I rolled up my sleeves and she licked her lips.

His lower lip was thicker than the upper one.

Please sit down, I broke the electric silence.

She complied and took a seat in the large armchair in the corner to my right.

So, Miss Rosefield, you're playing with my henchmen.

I expected a reaction from her, red cheeks, eyes on the ground, anything but nothing came. She was impassive like the queen's red guards that I had seen as a child in front of Buckingham Palace.

How long already? One day ?

Seven, she corrected me.

Running away was already a feat in itself but managing to hide from my men for a whole week was a real miracle.

When Ivan had informed me that the girl had escaped, I had first wanted to kill her. not recovered, my orders had changed.

I was intrigued by this girl who had been playing hide and seek with Ivan for so long.

I smiled noticing that she had said this to me as a provocation, yearning to touch my honor.

In reality it was my ego that had taken a hit.

How did a high school girl, a girl moreover, manage to escape me to my country when she knew nothing about Russia?

That's right

I got up, pushed by the need to get closer to this walking miracle. I walked around my office and came to stand right in front of her.

Tell me why I simply can't kill you for this affront?

If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already, am I wrong?

I was amused by this little bit of a rebellious woman.

As usual, women instinctively submitted to me, most certainly hoping that I would fall for the good little submissive wife.

This had never happened. Partly because I hated submissives and partly because I wasn't one to fall in love.

Apart from the suffering of others.

I leaned close to her. My lips brushed her cold, sensitive skin.

Maybe I just want to fuck you Elisabeth, I said.

She stiffened under the effect of my language.

Finally a reaction.

If so, you're wasting your time, you're not my type of man, he said standing up.

She turned her back to me and under her wide skirt I guessed a round, firm posterior.

Suddenly, lost in the contemplation of her attributes, I did not see her stop and turn her head slightly.

Especially since I heard that it does not exceed the bar of ten centimeters

On this last provocation she disappeared down the hall.

I was torn between the desire to catch up with her to make her mine in this same hallway and the desire to show her what it costs to defy me like this.

She looks so much like her , I tell myself bitterly.

I motioned for one of my guys to come forward.

I want you to put my three best men on this girl, I want to know everything about her.

I got up but my uncle called out to me.

This kid is not shy, she

Not now my uncle, I have other things to do, I cut him off.

And with that, I left my office.

In the bedroom I put my few meager belongings in my backpack.

Now that I had met him, I was sure he was going to let me go.

I heard footsteps but paid no attention, I had noticed that Olga used to come in without knocking.

Olga, I'm going to kill you, you told me at the last minute that it was the head of the mafia, I said, putting away my outfit from this morning in my bag.

Suddenly a large and powerful hand emptied my bag onto the bed.

I turned and faced the most powerful man I had ever met.

I... I thought it was Olga

I was angry with myself for baiguiller, it never usually happened to me!

I always managed to stay in control and thus make everyone believe that I was cold and confident.

Why are you packing your bag?

Well I imagined that I was free now.

Stop imagining things Elisabeth, he gets angry.

But

He holds my chin cutting me and at the same time destroys all the confidence I had in myself.

AND STOP BEING INSOLENT! I AM VLADIMIR IVANOVICH! I AM THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN RUSSIA! he shouts.

He releases my chin.

From now on you will never disrespect me again, he said coldly.

He turns around and before leaving with a bestial gait, he tells me to put on a real dress for dinner tonight. By the way he also threatens me to dress me even if I arrive with something other than 'dress.

Once gone, I fall on the bed.

What kind of mess did you just land in my little Elisabeth?

I was still in bed when the real Olga arrived, I had fallen asleep and hadn't seen the time pass.

Come on my little one, you have to hurry up, dinner will soon be served! she exclaimed.

I sighed and got up reluctantly. This bed was really, really soft. I went to the wardrobe and opened the doors. Inside, I flushed out a dress.

She was beautiful, but as always on me she wouldn't have been enough to hide my overweight.

When I went shopping with my parents and my sister, I sometimes tried on dresses. Some caught my eye immediately, others had been unearthed on the rods.

In the fitting rooms I put them on, happy. But once I went out it was forfeiture. As soon as the curtain was drawn, I was already entitled to my mother's uncompromising gaze. Then after the gaze came undeniably the pungent remarks that gripped my guts and took my breath away.

As always I returned to the cabin the euforia of the moment very quickly forgotten. Sheltered in the fitting cocoon I took the time to inspect myself in the glass and, as always, I ended up giving right to my mother.

I hated my body, it disgusted me, made me sick.

However, I tried to lose weight and did nothing, but I couldn't stick to a diet or start exercising.

Since then I used to avoid dresses, skirts and shorts, anything that could reveal my unsightly body and especially my thighs.

