Chapter 5

• Another day passed.
• Yet that was the last time I saw him when he put me in a spiral of perplexity from where I could find no path, no hint even to make even the slightest of sense.
• 'Everything. Everything that ruined me.'
• His last words haunted me the past nights, raking my head for even a sliver of memory to confirm I had indeed done something horrible that dismantled someone's life.
• But no.
• There was none.
• Even if I had a memory efface like I had before, I would at least remember tidbits from here and there. I'd at least remember his face.
• That face...
• So pulchritudinous, yet so minacious.
• Not a face one could forget just with the passage of time.
• Though not just his face, it were his eyes, his voice, his whole personality that held this regal, sporadic aura that one could hardly manage to obliterate from even the cavernous depths of their minds.
• At least, I couldn't.
• But then why...
• Could he mean something from my past life? Maybe I was a judge, and he was the criminal I put behind jail for lifetime. Or I was the mob boss who put a hole through his heart. Or even a drunk driver who ran him over.
• However, I didn't believe in past lives to begin with. It had to be entirely something else.
• I let out a long exhale. What was it? What was going on in here?
• Wait... I sat upright in the bed. Could it be that he got the wrong girl?
• This could be!
• A sliver of hope fluttered my heart.
• Running to the door, I banged on it. "Anybody there? I need to talk. Please, let me out."
• A minute passed.
• Two passed.
• I banged and banged. I wasn't gonna give up, and there was no way in hell I was suffering someone else's karma.
• I was so focused on pounding the door that I didn't even realize the lock had clicked. Before I knew, the door swung open, sending me flying across the room to the bed with the impact.
• The angry face of the man appeared above me.
• "Do you have a fucking death wish?" he snarled, his massive figure threateningly hovering over my much smaller one.
• "No, no, no. Wait. I have something to tell you." I put up my hands in defense.
• His lips pursed in annoyance. "What?"
• I gulped, staring at him. "I-I think you made a mistake."
• The skin in-between his brows furrowed deeper in a deadly manner.
• "I-I-I mean to say you have got the wrong girl," I quickly added. "I don't know you. Therefore, I have never harmed you in anyway."
• He watched me, not moving, neither confirming my supposition. Rather a dark amusement took over the destructive silvers of his eyes. Almost as if he found it funny.
• "C-Could you please recheck whatever information you got about me, p-please?" I stuttered, the proximity sending chills down my spine.
• "Gisella Odette," he spoke.
• "Yes!" I jerked to attention.
• "Daughter of Vicente Allard and Esra Odette."
• I nodded. Then my eyes widened realizing what he did.
• I was indeed the right girl.
• But...
• Straightening up, he proceeded to walk away, but before he could, I got up and ran past him. Stopping right before him, I streched my arms in a mere act of barricade.
• He tilted his head to the side in the most atrocious way.
• I gulped.
• Wrong move. But for all the right reasons.
• "Tell me what have I done to you. Remind me. Because I can't seem to remember, and it's eating me alive. Please," I begged, my leg muscles were literally shaking from the fake mettle I was manifesting.
• Without warning, his long, lean fingers wrapped around my wrist, and I felt the soul leaving my body.
• I was dead.
• "Very well," he said and strode outside the room, tugging me along.
• The incident from a day ago surfaced in my mind. Oh shit. He was gonna push me off the roof again.
• But surprisingly, we descended the stairs instead and headed across the foyer to the front door. Yanking it open, he pulled me out, and I gasped. This was the first time since I had been here that he let me out of the house, and the view was everything to die for.
• A valley of town streched ahead in between two sky-punching mountains. Night-lights gleaming like stars in the houses transformed it into the most breathtaking sight to behold.
• However, I couldn't behold longer than a few seconds or even register the idea of calling for help as he pushed me into a dark sedan and pulled out of the driveway.
• "Where are we going? Where are you taking me?"
• He didn't say a thing, just stared ahead at the road through the forest.
• The drive wasn't long either, and we were back to the dragging session without any answer. But the place we were heading towards was as marky as coal, deep into the heart of the forest.
• To say, my heart was pounding would be an understatement, because it was pounding like never before. Like every beat left a imprint on my ribcage. My conscience screamed at me to get away, to save myself before a bad omen descended upon me.
