 by J.L. Beck.jpg)
Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
That’s a lie.
The truth got me locked in an ivory tower, a victim to my new husbands rage.
If I’m going to survive I’m going to have to make Enzo fall back in love with me.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
ALICIA
What am I supposed to do?
Where do I go from here?
Probably no more than an hour ago, I was about to kiss my husband for the first time. I was dazed and shaken, but I made it through the ceremony—what little ceremony there was. I knew what I had to do to make it out of this alive, even if I was sure the entire time that my supposed father was going to spill the beans and ruin everything.
He did, too. Just not in the way I imagined.
Now, here I am. Locked up again in the same room as when I first got here. The difference is I’m wearing a bloodstained wedding dress. And a band around my ring finger, a symbol of the mockery of a union I’m now a part of.
I’m waiting for my husband to decide what he’s going to do with me.
A heartbroken sob tears itself from my chest before I can fight it back. I don’t understand what happened. Like things weren’t bad enough as they were. Forced into the wedding, having to pretend those people were my parents. I’ve told so many lies and half-truths that I can’t keep track of any of it.
All I know now is that there is no lying my way out of this one. That Alvarez guy told Enzo I’m not who he thinks I am. He’s just as disgusting and cruel as the rest of them.
I thought Enzo was better than that. In fact, deep down, I know he is. I didn’t mean to blurt out my feelings for him, but they’re real. I love him. I was terrified for those brief moments when I didn’t know if he was hit by a bullet. The idea of being without him… Even now, it’s not something I want to imagine. Even though he’s locked me up again. Even when I know there is a high chance he will kill me.
The click of the lock makes my head snap up. My eyes are on the door. My heart starts to race, and a sickening wave of nausea ripples through me. This is it. I honestly didn’t think it would take this long for him to come up here and take his rage out on me. I hold my breath, ready to face my fate, but it isn’t Enzo who comes into the room. I blink, confused for a moment, when I realize it’s a guard instead.
He glares at me for a split second before leaving a tray of food on the floor. I don’t have time to take a breath and ask what’s happening before he closes the door again, clicking the lock into place.
“Please, somebody, talk to me!” I rush from the bed and knock on the door when what I want to do is pound my fists, but I know that won’t get me anywhere. The best thing I can do right now is play it cool. As cool as a person can play it in a situation like this.
I have to settle for picking up the tray covered in food we were supposed to be enjoying as part of our wedding dinner. Yet another symbol of what this day was supposed to be and what it eventually evolved into. It’s kind of cold now, the wine sauce coating the chicken somewhat congealed, but I have no idea the next time someone will think to feed me, so I doubt I should look a gift horse in the mouth. Even though I’m about as far away from hungry as I can remember ever being, I force myself through it, eating potatoes and sauteed vegetables without really tasting much of it.
If it wasn’t all so stressful, I might have to laugh. Could this entire situation be any further from what I would have imagined my wedding to be like one day? All my youthful illusions, gone at once. I’m sitting alone in a locked room with only a tiny window through which to see the outside world. My dress—one I didn’t get to choose for myself—is covered in blood and grass stains. I’m eating cold food from a tray, forcing myself to swallow every bite even though it tastes like sawdust. Waiting for my husband to barge in here and make good on his promise of killing me.
And all the while, my brain is churning. What am I supposed to do here? What should I say? I doubt he’ll believe anything I come up with, but I have to try, don’t I? I can’t roll over and die without at least trying to save myself.