Chapter 5

Chapter Five

PRU

S lowly I start to wake, but it only takes me a second to realize I'm not in my bed. When I see the giant man sitting next to the bed, a small scream escapes me, and I sit up. He's watching me like a stalker.

"You're awake," he says.

"Where am I?"

"In my bed."

I scoot away, but his eyes stay on me. "Who are you?"

His brows pull together and he stands. Why does he look worried? "Pru, what do you mean, who am I?" Concern laces his words.

"I don't know who you are," I say flatly. He lets out a string of curses in Italian and pulls out his phone. "I don't think I'm feeling so great." I press the back of my hand to my forehead.

"I'll kill him." He swipes hard across the screen of his phone before putting it to his ear. While he does that, I grab the pillow next to me and hold it close. "Francis, what the fuck was in that?"

"Gotcha!" I say and jump up. "That's what you get for drugging me." I swing the pillow in my hand, hitting Vitaly right in the face.

His phone goes flying and crashes the floor with a loud thud. We both stare at each other in shock. He did not see that coming, and honestly I didn't think it would work. I always choose the wrong thing at the wrong time.

"Oh no," I whisper and bolt across the bed.

When I get to the edge, I jump down, but before I can make contact with the floor, his arm wraps around my waist. Vitaly flings me on the mattress, and I land on my back.

His body comes down on top of mine, and he's seething. "You little brat." He pins my hands above my head and bares his teeth like an animal.

"I'm worth more alive than dead!" I blurt it out because I have nothing else to say. I don't know what came over me. For a brief moment, I seemed to forget that he's the kind of man who drugs girls and does whatever he pleases with them.

"That doesn't mean I can't spank your ass, little one."

"Stop calling me little," I huff, trying to wiggle out of his hold. It's pointless, but it doesn't stop me from trying.

"You're little."

"Right," I scoff, rolling my eyes at him. "If I was little, my father wouldn't have had me on a diet for the past two months for my upcoming wedding." If not for my best friend who sneaks me sweets, I might have gone into withdrawals and died. Then this jerk tricked me with chocolate cake and hot chocolate. How was I supposed to resist? "You knew I'd eat that chocolate, that's why you drugged it." I'm not sure why I feel betrayed. Of course he'd betray me. I'm the enemy.

"You needed to relax."

"I was relaxed!" His eyebrows rise in surprise. "I was relaxed," I repeat softly and slowly.

I swear I see his lips twitch, but that's unlikely. I must be seeing things. The drugs clearly have side effects. Vitaly stares down at me, and the seconds tick by.

"So are you going to just lay on me?"

"Going to? I thought I already was." He lets more of his body weight settle onto me.

"Holy crapticle, you're big." The man takes up all the space around me. If someone were to come into the room, they probably wouldn't see me under him.

"And you're little," he says in that deep voice. I suppose compared to him, everyone is.

"Whatever." I press against his chest, not wanting to believe him.

My curves never bothered me, nor did I give them much thought until the wedding drama and other people started making comments. I did my best to ignore them, and Nolia always said it was a bunch of bullshit. But no matter how hard I tried, the words could hurt. Probably because I could never be what my father wanted. A boy.

"Do you mind?"

"Not in the least." He's so damn cocky. Of course he does whatever the heck he wants. It must be nice.

"I have to pee." This time it's not a lie.

A sound of annoyance comes from him, but he moves off of me. When he's gone, I definitely don't miss the weight of his body on mine. Not at all. Nope, not one ounce of it. I don't look back at him when I make my escape to the bathroom, either.

When I walk through the first set of doors I see, I come back out and glare at him. "You could have told me that was the closet." He points toward the other set of doors, and when I go in, I see it's the bathroom.

Looking down at the handle, I notice there isn't a lock, so I try to hurry. After I finish my business, I cringe when I see myself in the mirror. I'm a hot mess. Running my fingers through my hair doesn't help, so I dig through the drawer looking for a brush. All of them are empty, so I go to the other side. That's when I find all of his crap. At least there isn't another woman's stuff in here. That would be awkward. Maybe that's why he didn't agree to marry me. Could there be someone else?

There's no hairbrush, but I do find a new toothbrush still in the plastic. I glance over at Vitaly's toothbrush and debate whether to do something terrible to it. As much as I want to, I can't bring myself to do it.

I do the best I can to clean up, and then I have no choice but to leave the bathroom. I've stalled for as long as I can, but I can't exactly live in the bathroom. I'm not ready to go out and face the music. Scratch that. The mob boss.

"I don't have all day," Vitaly calls from the other side of the door.

"Day?" I poke my head out. "Day? As in the next one? How long did you knock me out for?" I walk into the bedroom and notice he's changed into a different suit.

"You slept through the night," he tells me.

Well, crap. I wonder if my father noticed my absence yet. "Okay." I wring my fingers together in front of me, unsure of what to do next. Vitaly isn't going to marry me, but he did make a few dark promises. Might as well get on with it. "So you said you're going to ruin me. Before you send me back to my father."

He goes to speak, but before he can, I hold out a finger and talk over him.

"Just so you know, I could have dipped your toothbrush in the toilet, but I didn't." I inform him of my kindness. "Keep that in mind before you go ruining me. Like cutting off my toes and fingers."

Then I glance at the finger in front of me telling him to stop, and I jerk my hand behind my back.

Why am I giving him ideas?