A Gift To The Mafia king: Luis's Obsession

Chapter 3: The first night

Elena's POV

The fire burned low, and I watched the door, waiting for someone to come and hurt me. But no one came.

The hours passed, as the snow fell outside the window, and the room stayed quiet except for the crackling of the flames and the sound of my own breathing.

I did not sleep. I could not sleep, because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the warehouse, the crate, and the blood on his hands. So I kept my eyes open, I laid my back against the wall, and I waited.

The fire burned down to embers, and the room grew cold, but I did not move to add more wood. I did not trust the fire any more than I trusted the bed or the food or the water. Everything in this room was a gift from a monster, and monsters did not give gifts without expecting something in return.

I touched the leather pouch around my neck. The dried herbs inside were old and crushed, but I could still smell them when I brought the pouch to my nose. My mother's hands had filled this pouch, my mother's fingers had tied the knot, and my mother had placed it around my neck and told me it would protect me.

But she was wrong. It had not protected her, and it had not protected me. But I kept it anyway, because it was the last thing I had of her, and because letting go of it meant admitting that she was really gone

I did not know how long I sat there, because time moved differently when you were waiting to die. Minutes felt like hours, and hours felt like years. The sun rose behind the clouds, and the room grew brighter, and I was still alive.

A knock came at the door.

I held my breath. My hand went to the leather pouch around my neck, and I squeezed it like it could save me.

The door opened, and a woman walked in. She was not a guard, and she was not one of the cold-eyed nobles from the courtyard. She was a woman with tired eyes and a quiet face, and she carried a tray of food in her hands.

She looked at me sitting against the wall, and something soft passed over her face. Maybe it was pity, or sadness. But i did not know which was worse.

"I am Leticia," she said. Her voice was low and gentle. "I brought you food."

I did not move, and i did not speak.

She set the tray on the table. There was bread and cheese and a bowl of soup that smelled like vegetables and meat. My stomach growled, but I ignored it.

"You should eat," she said. "You will need your strength."

"For what?" I asked.

She looked at me for a long time. Then she said, "To survive."

Leticia sat on the edge of the bed, and she looked at me with those tired eyes. "I was sent here too," she said. "Seven years ago. I was a peace offering, just like you."

I stared at her. "But you are still alive."

"Yes, i am still alive," she said. "Not because the king was kind, but because I learned to be invisible, to give him nothing, and I learned to take up as little space as possible."

I thought about my stepmother. I thought about the cellar, and about all the times I had made myself small to survive.

"I already know how to do that," I said.

Leticia nodded. "Good. Then you might last longer than the others."

I asked, "What happened to the others?"

She did not answer right away. She looked down at her hands, and when she spoke again, her voice was even softer. "Most of them are dead."

"Did the king kill them?" I asked.

Leticia shook her head. "Some of them, yes. But not all. Some of them died because they trusted the wrong person. Some of them died because they tried to run. While some of them died because they forgot that this place is not a home. It is a cage."

I looked around the room, the bed, the fire, and the food. "It does not look like a cage."

"That is what makes it dangerous," she said. "A cage that looks like a room is harder to escape. You start to think you are safe, and that you belong here. Then you let your guard down, and that is when they get you."

I touched the leather pouch around my neck. "What about the king? What is he like?"

Leticia looked at the door, like she was afraid someone might be listening. Then she leaned closer and said, "The king is not kind. Do not trust him, and do not hope."

"Do not hope?" I asked her.

"Hope is what kills you here," she said. "Hope makes you believe you might get out. Hope makes you believe he might let you go, or that he might care about you. And then when you find out he does not, you break."

I thought about the hope I had felt in the truck. The hope that had crumbled to ashes when I saw his face.

"I already stopped hoping," I said.

Leticia looked at me for a long time. Then she nodded. "Good. That will keep you alive."

She stood up and walked to the door. Before she left, she turned back to me. "Eat the food, drink the water, and sleep in the bed. You cannot survive if you are weak. Just do not forget what this place is."

"And what is this place?" I asked.

She said, "It's a graveyard with warm blankets."

Then she left, and the door closed behind her, and I heard the lock click.

I looked at the food on the table, and my stomach growled again. I had not eaten in days,and I had not drunk water in longer than I could remember. Leticia was still alive, and she had survived seven years. So maybe she was telling the truth, even though I don't trust her.

I crawled to the table and picked up the bread. I smelled it, but it smelled like nothing but bread. I took a small bite and waited to feel sick or dizzy or something that told me I had been poisoned.

But nothing happened.

I took another bite. Then another. Then I drank the water, and it was cold and clean, and it felt like the best thing I had ever tasted.

I ate until the bread was gone, the soup was finished and the water was empty. Then I crawled back to the wall and sat against the headboard with my knees pulled to my chest.

I did not sleep in the bed, because I did not trust the bed yet. But I ate the food, I drank the water, and I was still alive.

The hours passed, the sun went down, and the room grew dark. The fire had burned out, and I did not light it again. I sat in the darkness with my back to the wall and my eyes on the door, the way I had learned to sit when I was a child.

And then I heard voices outside my door.

They were Men's voices, sounding low with chatter and laughter. I held my breath and pressed myself harder against the wall.

"The king's new w***e," one of them said. "Did you see her kneeling in the snow like a dog?"

"I saw her," another voice said. "She did not even cry. She just looked at him."

"Give her time. She will cry soon enough. They all cry eventually."

"The king looked at her like she mattered." one said.

"The king looks at all of them like that at first. Then he gets bored, and they disappear." Another one chipped in and they all burst into another round of laughter.

"She will be dead within a month." one voice said.

"It would be sooner, if Diego has anything to say about it." Another one said.

They laughed, and their footsteps faded down the hallway, and I was alone again.

The king's new w***e! Dead within a month! That was what they thought of me and that was what would happen to me.

I touched the leather pouch around my neck and thought about my mother. I thought about the warehouse and the blood and the man who had killed without blinking. I thought about Luis Montero's black eyes and his shaking hands.

I did not know why his hands had been shaking. I did not know why he had told me I was not a prisoner, and I did not know why he had looked at me like he had never seen anyone like me before.

But I knew one thing. The men outside my door were wrong. I was not going to die within a month, i was going to survive. I had survived my stepmother, my father, the cellar, the chains and I had survived the truck.

So I would survive this too.

Suddenly the door opened.

I froze, and my hand instantly went to my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

Luis Montero stood in the doorway. I could see him through the glowing passage light. He was not wearing his suit jacket. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and his forearms were scarred, and his hair was even more disheveled than before.

He did not speak. He just stood there, looking at me.

His chest was rising and falling too fast. His hands were at his sides, and I could see them shaking in the dim light from the hallway.

He looked at me like he was trying to figure out a puzzle he had been working on for a very long time.

I pressed myself harder against the wall like I was trying to disappear and waited for him to come closer.

But he did not move. He just stood in the doorway, looking at me, and breathing too fast.

Neither of us spoke.

The snow fell outside the window, the room was cold and dark, and the monster stood in my doorway with his hands shaking.

And I still did not know why.