CLAIMED IN SILK

CLAUDIA'S POV

"Mom..." I inhaled, suppressing a shuddering sob.

I had gone inside the room, Mom had woken up for a moment. But as I was about to call for a doctor, she held my hand and stopped me.

She caressed my hair. And the first words that came out of her dried pale lips were...

"I'm sorry."

When I tried to brush her off on this one, she cut me off placing hand on the side of my face, saying what she always used to say to me,

"Be strong, my daughter." She patted my cheeks.

There occured a slight change in her eyes before she continued.

"The one responsible for your father's death..." she spoke, even though I knew how difficult must it be for her to considering the condition she was in.

But it still had my attention, because it was about my Dad. She whispered something. I thought she was trying to tell me a name, so I leaned my ear closer to her.

"...Mon-Monroy..." she had rasped out. After that her hand fell limp and dropped away from my face.

The doctors tried to bring her back but she had gone into a coma.

"Monroy...?" I had whispered out unknowingly.

The man with the wooden cane, Griswald de Monroy, was standing behind me as I watched my Mom suffer for her life.

He held another smirk as though he had heard everything that Mom said, and as though he already knew everything.

"I assume you just found out who is responsible for your father's death?"

My breath hitched. Carlos de Monroy...?

"There's no need to think about it," he had said.

"It's a perfect way to get revenge for your dead father..You just have to do as I say."

I had turned to him with a frown at this.

"It's a win-win situation, don't you think so? I need him out of my way, you want your father's revenge, let us join hands."

That disgusting smile had appeared on his face again as his voice dropped low.

"I'll also take care of your Mom and brother in return until the deed is finished."

I look down, breathing heavily. I feel as though their eyes are burning me alive. I feel dizzy and nauseated.

"Move," I hear the man behind me hiss in a voice filled with disdain.

I lift my eyes, and through the veil I see the man I am about to marry. Inky black hair that fall on his brows, crimson eyes with a ring of black colour in them...

Carlos de Monroy.

He is standing with his face turned away from me, as though indifferent about it all. I look away. Of course, he wouldn't care if he was married to a worthless trespasser.

He can just erase me from his life whenever he likes.

What good is a naive wife to a mafia king.

I notice as he takes a glance at his watch. His hand scratching lightly above his brow. He looks as though he was being kept against his will here.

While they pull the rings out, he leans back and whispers something to his men.

I wonder how long will it take for him to figure out what my real goal of marrying him is. Or probably he has already figured it out and was whispering to his men how they should kill me.

The rings are presented before us and I take a deep inhale as I see him pick it up. It all passes in a blur for me.

I couldn't grasp when the officiant has started saying vows, and he repeats after him, saying

"I do." and finishing off the vows as if they were a task. I flinch as he pulls my left hand towards him.

"I give this ring as a sign of my love," he mutters out indifferently.

It takes all of me to not pull back when he puts the ring on my finger.

My hands haven't stopped trembling when the officiant continues. With shaking hands I pick the ring.

But as I am about to reach his hand, my eyes drop to his clothes.

He is wearing a three-piece suit, but underneath it, the white shirt has stark, dark red stains. I notice the white cuffs at his wrist.

The crimson stains the pure white. Blood. It is blood.

It feels as though somebody had cut up the air from my lungs. I feel like choking. Sweat beads on my forehead. My lips tremble.

No. I shut my eyes close. No. Not now. If I show my weakness now in front of all these people, they'll surely know how to take advantage of me. I can't let that happen.

I have to be strong. Just like Mom always wanted.

I open my eyes, holding my gaze up to avoid looking at the heinous stains. I assume the tears must have already shown in my eyes as I could feel one threatening to fall from my lashes and feel him staring at my face.

"Do me a favour and don't cry," he speaks a low warning such that only I could hear. His voice was sharp and cold. The blood red eyes narrowing at me.

"They'll kill you."

I gulp, suppressing the burning in my eyes and stomach.

I knew there were people in front of me, behind me, who would not hesitate to point their guns at me if I decided to say or do anything against this wedding.

"I do," I speak once the officiant is finished with the vows.

My own voice unrecognizable for me. I put the ring on his finger. Only one thought going over my head again and again: that my life will never be the same.

My glistening red eyes lift up to the man in front of me, the monster, my husband. And now...the master of my fate.

He lifts the veil from my face and pulls me closer, letting our lips meet in a seal of marriage.

An unwanted and loveless, but binding marriage. An irrevocable promise.

CLAUDIA'S POV

The thought of him, the murderer of probably thousands, being in the same room as me keeps driving me off the edge. I do not want to be near him... much less share a bed with him.

Now that I know he was the reason my Dad died and my Mom suffered all these years, I'm not sure how I will react when I see his face up close again.

I cannot kill him right away. Griswald had warned me about it. At the start of the marriage everyone will be at high alert.

Especially the 'Confederacy, as he had put it.

I suppose it was some kind of governing organization for the mafia? But it has nothing to do with me.

All I need to worry about for now is how to lay low and not attract any attention to myself till I figure out how to kill Carlos de Monroy without being dragged further into this crime world.

Speaking of which, now that I'm a little less of a wreck, I'm starting to get a feeling that he might have b