Sold to Moretti Mafia

Fallon

Markus leads us outside, and I decide to not push him by asking any more questions.

If I’m honest, I’m quite surprised. I didn’t expect him to let me outside, let alone without having the chains attached to my body.

Is he no longer afraid that I’ll run? Or is this a trap? Maybe he brought a gun and is planning on shooting me if I run. Yes, that is much more likely.

Gulping fresh air into my lungs, I take a moment and check out the scenery. Trees. There are trees everywhere. It’s like someone took the house and dropped it into the middle of a tree plantation. Seeing for myself that there is nothing but forest for miles makes the fear of it all really set in. There is no one to help me, no one to save me. I’ll bet there are no neighbors for miles. Markus doesn’t offer to take my hand, almost as if he’s testing me.

Testing to see if I’ll run, like I would be stupid enough to do that. Instead, he cocks his head in the direction he wants to go before heading off that way. I shove my hands deeper into my pockets, thankful that he didn’t try and hold my hand. Every time he touches me, I’m zapped into another dimension and seem to forget all the bad he’s done.Nôvel/Dr(a)ma.Org - Content owner.

I don’t like how my body reacts to him or the heat that stirs in my belly when he looks at me. This cannot end any differently than it was supposed to all along. I have to remember the task at hand. What’s really important here.

I follow behind like a lost puppy, taking in the sights and sounds around me.

The birds chirp, and the sun hangs high in the sky. The warmth of it against my skin is like a beacon of light in complete darkness. It’s only been a few days, but it feels like forever since I’ve been outside and felt the sun’s rays on my skin or the wind in my hair.

For the first time since arriving here, my lips turn up at the sides, and though the motion feels foreign, I’m smiling, letting the fresh air and sun push me through another day.

I do my best to keep up with Markus, but one of his steps equals two for every one I take, and after only a few feet, I fall behind. He’s almost at the edge of the large backyard before he realizes how far behind I am. Turning around, he stares at me, his eyes narrowed to slits. He’s watching me, hunting me. A shiver runs down my spine, and the knots in my stomach coil tighter. I say nothing, though, and neither does he.

When I reach him, he looks away, and I pause beside him, looking down at the ground where he is looking. There is a pile of ashes near our feet.

My throat tightens, and my heart gallops in my chest.

“What happened?” I ask moments before I spot the remains within the ashes. “You burned his body.”

I know I’m answering my own question, but I need to hear him confess to it. It’s like him admitting it makes it more real, even though the proof is right before my eyes.

When I look away and back to Markus, there is no remorse in his liquid amber eyes. There is, however, cool indifference. I don’t understand. How can he just shoot, kill, and burn someone without caring? Without being eaten up with guilt or pain? He’s someone else entirely, and if I look too closely, I’m afraid of what I’ll find. I’m not cut out to deal with a man like Markus, but what other option do I have?

Without saying a word, he moves again.

I take one more glance at the gray powdery residue in front of me, hoping that this won’t be my fate. I wonder if he would really do it. There is no denying he could but saying and doing are two different things. As we walk, more questions appear in my mind and burn the edge of my tongue while trying to escape.

When we stop again, they pass my lips like word vomit, “Do you kill people often? Do you like it?”

I know I should keep my mouth shut, but I want to know. In my mind, this will all be easier if I see him as a monster instead of a man that makes me melt every time he touches me. Perhaps if I hear him say it, I can convince myself that he made me do all these things.

That he made my body react to his touch, that he made me want him.

Markus looks different in the sun. More human, and less dark growly beast. His dark brown hair shines, and his skin has a soft glow to it. When he turns to me, I almost gasp-the feral look in his eyes takes my breath away.

“You should’ve realized by now that I’m not a good man. I bought you at an auction and killed a man seconds before taking you. Don’t act so surprised. You know I’m a monster, and if it makes it easier for you to sleep at night, I’ll tell you. Yes, I kill often, and yes, sometimes I enjoy it. It comes with the job.”

