CHAPTER FIVE

The moment before I was dragged out of those doors, I'd looked back at the crowd and it hurt so badly to see them relieved as I was getting kidnapped.

Our family had migrated from Russia over here for about four generations now and I have never felt any bad blood between us and the locals. In fact, we were all so mixed up because of the business that there were so many Russians and Italians married to Columbians without any hassle or bad blood.

My family did an honest business, and we brought cousins and uncles over here to join over the decades.

It made no sense that we'd garnered so much hate from the locals that they'd want to put the hangman's noose around my neck over the slightest inconvenience.

Well, maybe that wasn't a perfect description of the situation at hand, but I knew I didn't deserve to die at the hands of these men, yet I was pushed to it, literally.

Something happened as we got out of the doors though.

The hand holding mine slacked as I got out, followed by the other three men who were making sure I didn't develop powers and disappeared.

I looked up at him to realize why.

He fell forward with a heavy thud, and I was dragged aside so quickly I scratched my arm.

Then as the other two ran out, guns out, shots were fired at them.

Only they were smart enough to wear bulletproof vests and they ran back inside without me.

I looked at Bethram as he dragged me across the parking lot towards his car, his chest heaving and his eyes roaming around the whole place.

“Get down!” He screamed, dragging me down with him as shots were fired, breaking car glasses.

Those were definitely meant for us.

“Let's go, but stay down, okay?” He instructed me and I nodded with tears in my eyes.

I crawled on the ground with him until we got to his car.

He pushed me to the back and jammed the door just as shots began firing again.

Thankfully, we were a bit far from there, so their aim wasn't really good, hitting random cars close to us.

With a grunt, he matched the accelerator angrily and began running while whoever Vivi must have called kept shooting at the killers who were staying back inside the hall.

As I sat there, my tears had dried up immediately and I was in a state of shock as the loud ringing shots faded away.

I'd gotten so close to getting kidnapped by these men, just like my father had always been scared of.

Who knows what they would have done to me while waiting for Papa to give them whatever they wanted?

I felt guilty, terrified, and out of it.

I reached into my purse for my phone to call Vivi or Micah but I remembered I'd given them my phone, leaving me more perplexed.

“I'll drop you off… at Mr. Micah's place until it's safe,” Bethram informed me with tired grunts, he must have scraped his knees as well or something. “It's closer anyway.”

“Okay,” I muttered, my voice really small.

After about twenty minutes, we'd gotten to his mansion, and I slowly got out of the car myself. I guess in the messy situation, Bethram had forgotten to open the car door for me like he'd done since I was able to get into a car without my parents following me. I'd just stopped homeschooling and he was assigned to me.

I got down and turned to grab my bag that I'd left on the floor.

After that, I jammed the door, sniffling and cleaning my eyes. I looked into the driver's seat, wondering why he wasn't getting down and that was when I realized the reason for his grunts earlier on.

Bethram had been shot and he still endured that to bring me here.

I screamed for help from the security guards who had opened the gate for us a few seconds ago.

“Please drive him to the hospital using your own car, quickly!” I yelled at them, my heart trying to escape my chest.

“Don't worry, Princess, I'm fine,” he tried to tell me so I could calm down, but I wasn't having it.

“Can you drive a little faster??!” I screamed, wondering why Micah hadn't come out of the house already.

I know it's a big house, and he wouldn't hear much of a commotion, but I could bet they'd told him I was here.

When two of the guards had successfully ferried Bethram away, I took a shaky breath and headed inside.

I planned to sleep there that night after calling my father with Micah's phone.

I didn't have an inch of the energy to begin ringing the bell or waiting for whatever held Micah back to let him open the door, so I used the spare key he'd given me as his sign of commitment to the contract marriage. He said he didn't want us to be cold to each other or to treat this like a duty, but instead, we could truly commit to each other and one day, feelings would grow so much we'd never have doubted us in the first place.

I'm still waiting for that day as I can barely stand him now but I had to swallow my feelings.

Family first.

And this night showed me how much people hated us and were willing to take our lives and money out of pure jealousy so yes, family first.

I took the elevator to his room, my mind already dreading the terrible sex that he would try to give me in a bid to ‘help me calm down’.

My stepmom advised me to stop resisting whenever he wanted it, and with each waning sun, I was beginning to regret that decision.

But the way I felt, I wouldn't even notice if he was the usual horrible sex partner or an amazing one.

I was void of any feeling besides intense sadness.

So when I got to his door, I'd not been paying attention to the strange sounds that were coming out of his room.

But the moment I came down to the earth so I could turn the door handle, it hit me like a freight train.

It was the moaning voice of my betrothed.

Dismayed, I pushed the door ajar and that was when the real shock of the day hit me.

Right on top of Micah, with a wide smile and consistent thrusts, was a man fucking my fiancé.

Everything went black.