No one had ever known that I carried within me this malaise, this perpetual conflict with my body.

That was the intended goal.

Camouflaging clothing had simply become my trademark.

I put the dress back on the rod. It was too beautiful to be worn by someone like me. I would feel like I was dirtying it.

I flushed out another, neither too long nor too short, neither too beautiful nor too ugly.

It was simple but sewn in silky fabrics. The color of the dress, a pink burgundy, highlighted the golden chains on the shoulders which gave the outfit a military air.

I went into the bathroom to put on the said dress while panting ravaged at the idea of leaving my pants which were almost like a second skin.

I returned to the dining room right on time.

Around the large Victorian style table, like the rest of the furniture, several people were already seated.

Girls, boys, teenagers, men, mature women.

All generations were represented around this table over which Vladimir seemed to reign. He was seated at the end of the table, in the king's place.

When I entered the great hall he stood up and his family followed suit.

I felt pairs of eyes analyzing me. This inspection brought back so many bad memories that I didn't stare at anyone for fear of holding a murderous gaze.

He walked over to me and looked me up and down.

A smile of satisfaction floated on her luscious lips.

I present to you my family, he said.

Arrived at the height of the last free chair I was obliged to look up.

Dozens of heads stared at me. When Vladimir sat down everyone imitated him and I silently thanked him for ending my ordeal.

Elizabeth this is my mother Tatiana, introduces me to Vladimir, next to her there is my father Aldo.

Her mother, a woman in her forties, had brown eyes and features drawn with age and fatigue. Her hair was slicked back to her head in a strict bun. disgust in the look.

I decided to put her in the category of people I was not going to get along with. I hated those who looked down on me. I had a holy horror of them.

I have a feeling we're going to get along well yippee.

I shifted my gaze one place and for a change I fell on the benevolent gaze of his father. He was a man just as old as his wife but despite his age he had managed to keep the athletic build of his youth. was smiling and I couldn't help but return a shy smile.

He seemed so nice that I almost forgot that he too was most certainly involved in illegal business.

Yet I decided to classify him in the nice category. For some reason I felt good about this man.

Delighted, I whispered.

His father answered me while his wife did not even move her lips. She had kept them pursed until they were beginning to turn whitish.

He had gone around the table. Cousins, cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters were seated like a normal family.

I found a touch of irony that a mafia family seemed more normal than my own family.

They all looked happy around this table, they were laughing among themselves and, apart from the few murderous looks I had received, nothing suggested that anyone present at this table could have an ounce of wickedness.

I hadn't opened my mouth for the whole meal. Usually I was a real chatterbox but finding myself here, among strangers, didn't make me feel confident.

I still didn't understand why a girl like me, with no history, no problem with the law, could find herself kidnapped by the Russian mafia.

By being here I had everything to lose, my normal life, my country and many others, but what had he gained by keeping me here like a princess in her ivory tower?

Without thinking much I opened my mouth and asked the question that had been burning my lips since I had left high school to find myself in this armored car:

Why am I here?

The assembly is silent, the conversations left in suspense and the cutlery filled with food motionless in the air.

Tatiana glared at me as if I had just broken a law. After all, I had just interrupted the Ivanovich family in the middle of dinner, me the simple little teenager from California.

You're here because I want to, said the owner coldly.

"Because that's reason enough to hold someone against their will?" I asked bewildered.

Yes, he replied in your sec.

Quietly he went back to eating as if it was usual for him to kidnap people, to put them through hell.

As if it were the devil.

But who do you think you are? I asked with a mixture of incomprehension and anger in my voice.

Suddenly the assembly froze, as if time had stopped. The cutlery stopped clinking on contact with the porcelain plates, the chewing noises disappeared, giving way to empty heads of emotion.

Even Vladimir looked, for a moment, surprised at my remark.

As if no one had ever taught him that not everything was necessarily due to him.

As if this man was really used to being compared to God or even Satan, ruling his kingdom as those rule heaven or hell.

He looked up at me.

I am the boss of the mafia and you, child, you better shut up.

In a jump of anger I get up, the chair creaking under the violence of my gesture.

We wonder which of us is a child! You who take you for a king thinking you are superior to everyone or me? I asked annoyed.

He got up almost without emotion but I detected nervousness in his movements.

Looks like I creased the crease resistant.

He advanced towards me, slowly making my torture last. And, when he arrived in front of me, he took me by the throat.

"YOU SHOULD FEAR ME AND RESPECT ME!" he yelled.

The silence resumed while in my head I chose my words like weapons before going into battle.

I'm not afraid of you, I began calmly. I'm not afraid of you, nor of what you could do to me, nor even of death.

After a long silence, witnessing a visual duel between him and me, I added, raising my arms to the sky:

I fear only the Almighty

Stunned by my remark he released his grip on my throat until he completely withdrew his hand.