“What job?” The words squeak past my lips.

Markus’s lip tips up at the side. He’s giving me what most would see as a lopsided grin, but what I see as a sinister smile that hides the devil beneath.

“You’re full of questions, aren’t you?”

“I just want to know more about you,” I confess.

The smile slips off his face as fast as it appeared. Taking two gigantic steps, he stops in front of me. Every part of me says to take a step back, to drop my gaze to the ground and cower like an injured animal at his feet, but I can’t, or maybe I won’t.

Amber pieces of glass shine back at me, and he plucks a strand of hair from my shoulder and rubs it between his fingers, almost as if he’s examining the fragility of it.

“If I wanted you to know things about me, I would tell you. You don’t matter to me. I bought you to fuck you, not to listen to you talk, and certainly not to get to know you.”

I’m not sure why, but his words slice through me, cutting me clean in half. It’s not like I expected him to say he cared or wanted to get to know me. That would be wishful thinking, but at the same time, I guess I expected anything but what he said.

“I’m sorry… I just thought-”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. You thought nothing. The only reason you’re out here now is because I know keeping you in that cell in the basement would break you, and I don’t want you broken, yet. So, while it might seem like I’m being kind, and maybe even sweet…” He leans into my face, and I’m hit with the scent of mint and an undertone of coffee.

My bottom lip trembles and my eyes well with tears.

I will not cry, not in front of him.

He analyzes my face for a moment, dropping the lock of hair before continuing, “I’m not. You’re alive because I want you to be. Your one job is to provide me with a spot to park my dick at night, so don’t get it twisted. My caring for you has everything to do with keeping you alive so I can fuck you and nothing to do with wanting to get to know you. This isn’t going to become anything, and you’ll be lucky if you get out of this unscathed.”

I swallow down the ache that’s forming in my chest. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t see me as an actual human being. It doesn’t matter than I’m just a warm hole to sink into.

When I finally leave this place and him behind with it, which I will, I won’t even blink. I won’t look back. Markus is a monster, and it’s time I stop trying to make this into a fairytale that it will never be. I need to stop trying to see the good in him, especially when there is none. There is just a massive black hole of nothing where his heart should be.

“If I don’t matter to you, then why did you kill that man the other night? Why didn’t you just let him go?” I fire back. What could possibly be his excuse?

Markus’s nostrils flare, and I swear he wants to murder me. The look in his eyes tells me he’s completely done with my shit. It’s a miracle I’ve made it as long as I have. I’d have run by now, but there’s something I need from him, and also, I don’t want to die.

“I killed him because, one, you’re mine. Two, I paid good money for you, and I don’t plan on wasting that money. Three, you’re fucking mine. He came here, showed up uninvited, intending to get close to you. He’s lucky that death was the only thing he got.” The possessive tone of his voice frightens me.

He really does only see me as an object and not a breathing, living person. Before I can speak another word, he’s stepping closer to me. I shrink back, but there isn’t anywhere to go.

“Let me ask you this. Would you still be speaking the same tune if I allowed him to touch you, hurt you? He could’ve been anyone. Could’ve come here to kill you, to kill us both. You think I’m the darkest monster in the forest?” He lets out a sad chuckle and looks away for a moment before looking back at me, his eyes hazy. “You have yet to see true darkness or pain. Those other girls that were bought at the auction, they’re going through a much worse fate than you ever will. Show some fucking gratefulness.”

My throat tightens, and my heart clenches in my chest at the thought.

Without a doubt, he is right, but I don’t want to admit it. The thought of comparing my situation to there’s… it seems wrong.

I’ve been trying to push away the memory of the other girls, the one who wasn’t sold, the one who was so scared. The one I couldn’t save… I grow silent, and my thoughts fester. I couldn’t save them, just like I can’t save myself.

There is no escaping the situation I’ve put myself in. There is no way out of this mess. I’m at a dead-end road with nowhere to go, and nobody is coming to save me.