“Oh, Isabella. You said you’d rather die than be my wife—but some things are worse than death, I hear. Especially for a girl like you. So reckless, so brash, so sure that her way is better than anyone else’s. So determined to have a choice. Well, your choices have led you here, little one. And now you’re going to a man who will teach you to be a proper wife for me.”
He tips my chin up with his other hand, holding my face so that I can’t look away from him. “When you come back, you’ll have learned your place, princess. There won’t be any more questions of who makes your choices.”
Diego turns to take something out of the hand of one of the guards, all of whom are standing there impassively, as if they couldn’t care less what’s happening to me.They probably don’t,I think wildly.Why would they?Diego is their boss, the one who signs their paychecks, and I’m nothing. Less than nothing. The disgraced daughter of a man many of them probably hate.
I try to fight. I scream, twist in his grasp, and try to bite his hand as I kick at his ankles. From the corner of my eye, I see the family gathering in front of the mansion. I catch a glimpse of bitter satisfaction on Renata and Lia’s faces before my attention is dragged back to Diego by a sharp pain in my arm.
“Ow! I—stop—what—”
I gasp as I see a needle sliding into the veins of my elbow, a burning sensation following it. “No!” I cry out, twisting again, but it’s too late.
I barely have a moment to register the cloth being shoved between my teeth, gagging me, or feel my arms being jerked behind me as I’m bound, before the world starts to dim. My ability to move goes before my vision, and I have one terrifying moment of knowing what it means to be paralyzed, entirely helpless, before the entire world around me fades to black.