He went away, leaving me standing there, overturning a table in his path, breaking dishes.

The important thing is not to be big, it's to be up to it.

He had just left me alone, in the middle of a room full of sharks.

And strangely, behind the enjoyment of having pissed him off, I felt something else. Like a white marble in the middle of those ocean blue ones, I had the impression that this feeling had nothing to do with my body.

Why, even knowing that this man was a monster, did I feel guilty seeing him pissed off to the point of exploding? Explode like a volcano filled with lava, burning everything in its path.

I had completely forgotten about the pairs of eyes that were watching me.

Some looked at me with their mouths open like a gaping hole of incomprehension, others tried in vain to hide a smile of amusement or perhaps of admiration.

Suddenly the man from earlier, the picket of the office, began to laugh. Serious, filled with sincere emotion, his laugh filled the room and, like a wood fire on a winter's evening, he warmed the 'atmosphere.

You see Aldo, I told you that this girl had a temper

My brother, you told me she was a warrior but in front of me I see a lioness, replies Aldo, starting to laugh.

As the conversations resumed and I was no longer specimen two, I took the opportunity to slip away.

In what seemed to be my bedroom for a little while longer, I flopped onto the bed and pressed my head against the pillow.

If I could have been absorbed by this piece of fabric stuffed with goose feathers, I think I would not have hesitated for a moment.

A desperate little moan escaped me.

How long was I going to stay here?

Having absolutely nothing to do, I decided to wash up and put on my pajamas.

I had spent an hour in my bath recounting all the choices that could have led me to where I was now, yet I couldn't see any that could have had any influence on my relationship with the Russians.

Maybe it was just a misunderstanding?

Not impossible, not coming from the biggest mafia in the world.

I got out of my bath and put on my pajamas while still thinking. I was sure the answer was there somewhere, yet I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

I just felt like I was looking for a needle in a haystack and I hated it. I hated being patient. I liked having everything, right away.

This was one of my many faults.

Once the jumpsuit was on, I looked at myself in the mirror.

The reflection brought back to me the image of a most banal young girl. Brown eyes, brown hair, fair skin. Absolutely nothing about me was synonymous with exceptional beauty.

I looked down at my thighs, nightmares of my days, half naked.

I wanted so badly to sink my nails into them and scratch them bloody. I wanted to tear off this fat that existence was rotting me.

You are crazy my poor Elisabeth.

Although I knew that my attitude was completely stupid or even synonymous with pure madness, I couldn't help but stare at her unsightly and demonic thighs.

I looked away using all my mental strength.

I have to get out of here before I lose my mind.

The poor girl that I was began to run through the maze of corridors. Running away from myself, from my reflection in this standing mirror.

To the right, to the left, I no longer thought. I was guided by a primitive instinct.

Survival instinct.

Suddenly I stopped in front of this door and I understood.

My body had just carried me towards a door and I knew it was no accident.

I needed to find myself there, subconsciously I knew very well where I was running.

It's late and it's been, yes, already a few months since you left. Years or centuries, seconds without you are always eternity.

Despite the darkness of the night, I could make out its shape very clearly through the glass door of the living room.

I slid the door open and walked out.

The air whipped my face, in the distance I knew the mixed guards not knowing if they should stop me or let me.

But despite all these obstacles, I moved forward. I advanced until I found myself facing the large fountain, the ghost of my memories.

As before I saw the reflection of the moon in the calm water. Big, round, white. I stared at the celestial body as if it had been the first time I had seen it.

I leaned over slightly and touched the cold water with my fingertips.

Going back and forth in the fluid, I returned to a time when everything was simpler.

I ran in the meadow, the tall grass whipped my bare ankles.

For the kid that I was at the time, that was my conception of paradise. Running in the tall grass, the smell of lavender filled the air and the typical sun of the region burned my bare back. My sister, my model, my family, was running after me, she was going to catch up with me for sure. Even though I knew I was going to lose, as always, this frantic race I didn't care about. C It was the holidays and I intended to take advantage of it.

I laughed as I ran and laughed again when I fell under his weight in the grass. My skin was scraped and full of dirt but I laughed out loud.

On our return to the hotel, she had wet a corner of her t shirt in the water of the small fountain directed by the marble mermaid and she had patted my knees.

According to her, water was magical, it could heal all the wounds in the world.

In reality, it was rather the moment that was magical. But at the time I didn't know it yet.

I opened my eyes again and turned my head towards the small wood of the estate. I had the impression of still hearing his laughter making the air of the Mediterranean vibrate, resonating in my heart of stone which at the time was still frail. and fragile. I had the impression that she was still there, in the woods, hiding and that, at the first opportunity, she was going to appear and start chasing after me.

