RUTHLESS PRINCE

Alessia

I was getting married.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stared at myself in the full-length mirror. All the crying flushed my cheeks, and the hours I had spent shedding silent tears reddened my eyes. I couldn’t do anything to escape this, not when every corner of my parents’ compound was littered with his men. I couldn’t run, only succumb to the fate he had laid down for me. My life wasn’t mine anymore, but his to play with.

“Come, we need to finish getting you ready,” the woman who had come with him said. She had forced me into the dress; she had done my hair, my makeup, everything. Not that I could say much about the makeup. My tears had done their work ruining her immaculate work. She frowned down at me, her eyes crinkling at the corners with disapproval. Still, she motioned for me to sit in the chair near the dressing table, forcing me to look at my reflection again.

I hated the woman I saw. I hated the look of defeat in her eyes. Without thinking about it, my eyes landed on my phone. He hadn’t felt the need to confiscate it. Was he testing me? Trying to see what I would do with it. My hand outstretched towards it, ready to grab it, only for her voice to stop me.

“Think about the people downstairs,” she said, applying another coat of makeup on my face to mask the damage my tears had done. “And enough with the tears. They won’t help you. Men like…” She trailed off. I raised my eyes to meet hers, and she sighed, her shoulders dropping in defeat. “Men like him don’t ask, they take. Tears won’t sway his decision. And let me tell you one thing—” she stopped again, as if thinking hard about her next words.

“If you show weakness in his world, it will eat you alive. Be strong.” I took in her words, but I wasn’t about to start being strong now. Not when every dream I ever had was being destroyed right in front of me. I never chose this life. I was born into it, and just when I was on the verge of escaping it, he had to show up and ruin everything.

“Is he a good man?” I asked through trembling lips, doing my best not to let another tear slide down my cheek.

“They’re no good men in this world, child. Don’t look for good in a place you know very well you'll not find it.” Her words slid past my skin to my bones, causing me to shake. I had hoped that beneath the ruthlessness I could find something else in him I could stand, but no, her words snuffed those hopes into nothing.

“Keep your head low. Listen to what he says, and maybe you will survive.”

“How long have you been with them?”

“A long time,” she said, with a hint of a Russian accent in her voice. I opened my mouth to ask her something else when the door to my room opened and my mother stepped inside wearing a black dress, her eyes red from the tears she was holding back.

She looked at me once, then diverted her attention to the window. The sadness that emanated from her made me want to kill the man in the living room. He had caused all this suffering.

When she looked at me again, she looked at me as if she had failed me.

“It’s not your fault, Mom,” I told her.

“It doesn’t feel like that,” Gianna Ricci said. She gave me a sad smile. When I was about to speak again, she beat me to it. “He’s waiting for you.” My body went stiff at her words, but I managed a small nod and rose to my feet on a wobble that would’ve taken me to my knees if not for the woman who caught me before I tumbled to the carpeted floor. I didn’t even know her name. The horrors of the day were too much for me to keep a semblance of my manners.

My mother took my hand and led me out of the room. I followed her, knowing I couldn’t stop her because if I did, he would kill my father. I couldn’t escape this without losing someone I loved.

I took a deep breath, trying so hard to keep the tears at bay. I would not cry, not in front of him. If he were doing this to break me, I wouldn’t let him.

The walk to the living room felt like the longest, most torturous walk of my existence. Each step caused my bones to rattle. Each step had tears threatening to spill from the corners of my eyes.

I couldn’t fathom how a day that had started so perfectly would end like this.

“I don’t want to do this,” I told her, my voice cracking at the end.

We stopped. My mother took hold of my shoulders and turned me towards her. I blinked back the tears when I saw the pain in her eyes. “You don’t have to do it. We can tell him no.”

“Then Dad will die,” I stated. Why was I even delaying the inevitable? His presence here had sealed my fate. Any delay could prove fatal for my father. I couldn’t let that happen. I could never live with myself knowing that getting married to the monster would have saved my father's life.

“I don’t believe…”

“He’s a monster, mother. He would do it.” My mother sighed, a single tear spilling down her cheek. “And we can’t fight him. What am I doing, really?” I stepped back from her. We could stand there, talk this through, but nothing would save me from this fate, but I could save my father from dying.

“Let’s do this.”

“Alessia—”

“No, Mom. I won’t lose him.” I forced my feet to carry me away from her. She followed close behind, her heels clicking against the floor.

My muscles locked when we reached the living room. I took in the scene; every part of me trembled—with pain, with frustration, with hopelessness. Men littered the room, wearing black suits and ties, their hands devoid of any weapons. An illusion of safety, all done to keep me at ease, at least that’s what I thought.

I scanned the room, my eyes landing on my father. They had strapped him to a chair, his hands bound at the back of it, his mouth sealed with tape. Sweat dotted his forehead, his hair disheveled as if it hadn’t been combed to perfection a few hours ago.

When he lifted his gaze, our eyes locked, and they carried a pain I would never forget. I wasn’t a fool by any means to think my father wouldn’t trade me for his freedom. Men in this world were cut from the same cloth, cruel and selfish in their ways. The only thing that happened here was that Ivan Antonov used him as leverage to get to me.

Speaking of Ivan, he stood in the distance, a couple of paces away from my father, a priest standing next to him. They whispered to themselves as I stood in the wedding dress I hadn’t known I would wear today.

As if my gaze had burned his skin—I hoped it did—he looked up, his green eyes meeting mine, and he smiled.

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