something.She probably had no inkling of how hard it was for me to keep my hands off her. She was right here, so gorgeous, so tempting, so ready to be my wife, to be mine—I still couldn’t fucking believe it—and I couldn’t even do things to her that haunted me day and night. I had been practising so much patience for the past few days; I fucking deserved a noble prize for it. Or maybe an academy award for the best performance of the century.But I didn’t have to try that hard this time to distract myself f
[ZARINA]An hour later, we were approximately 40,000 ft above the ground and I was yet to ask him where we were heading. With Vladimir being so dark with rage, I couldn’t muster up the courage to say anything at all, let alone the destination of our unexpected trip.Once the car pulled up at the hangar, Mir slid out while one of his men opened the door for me. The sight of the massive jet, the one I had seen only once before when he came to rescue Julie and me from that hell, brought back some unpleasant memories. However, I got little time to dawdle in the past because the next thing I knew, we were being ushered inside the jet, everyone preparing to leave.Vladimir ignored me the entire time until the jet was ready to take off. But even after he sat across from me, he kept himself occupied with the stack of papers he took out from a leather bag. He was taking his sweet-sweet time to go through each one of them. From the look on his face, they seemed of great importance to him. So in
[ZARINA]The tension in the room was so thick that one could easily cut it with a knife. It was even darker and more dangerous than the time when Lorenzo decided to be an ass. No one in the room knew how this discussion between the Perazzos and Galantes was about to end. After what happened at the church, it was safe to say, some of the people were pissed off at the way Vladimir orchestrated the entire thing.They were mad because he didn’t include them in the plan.They were mad because he deliberately made them go through hell before showing up like a damn hero who saved the day.To be honest, I was a little upset by the entire dramatics he pulled, too. At least, he could have warned me instead of letting me suffer till the very end. It was cruel and quite ruthless on his part. And once we left this God-awful suffocating gathering, I would rain him with the questions for sure. It was about to be an endless day for him.Although that was the least of my concern for now.Right now, I
[ZARINA]After waking up the second time this morning, I found Vladimir moving back and forth in the kitchen. Preparing breakfast for both of us. Something warm and sweet curled up inside as I tried not to fall so hard for him. Watching him from a distance and offering no help made me feel like a creep. But it wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t muster up the courage to be in front of him as if nothing had happened the previous night.Or this morning.A ticklish dash of heat glided down my spine at the thought of his mouth on my core, his fingers pumping inside. Those sweet words he spoke in that sexy voice of his. All those hot and needy touches. Impassioned kisses. Our bare skin pressed against each other. The feeling of him and me together. Thinking about all of that was enough to drive me crazy and for my thighs to squeeze together to relieve myself of the ache he left behind. But it never eased.I couldn’t tell what was holding him back from giving me everything he had, or if he was
[VLADIMIR]Blinking against the mellow rays of the early sun, I woke up to find Zarina cuddled to my side. Her dark brown hair scattered messily over the pillow while she slept on her side with her face turned to me.I smiled, warmth spreading across my chest.Last night was anything but normal. I hadn’t expected myself to return only to find Zarina sleeping in my bed with literally nothing but my shirt. It felt like a dress on her, but fuck, did she look good in it? She looked like fucking mine.Mine.The only reason I hadn’t fucking died in the last three months was that I had to come back to her. Michael’s bullet might have driven me to the brink of hell. But it was the realization that I had in what I thought to be the last moments of mine that held me from tipping over. I couldn’t die without telling her how I felt about her. I couldn’t die without making her mine.With a deep sigh, I used my fingers to move some curls out of her face. She stirred against my touch. Her cheeks flu