I’ve never seen anything like him, and even now, even as I know in my soul that I’ll never have another moment with him like the ones we had before tonight, I can’t stop looking. I want to sear the sight of him onto my retinas, burn his memory into my mind, so that every time I close my eyes, he’s all I see, no matter what’s happening. No matter what Diego is doing to me.
“Get the cars running!” Diego snarls, nearly to the doors now. He’s surrounded by men, and to my horror, I see them attacking guests, too, hitting and knifing and knocking them down to keep them from blocking Diego’s path to the front doors, until the marble is slick with blood and littered with bodies.
We’re past the ballroom now. Past where I can see my father, brother, or Niall, and all I can hear are the faint echoes of their shouts, already fading away. My old life is already almost gone.
“Stop fighting, or I’ll knock you out,” Diego warns as we burst out of the doors into the chilly desert air. Dust is everywhere, cars pulled up, drivers shouting as guests spill out behind us screaming, but Diego makes a beeline for one huge black SUV, surrounded by more men in fatigues with assault rifles in their hands.
The door is yanked open, and he throws me inside, following immediately. His foot lands on my skirt as I scramble backward tearfully, seeing mascara dripping onto my hands and more of the tulle tears, diamonds and pearls scattering across the floor of the SUV.
“You’re mine now, girl,” Diego snarls. He reaches into his jacket, opening a black velvet box containing a gold ring with a huge marquis-cut diamond, haloed in smaller diamonds with a square-cut on either side. “You don’t deserve this. It’s too good for a slut like you—but we have to make it official, don’t we?”
He grabs my wrist, the same one he nearly broke, and I let out a cry as he yanks me forward and shoves the ring onto my left hand. His fingernails scrape the skin as he roughly forces it down my finger, blood welling from the cuts, and then he holds me in place as he grips the front of my dress with his other hand.
For one terrifying moment, I think he’s going to rip it. That he’s going to force me here in the SUV, where his driver and security can see everything, just to show me he can.
“I should put you on your knees and make you suck my cock by way of apology, little girl,” Diego hisses. “Or turn you around and fuck you here, just to make sure it’s my seed in you before any others can take root.” His dark eyes burn into mine, full of the rage that only powerful men who have been outplayed by a woman feel.
Except I don’t feel, at this moment, the victory I did before. I thought I’d feel so much satisfaction knowing my husband was a cuckold, but there’s none of that here. Diego knows what I’ve done. I’m not tricking him. And I’ve only made it all so much worse.
I have no idea what’s going to happen to my family, or Niall—or what already has. I don’t know how the fighting has played out, or if it’s still going on, as Diego’s convoy of cars roars out of the Santiago compound towards the open highway. I only know that where I’m going, I’d be better off dead.
Diego lets go of me, shoving me backward, and I let out a small cry as I fall back in the seat, my wrist and hand throbbing. “I want the satisfaction of breaking you first, though, girl,” he says with a cruel smile. “I want you to know that me fucking you isn’t the worst thing that can happen. By the time we get to the wedding bed, you’ll be begging for my cock, if it will make your life easier. And that’s what I want, Isabella Santiago.” He leans close again, his gaze fixed cruelly on mine.
“I want to hear you beg.”