Chapter 3 Locked Up By The Ruthless Mafia

• From the outside, the mansion resembled a magnificent prison. Xandros, with his monstrous size, didn't even bother to open my door when he got out of the car.
• The inside of the car was filled with his heavy smell of tobacco and gunpowder; I had no room to escape.
• When I stepped out, he stood before the enormous gates of the house. Without even looking back, he began to list his rules in his dark, authoritative voice.
• "If you are to be my woman, you will act like my woman," he said, his voice echoing coldly against the stone walls of the mansion. "Everything is private to me. I will not see a man with you; those cheesy affectionate titles like friend, cousin, or 'brother'... I don't give a damn about any of them. You'd better not waste your pretty mouth on those unnecessary defenses. And finally, if you break my rules, you can be sure I will show you, in practice, why you should never break them again."
• He looked at me over his shoulder in such a way that the amber color of his amber eyes, like poisonous arrows piercing me from the shadows of his eyelashes, which seemed to be lined up one by one, struck me.
• He wasn't expecting an answer; he spoke as if I were his subject.
• "If there are no other problems..." he said, leaving the question hanging in the air, and the anger inside me spread over the fear like a veil. I glared at him with all the hatred I harbored.
• "You're looking for a slave, not a lady," I said, my voice trembling like cold steel. "If you never wanted me, if you were going to scold me like you would your employees, why did you take me from that table? Why did you pull me out of that filth?"
• Xandros stopped abruptly. He turned halfway towards me; disgust and hatred flowed from the expression on his face.
• "Don't think you're anything special, Falcon trash," he said, the words spewing not from his mouth, but from the depths of hell. "In my eyes, you're a debt collection 19 years overdue. That's all."
• These words shattered the last remnants of my soul.
• "A debt collection that will never be yours," I said, looking him fiercely in the eyes.
• At that moment, I didn't know what possessed me, what audacity, to utter those words. Perhaps I was ready to die, perhaps it was the last gasp of that proud girl.
• But I received my answer, the weight of that answer, harshly.
• Xandros's amber eyes darkened, the veins in his temples becoming prominent like snakes. He grabbed me not as a human being, but as a rag, a tattered doll, and threw me into the house, onto the cold marble floor.
• I groaned in pain as my knees hit the ground, but even as I tried to get up, I didn't take my eyes off him. Xandros, with his enormous shadow, closed over me, slamming the heavy door shut and locking it.
• "Do you think the debt collection will never be mine?" "He roared, his voice booming within the mansion. 'When I imprison you within these walls, you will watch as Falcon's blood dries up and you become a slave only to me. There is no escape, Myrande. And the more you resist, the longer it will take to repay your debt.'"
• The door was locked. The world outside vanished completely. Now there was only him, me, and the darkness of that vast, silent mansion.
• "HELPP!"
• "HELP MEEE!"
• "Shhh....Don't waste your breath little dove."The interior of the house was shrouded in the silence of a museum rather than a living space. The servants, gliding like ghosts, were trained to swallow even the sound of footsteps.
• That impeccably crafted drawing room, straight out of the pages of a luxury furniture magazine, was, in fact, a tomb-like coldness to me. The millimeter-precise tassels of the Persian rugs, the unworn feel of the armchairs… Everything was so sterile, so soulless, that for a moment I longed for my father's dilapidated vintage armchair, bearing the lipstick-stained cigarette marks of McKenzie.
• There, there was a sense of history; here, only ownership.
• Xandros stood beside me like a statue.
• "We'll discard whatever you want changed, madam," he said, his voice echoing like a cold command. Then his gaze sharpened, and with that unbalanced expression on his face, he grumbled, "I don't like changes to the system. Be careful I don't replace you with someone else."
• I swallowed. "Everything is perfectly fine. They're all so new and beautiful," I said, unable to hide the tremor in my voice.
• "And?" he said, raising one eyebrow and taking a step towards me. With a mocking gesture, he cupped my mouth in his hands, pursing his lips in the same rhythm as mine. "And?" he mimicked me, his voice sending shivers down my spine.
• "My husband. You will call me 'my husband'..."
• The hatred inside me boiled like lava, but I had no choice.
• "The house is beautiful," I whispered, not averting my eyes from his. "The furniture and the mansion... Absolutely perfect, my husband."
• His eyes slowly lingered on my breasts; I saw him swallow; a dangerous glint flashed in his amber eyes. Unexpectedly, he lifted me onto his back like a burden. As we climbed the stairs, his mocking voice whipped against my ears.
• "Grooms carry brides home in their arms. Are we following tradition, or haven't you ever had these wet-cunt fantasies about how no one would choose you, you Falcon trash?"
• I dug my nails into his shoulder, as if I wanted to tear at his dark skin.
• "Sorry," I said, forcing a false politeness into my voice. "I thought I was going to fall."
• His reply was immediate.
• My body shuddered at the hard slap that landed on my buttocks. My breath caught in my throat as I felt his fingers tracing over my hole, ravaging that sensitive spot with his fingertips.
• "You're wild and grumpy," he snarled.
• I froze as we entered the room.
• This wasn't a bedroom, it was a dungeon. In the very center of the room, a cage made of solid gold stretched from ceiling to floor... The full-length mirrors surrounding it, combined with the black and red velvet bed inside, made it look like a complete torture chamber.
• "You treacherous father..." he whispered in my ear. His breath burned my skin. "You unfaithful Falcon, unfaithful Falcon trash. I'll feed you here, I'll bury you here so no one can see you."
• I struggled to escape, but he gripped my waist so tightly I felt my ribs crack. The hardness he pressed against my hips highlighted the power imbalance between us once more.
• "My little bird," he murmured, his voice this time like the tenderness of an executioner. "Gently enter your cage so I don't cut off your wings."
• He opened the door. As the golden bars parted, I felt as if I were passing through the gate of my own end.
• My soul had already been in a cage for 19 years, but this man was pushing my body into a golden cage as well.
• Then Xandros stepped into the cage behind me and locked the door.
• That was when I realized the cage had never been built to keep me in.
• It had been built for what he planned to do once we were both inside.