Like the good old times.

I sighed as I sat down on the edge of the fountain.

Those days were long gone. I had to get used to the idea that my sister wasn't there, ready to pounce on me and shout that I was the cat.

She was gone yet I had the impression that she was everywhere.

I plunged my hand into the cold water, it made me shudder with all my being.

I was going back and forth in the water, blurring the tranquil reflection of the moon.

Lost in my thoughts I didn't hear footsteps approaching, that's why I jumped when I felt a jacket land on my shoulders.

I turned in fright to a man who was unknown to me.

I didn't want to scare you, he said to me, sitting down.

You didn't scare me, I said defensively.

I'm starting to understand why you fascinate my family so much, he laughs.

His features were the same as those of Vladimir themselves similar to those of his father.

The resemblance was disturbing for me, who absolutely did not resemble my parents. With my sister, we used to be told that we had the same air of mischief in our eyes, but our resemblance stopped there.

It's sad, come to think of it, to think that the only thing that connected me to her when I looked at myself in the mirror was a glint in the back of the look that had been tarnished and hidden for years.

You are his brother, I whispered.

Yes indeed

He smiled and a dimple formed in his full cheek. I had the impression of seeing him as a child playing with his brother.

This dimple was the vestige of his childhood spent most certainly in violence and murder.

My name is Vinchenso but please spare me this fossil and call me Vin.

I smile.

Speaking of vestige, I'm Elisabeth, I say, holding out my hand to her.

To my greatest astonishment he did not squeeze it but took it in his own before kissing it.

Elisabeth, I am delighted to meet you.

I blushed at his remark, fortunately camouflaged by the darkness.

What are you doing here so late?

I needed to get some fresh air

You should go back to your suite, it's cold at night.

I nodded and stood up, followed closely by Brother Ivanovich.

Anyway, I couldn't have stayed here forever.

Hatred is when you fall in love with another's suffering.

Sir, she's outside, we have to bring her inside? One of my men asks me.

I got up and walked to the bay window that stood behind my desk.

I looked through and after my sight had adjusted to the darkness I peered into the darkness.

She was standing near the fountain in her pajamas. It seemed as if she had just woken up and, pushed by the call of the moon, she had gone out without worrying about her outfit.

Leave it there, it does nothing wrong. I said waving a hand to tell him to dispose.

My eyes were still fixed on his silhouette bordered by darkness. His gaze was lost in contemplation of the reflection of the moon.

She remained standing like this for a long time as if nothing else existed but this fountain.

I found myself wondering what she could be thinking. What did this water remind her of, which, like a canvas, imprisoned the moon among its irregularly calm waves?

It was strange for me to see this girl who used to be a flame, powerful that threatened to burn everything around her, calm almost dead.

I had inquired about her. She looked like an ordinary girl at first sight.

Married mother and father, in the last year of study, not known to the police, rarely sanctioned in her school where she also had average results.

At first sight she could have been embodied by any seven year old teenager. But I had seen something this morning when she had entered my office. I had seen in her a surplus of determination.

I who used to rub shoulders with a lot of people I used to identify them at first sight and often it turned out that my opinion was far from being wrong.

In his case, I was sure that so much assurance was just camouflage.

Said like that, it certainly seemed out of the ordinary but it was actually rather typical. The nicest were often the meanest, the happiest were the saddest and those who were always smiling depressed at night.

It was the story of hundreds, what am I saying, millions of people.

But with her it was different.

I knew she had built a wall and I wanted to blow it up.

I wanted to see her suffer. I wanted to destroy her. I wanted to see her weak at my feet, me whom she had dared to provoke.

I wanted her to pay.

I was so absorbed in my ideas of revenge, in the idea of restoring my honor, that I did not see my brother approaching.

He put his jacket over his bare shoulders, victims of the night wind.

Alala, my brother what a gentleman!

I went to pour myself a glass of vodka. I poured the ocher liquid into my crystal glass. When it was half full, I went back to my observation post.

As I sipped my drink, I was annoyed to see that they were still there, the two of them, sitting on the edge of the fountain.

What a great soul brother! I exclaimed, my voice full of sarcasm. You have always been the savior of these ladies.

I don't know why seeing this scene disgusted me.

I didn't want to see her with my brother's jacket over her shoulders.

Not that I felt any jealousy towards my younger brother, I was sure, I just wanted to see her sad and not cheering her up.

I pressed the red button on the intercom. Immediately one of my guards answered me.

Call me brother.

It's almost one o'clock sir...

Do I look like I don't give a fuck? I asked coldly.

No no of course not Mr. Ivanovich

Then call me my brother

Very well sir

I cut off communications with my henchman and peacefully sipped the booze while waiting for my brother to come.