Married to the mafia boss Series

Anastasia

Maxim forces me back into the movie theater to finish out the remaining hour of To Kill a Mockingbird. When the movie is finished and Svetlana wakes up, there are two cars waiting for us outside.

I want to ask what is going on, I start to sign but no one is paying attention to me. Maxim gathers my friends and explains whatever is going on to them leaving me out of the loop. He opens the car down and the two of them wave goodbye to me wearing apologetic expressions before getting in and leaving me.

“What is going on?” I sign to Maxim.Belongs © to NôvelDrama.Org.

Still not understanding sign language, he silently opens the door and waits for me to get in. I stand there stubbornly with my arms crossed. The harsh features of his face are sharp and with one cold look, I obey, climbing into the backseat. He sits in the passenger and says something to the driver as he begins to drive.

From the route we’re taking, we’re going home but I have a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. Something has happened. What? I don’t know.

We pull up the mansion, my fathers men standing post at the front of the gate and outside the front door. Maxim grabs my wrist and pulls in not in the direction our side of the house, but my father’s. He brings me to my father’s office. I’ve only been inside his office three times in my life and all three times were extremely unpleasant.

Maxim gives me a tiny shove through the door and shuts it behind me. It’s just me and my father.

My father sits at his desk and stare at me. His stare is intimidating and uncomfortable. I take it as my cue to sit down across from him. He leans his elbow on his expensive oak desk and squints his eyes, his gaze roaming over my hair.

“The first thing I want you to do when you leave here is having Maxim take you to the salon and get that god awful color out of your hair.”

I touch my red dyed hair feeling oddly sentimental towards it. I remember how angry I was as Angelo crudely box dyed my beautiful golden hair. The memory coming to me like it just happened yesterday.

The last thing I want is for this prick to touch me. Never have I ever got my hair professionally done let alone done with box dye.

Angelo walks into the bathroom, where I am sitting on a tiny stool in front of his mirror, holding various boxes of dye. He sets them all in the counter; seven of them, I count. They’re all the color red but they range from extreme crimson to deep burgundy.

They all look horrible to me.

“If you don’t pick one, I’ll pick one for you,” Angelo signs.

Giving him a death glare I chose the prettiest version of red, but I’m still not happy. I watch as Angelo takes the box from me and starts opening it. He pulls out the directions and reads it quietly to himself. He takes out the plastic gloves and two tubes of formula and dye-or whatever.

He opens the linen closet in the bathroom and wraps a towel around my shoulders.

“There is no way you’re going to dye my hair. You’ll butcher it! I’ll be lucky if I even have hair after you’re through with me!” I sign angrily.

“I’m reading the directions. Calm down and sit still.”

Already things start off bad, he spills half the dye from knocking it over with his elbow. It isn’t usable so I have to choose my second choice. I sit on the stool, arms crossed, and pout. This time he is able to mix the dye and shakes it up.

He stands behind me and I watch him in the mirror as he starts squirting the dye all over my head. Some of it drips down my forehead and I move suddenly to bring my forehead down to the towel around my shoulders. He spills some on the ground. The white tiles slowly being stained with red.

I start laughing and he squirts some on my clothes laughing back at me. Angrily, I stand taking the bottle out of his hands and spraying some at his hair. He freaks out and runs to the shower to wash it off.

I keep the bottle aimed at him feeling all the power. “So help me God if my hair comes out red I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” I smirk over confident.

With swift movement he comes toward me grabbing the bottle. I still have a tight grip on it as we wrestle. The bottle squirts dye all of the floor and all over our clothes. His white button up is stained red. It looks like a bloody mess. I can’t stop laughing.

“We’re out,” he shakes the empty bottle. “You do realize your hair is going to be two different color reds?”

Furrowing my eyebrows I sit down on the stool, arms crossed over my dye-soaked shirt. “No. Make your driver get the same box dye. You aren’t going to ruin my hair,” I sign stubbornly.

He narrows his eyes at me before waiting a heartbeat to say, “Fine.”

I chuckle at the heartfelt memory and my father, whom I almost forgot was there, raises his eyebrow at me.

“I’m not playing games, Anastasia,” my father puts on his Pakhan face. “Maxim tells me you tried to escape at the movies today. Why?”

“I just didn’t want to be there anymore,” I shrug.

He bangs his fist on the desk. “Lie to me one more time and you’ll regret it.”

I gulp. “I don’t want to live in the mansion and I don’t want to marry Maxim. I want to go back to my own apartment. I want my freedom.”

My father rolls his eyes. “You want to be kidnapped again? Is that it? You made me lose my terrority. My men look up to me and I showed weakness by negotiating because I care for you. I won’t let the same thing happen. You are a weapon they can use against me and being in this house protected by Maxim is the best way to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen.”

“You’re suffocating me!” I stand up outraged.

My father stands up with me and strikes me across my face. “You will grow up and learn your place.”

I hold my hand to my burning cheek. I try my hardest to hold back the tears in my eyes but I fail. I’m not shocked that he hit me, it’s happened many times before. I am, however, shocked by his use of sign language.

“Why do you care? You should’ve let Angelo keep me so you could have kept your precious territory.”

“Do you not think I care for you?”

“You don’t! You never have! I don’t even know how you are talking to me. You’ve always ignored me and used your lack of knowledge in sign language as an excuse!”

