Page 17 of The Bratva's Auctioned Bride

That thought was enough to spark more of that rage in me, and I tried to temper it as we eventually got out of the vehicle. I bristled as he placed his hand against the small of my back and guided me back inside the house. The place that felt reminiscent of a jail cell.

Once inside the house, Alex didn’t say anything at first and only closed the door behind him, surely locking it to make sure I didn’t slip away.

Considering that idea made everything in me burn.

I was a newlywed. The unwilling wife of a man I didn’t know, and due to a lack of trust between us, I couldn’t even exist in the house without the doors being locked. Without being forced to stay inside.

Already, I could feel anger stewing inside me, and as I blindly moved towards the kitchen, it only got worse. The loss of my freedom and the lack of choices in front of me frayed my nerves even more, and I felt like I couldn’t get a grip again.

After a moment of silence, Alex cleared his throat. “The chef isn’t in right now, but I was thinking of getting something catered.”

Hearing his voice was enough to make the last of my restraint snap.

“You cannot be serious,” I uttered, facing him with a look of complete disbelief. “How can you be thinking about dinner right now?”

As his dark eyes met mine, a brief flicker of confusion filled them while his brows knit together. Surprisingly, he seemed too caught off guard to say anything witty.

Staring at him then, rage swelled within me, and I stepped closer, body tense with those overwhelming emotions. “How can you be so cool about all of this? Just like after the auction, you’re way too calm for any sane person. Is this normal to you? Is that it?” When Alex still said nothing, I continued, “Are you so desensitized to everything in your world that you can’t see how incredibly ridiculous all of this is?”

While he listened without interjecting, Alex’s expression hardened little by little. He hid it well at first, until confusion and surprise dropped and revealed genuine irritation.

“Careful, Lara,” he murmured in a warning tone despite keeping his voice down.

The attempt to bridle me again only filled me with more anger.

With another step toward him, I pointed a finger at his chest. “You did this to me. You. I had no say in any of this, and you want me to watch what I say? You want me to sit back and comply with everything you say despite doing nothing to deserve that respect?”

Alex’s features tightened with his waning patience. “I’ve done nothing to earn your respect, hm? Is that how you feel?”

Scowling at him, I jabbed his chest, forcing him back by the slightest fraction. “Obviously! Why would I respect someone who bought me from an auction?”

His jaw tensed as he reached for my wrist, eyes a shade darker than usual. “You really have no idea how good you have it right now.”

His fingers wrapped around my wrist, along with his words, only made me angrier as I tried to pull my arm back. “You call thisgood? You think this is a suitable situation to be in? I hate it. I hate everything about this!”

“Is that so?”

“Yes! You bought me, dragged me here, locked me away, then forced me to marry you. I’ve lost everything, all because of these sick games of yours. I’ve lost my freedom, the ability to choose, and I will likely never get to see my brothers again. After all of that, you want me to thank you?”

Alex bristled at the exasperation in my voice, releasing my wrist despite how he seemed to lean into the argument further, not afraid to dive in along with me. “I’m well aware of how it looks and how this doesn’t paint me in the best light, but you need to realize something, wife. Whether you want to accept it or not, I helped you. If it wasn’t for me, you would’ve ended up with someone far worse than me. Someone with the most impure intentions you could think of. You could be locked up somewhere worse, tortured, used, and left to rot. In that case, you wouldn’t even have the chance to stand here and get all of this off your chest. If I were one of them, I wouldn’t let you utter a single word like that to me.”

I scoffed at that. Despite having the feeling he wasn’t entirely wrong, I didn’t want to admit it to him. I couldn’t—not while I was still so heated about it all. “Do you want a reward for being half-decent?”

Taking up another step between us, Alex towered over me, features twisted in anger. “You have some attitude. You’re brave to think you can get away with that.”

“And what else are you going to do to me, then? It’s not like you haven’t already forced me into marrying you. It’s not like I have anything left for you to take from me!”

Alex shook his head in disbelief at that, visibly growing more done with me. His voice was low and dangerous, reminding me once again that he wasn’t just some pushover. “There is so much more I could take from you, Lara. So much more I could force you to give up without a second thought. Icould be just like those freaks at the nightclub, but I’m not. At the very least, be grateful for that fact. Don’t mistake my decency for weakness.”

“So, decency is what I should thank you for?” I returned with a scoff. “The bar is disappointingly low these days.”

“Don’t act obtuse. You know what I’m trying to say.”

It didn’t matter what we said or how we said it, it was evident we weren’t going to see eye to eye. I was adamant about how cruel the situation was, and yet he wanted me to know it would be worse if it weren’t for him, as if he had done some great favor for me.

There was no denying the likelihood of that truth, but it still didn’t absolve him. He still forced me into far more than what I deemed acceptable.

“Do you think there will be a time when I’ll just accept what you’ve done? Do you truly expect me to grovel and thank you for dragging me into all of this against my will?” I questioned, unable to hold it all back. “You have taken all of this from me, for what—to gain some sick satisfaction from forcing me into marrying you? To get praise and notoriety from my name? Whatever your reasons, it’s not good enough. None of them are. You’re a weak, cowardly man for forcing all of this on me.”

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