Four
885 Words
My breath caught at his words. I know everything.
The way Ricardo said it low, steady and certain wasn’t the boast of a man trying to scare me. It was the quiet truth of someone who could peel back layers I didn’t even realize I was wearing.
“You don’t know me,” I forced out, my hands curling into fists at my sides. My throat was dry, but I refused to let him see me falter.
A smirk tugged at his mouth, slow and deliberate, as though he found my denial amusing. “Don’t I? I know when you went after Adrian. I know about the scholarship you turned down. I know about the nights you stayed in that little apartment, eating noodles and drinking cheap wine just to feel alive. I know the stories you wrote that no one read until I made sure they landed on the right desk.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “You!”
“I don’t forget faces, Nina. Or stories.” His gaze burned into me. “Especially not yours.”
The room felt suddenly smaller, suffocating. I stumbled back a step. “That’s not… That’s not possible. You’re lying. how could you know all that?”
His voice dropped, sharp as a blade. “Because I wanted to.”
The words stole the air from my lungs. Because I wanted to.
“You’re insane,” I whispered, shaking my head. “You can’t just follow me and watch me”
“You call it watching.” His eyes darkened, predatory. “I call it protecting.”
That single word ripped something deep inside me. Protecting. No one had ever really protected me, not even Adrian. The irony made me want to laugh and scream at the same time.
“I don’t need your protection,” I snapped, gathering every ounce of defiance I had left. “I don’t need you.”
He rose from his seat in one fluid motion, the sheer size of him towering over me. My pulse thundered as he stepped closer, until I could feel the heat radiating from him. His voice brushed my ear, low and unyielding.
“You do. You just don’t know it yet.”
A shiver ran down my spine, equal parts fury and fear. I jerked back before his nearness swallowed me whole. My voice trembled, but I forced it out anyway. “I’m leaving.”
I spun toward the door, my heels clicking across the polished floor. My hand barely touched the handle before a shadow loomed. One of his bodyguards blocked the way, massive and silent just like the other time I was in here
“Move,” I hissed, glaring up at him.
He didn’t. His eyes flicked to Ricardo.
“Let her go,” Ricardo commanded.
The guard stepped aside instantly.
I froze. That wasn’t what I expected. I’d braced myself for a fight, for chains disguised as charm. But instead he let me walk away just like the previous meeting too.
The confusion was worse than if he’d stopped me. Why give me freedom if he’d just declared me his?
I swallowed hard and pushed the door open, desperate to escape his suffocating presence, when another voice cut through the hallway.
“Nina?”
I froze, my blood turning to ice. I knew that voice. Too well.
I turned, slowly, dread coiling in my gut. And there he was.
Adrian.
His dark eyes widened the moment they locked on me, then narrowed with something sharper, uglier, as they darted past me and landed on the man behind. His father.
“What the hell is going on here?” Adrian’s voice was harsh, brittle.
My mouth went dry. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
Ricardo stepped into the doorway behind me, calm as if he had orchestrated this moment. His presence filled the space, and for the first time, Adrian looked small beside him.
“Adrian,” Ricardo drawled, his tone almost bored. “What a surprise.”
Adrian’s fists clenched at his sides. “Why is she here?”
I opened my mouth, desperate to explain, to say anything that would stop the storm gathering in Adrian’s eyes. But Ricardo’s hand brushed the doorframe, cutting off my words without even touching me.
“She’s here because I wanted her here,” Ricardo said, every syllable deliberate, unhurried. “And because she belongs to me now.”
The world tilted. My pulse hammered in my throat.
Adrian’s face twisted in rage. “The hell she does! She’s not yours, she…”
“Careful, boy.” Ricardo’s voice was velvet over steel, but the warning in it sliced the air. “You had your chance. You wasted it. Don’t make me remind you what happens when you try to take something from me.”
Adrian bristled, stepping forward, but Ricardo’s bodyguards closed in, silent threats on either side.
I stood trapped between father and son, my heart racing so loud I thought it would burst.
Ricardo’s hand lifted slowly, steady and his fingers brushed the small of my back, proprietary, burning through my clothes like a brand. His voice was the final cut, low and merciless:
“Run along, Adrian. She’s mine now.”
And that was where the ground disappeared beneath me
- Writer