My father laughs. “I know sign language. Yes, I might have lied to you to get out of a conversation or two, but I have better things to do than talk to you, Anastasia. Your mother was supposed to be the one to care for you but then she went and got herself killed.”

My heart breaks, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “I wish you had never negotiated with Angelo.”

His eyebrows furrow and he looks at me closely. “That’s the second time you’ve called him Angelo. So what you two were on a first name basis? Did you let him fuck you?”

“What? No! How could you say this to me!” I can barely see what he signs next as my tears blur my vision.

“You’re a whore just like your mother!” He slaps me again. “You will keep your mouth shut and marry Maxim next month. You will provide him with heirs-a son-and then you can do whatever the hell you like. But right now, you are under my protection and you will do as I command!” He sits back down and sighs. “Now get out of my sight and the next time I see you, your hair better be blonde.”

I run out of his sobbing, I crash into Maxim’s hard chest. He has been standing outside the door. I guess I don’t need to worry about him eavesdropping though. He stares down at me. I already feel like I am gradually becoming an obedient wife. I cannot talk back, I can only obey. Soon, I will be his wife and he will be able to do whatever he wants with me and no one will be able to save me.

He holds out his hand for me to take. I grab it as he leads me to the car. I assume he’s already received orders from my father to take me to the salon. I sit in the backseat playing with my hair, the red color which I despised with all my heart, which I couldn’t wait to get rid of, now feels like losing the last piece of Angelo I have left.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I already know who it is without having to look.

Svetlana: So sad that our day was cut short. We were having a great time! Miss you, An.

Tatiana: It was great seeing you again, love our reunions. Sad that our girls day was cut short too but so glad Maxim is taking you to get your hair done.

Svetlana: Me too! No offense An, but your hair looks better blonde. Red wasn’t doing it for you.

Tatiana: Agreed. So, about Maxim. He’s so hot.

Svetlana: I’m so jealous!

I turn my phone off and leave it on the seat next to me. I don’t know what I expected from them. I thought maybe they’d at least care to know what happened to me. They act like I wasn’t kidnapped. They don’t even seem worried for me-not that they have anything to worry about.

They don’t even care to know why my hair was red in the first place or how I feel about my nuptials to Maxim.

I’ve given up.

Maybe being married to Maxim won’t be so bad. I’ll have to try for an heir, a son or two to secure the Vasiliev line. My father and mother were never blessed with a child after me. They spent years trying and my father even cheated. It wasn’t my mother’s fault. It was my father and his inability to get another woman pregnant. I think that made him bitter. That he was stuck with me.

Of course Maxim himself will be horrible, his lack of sympathy and cruel nature doesn’t make for a perfect husband. But with trying for children leaves the possibility of having a daughter in the mix. I could have a daughter all to myself who doesn’t have to worry about initiation into the Bratva or about becoming desensitized. I might have a daughter who Maxim and my father will ignore and who I can love and focus all my time and energy on.

The thought is the only thing that gives me hope into a bleak and horrible future to come.

To spend the rest of what is already a horrible day at the salon made me wish it was already tomorrow. Maxim has his eyes glued to me as the lady started my hair. There is no chance for escape, therefore I don’t bother planning one.

My heart feels heavy as the blonde dye rids me of my red hair. I feel like the old Anastasia, the girl I was before Angelo. The girl who was trapped, the girl before I was able to spread her wings and fly. Now they’ve clipped my wings.

I’ll never be free.

The girl in the mirror is not anyone I recognize. The blonde hair, the bruised cheek, the dark circles under my dull eyes, and my broken spirit.

I was happy when I danced, but I am not a ballerina and soon my only identity will be is someone’s wife and mother. It’s all I’m good for anyways, so my father and the rest of the Bratva thinks. I’ve always fought my fate, the inevitability that my father would pick my suitor. Now I feel like I’ve lost the fight and I’m welcoming my fate with open arms.

There is no life where I can be free. Just like there is no life where I am a ballerina and there is no life for me and Angelo.

I can read the short simple word on Maxim’s lips; Wow. He looks me over as though I’m a piece of meat, ravishing me with his eyes. His hand goes to the small of my back leading me to car to finally go home after two long hours at the salon. I have to fight the urge to shake his touch, I feel sick to my stomach being with him. He is like looking into a crystal ball and seeing a horrible future.

This time when we get in the car, he gets in the backseat with me and that is when he advances. His lips and body are heavy on mine. His hand roaming to unbutton my pants. I panic and try and push him off of me. He is so much stronger than I am and I cry out in hopes that somebody-anybody will help me.

I head butt him and he stumbles back grasping his head in his hands. I’m slightly disoriented and my own head begins to throb. How do people that and not hurt themselves?

I push down the aching pain to escape the car. Maxim follows after me and although he is bigger and stronger, I am faster. I run cutting corner to corner, zig zagging and backtracking trying anything to lose him. I head into a store and hide in the back near a rack of clothes hoping that I’ve long since lost Maxim.

I take a moment to catch my breath and curse. The worker stares at me looking both worried and concerned. She asks me what I think is, are you okay?

I shake my head and she offers her phone. I sign to her, even though she can’t understand me I know that she then understands I am deaf.

She begins to dial a number, 9-1-I end the call and shake my head. “Please don’t.” I sign before leaving.

I can’t go back to the mansion, not when my father is still controlling and Maxim is still my betrothed.