• With this man and his past threats, I could only expect the worst.
• Bringing my foot up, I sent the heel digging onto the top of his shoe.
• He stopped still, his eyes closing as a muscle in his jaw ticked.
• "The fuck," he drawled in the laziest manner.
• Oh shit.
• "No." I pulled at my hand, causing his to tighten around it. "No, no. I'm not going there. No!" I pulled harder. "Let me-Let me go!"
• But even that faltered to move him an inch. It was as though he was a statue, and I was stuck in solid concrete.
• Then the hotness of his hold disappeared suddenly, and I flew back on my butt on the ground.
• Pain shot through the flesh beneath, and I groaned, closing my eyes. I was sure the spot was going to get bruised if it already wasn't from the accident or the fall.
• Realizing he let go, my eyes snapped back open. They widened when he strode towards me, making me push the heel of my feet on the hard ground to move back, until my back hit a tree trunk.
• Before I could react, he bent down, one of his hands snaking around the back of my thighs and lifting me up. He threw me over his broad, hard shoulder like I was a sack of feathers passed to him as an insult to his might and proceeded forward into the darkness.
• "No, please don't. I'm sorry! Don't hurt me, please!" My cries went futile as did my pounding on his hard back.
• Thinking about all the things that could be done to me in this deep, and no one would even hear my screams, sent a tremor down my back. I could feel my eyes stinging.
• "I'm sorry, please. I'll behave from no-" my words got cut when my body came in a sudden contact with the ground.
• He let me down.
• My eyes ran over the surrounding frantically. Trees, trees and only more trees caught my vision. There was no escape. Even if I ran, he'd catch me.
• My hands fisted beside me as I looked down.
• "Please, don't rape me. I'm a virgin. Please."
• His large body bent into a squat before me, his silver eyes glowing in the moonlight peeking through the leaves. He extended his hand, and I whimpered.
• "Plea-"
• My words got cut when he grabbed my face in-between his thumb and index finger.
• My eyes shut tight.
• Please, God, save me.
• His fingers tightened on my cheeks, turning my face to the side until it couldn't move anymore.
• "Look," he hissed into my ear. "Take a good look at what had been taken from me."
• My brows drew together as I blinked my eyes open. Darkness was all that met me. I squinted in the dark, the dim moonlight being the only light shining over us.
• It wasn't until I looked closer that two marble stones, built side by side caught my eyes. There were words scribbled on them. Before them laid two coffin-like structures, made from the same marble.
• A gasp left me.
• Those were graves.
• "They were my parents. I only got to see them for a short time before they were taken from me. Brutally murdered."
• There was grief hidden behind the anger in his tone, and that squeezed at my heartstrings. Living without one parent was hard, but living without both knowing they were killed, I couldn't even imagine what he must have went through.
• But he was wrong.
• I turned to look at him. "I-I didn't kill them. I swear I didn't."
• His irises moved, landing on me. "I know."
• I frowned. "Wh-What?"
• "Your father did."
• I blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. Yet the expression on his face remained the same. Cold, angry, detached. Not a hint of humor crossed his features.
• "What are you talking about? You have lost your mind."
• I wasn't afraid. No. I was angry. How could he say that about my papa? How dare he?
• His stare transformed into a glare, but I didn't care.
• "No!" I shot up to my feet, taking a couple steps away from him. "Do you even hear yourself? My papa is the most humble man to live. Killing your parents? He never even lay a finger on a darn bug for God's sake!"
• In an arrogant manner, he stood up, like my words didn't effect him a bit.
• "He murdered them, cold-bloodedly," he said calmly.
• "I don't believe you. You're lyin-"
• In a flash, he was right before me, his fingers draping around my throat as he pinned me against a tree.
• "Believe it or not, he DID, and that's the fucking truth!" he barked on my face, his irises turning darker. "Now," he breathed, "someone needs to pay the price, and who could do it better than his beloved little daughter?"
• The lingering threat behind his voice sent a chill through my heart.
• "H-How?" I found myself asking.
• "From today on, you, Gisella Odette, will be my fucking slave for the rest of your pathetic life."