PURPLE HEART - Soliders Of Fortune [BOOK TWO]

Chapter SEVEN

Sunday 'Sunny' Santos

With a hazy Tequila hangover and the kind of crippling lethargy that comes from oversleeping clouding my mind, I start awake with a sudden anxious gasp..

Something isn't right..

Sunlight streams through the cracks in the curtains as I peer around at my unfamiliar surrounding.. Piece by piece I begin to recall the events of yesterday and soon the nightmare of my harrowing reality begins to fully sink in..

This is my new life.. The imprisoned bride to be of a Bratva loanshark..

Having gone from being one man's property to another's pet has left a bitter taste in my mouth, and while I can't deny that Max's stoic brand of chivalry is not intolerable, I miss my old life and the comfort of the familiar.. Javier wasn't the best man, heck, he isn't even a good man.. But he had become the devil I knew.. I understood his temper and how to avoid it.. I could read his warning signs and prepare accordingly.. But with Max, I haven't got a clue what he is thinking, and something about that is far more terrifying in my current predicament..

This criminally handsome stranger wants me to marry him and I get the feeling that Max is the kind of guy who is used to getting what he wants, by hook or by crook.. But if I am really to be his bride, I have to begin figuring him out if there any much chance of finding harmony.. Or if I am going to survive long enough to sign our divorce papers in a year's time..

God, I hate that word.. Divorce.. It's so heartless and final.. And in all my life I never thought it would apply to me.. The thought of it makes me sick with anger, and suddenly am mad at Max for turning me into somebody I never wanted to be..

A liar..

How could I stand before the Lord and say those sacred vows, knowing that neither of us meant them?

How could he ask such a terrible thing of me?

Sliding out of the plush canopy bed, I tiptoe out into the hallway and down the stairs, prepared to defend my own honour and to refuse his proposal.. I know it is unlikely he will take the news well, but I won't go down without a fight.. I don't want to be a divorcee, and I certainly don't want a loveless marriage..

Maybe if I can appeal to his gentler side, just one more time, he will finally hear me and let me go..

Pfft, yeah right.. Dream on, Sunny..

"Maksim?" I call his name, but the apartment is eerily quiet.. "Max? Señor?"

Where on earth is he?

A deafening silence is my reply and quickly I realise that I am all alone in the penthouse.. An instinctual itch climbs up my arms to spread throughout my chest and soon the urge to run becomes all consuming..

This could be my only chance..

I stare at the front door as if any moment Max might burst through it and berate me for even considering disobedience.. After all, that's what Javi would do..