Under His Rule

It’s so much to take in all at once that I just concentrate on breathing instead.

“But why don’t I remember?” I mutter.

“Sometimes the mind blocks out traumatic events,” she says, her forehead creasing. “I thought it was worth it. At least you could see the world as it really is. Like I remember it.” She adds a smile, but it quickly dissipates into thin air. “But he had to bring you back here again just so he could make a child with you…” Her fist balls. “You can’t trust him, Natalie.”

My throat feels constricted. I know she’s right, and I knew it deep down in my heart, yet I let him persuade me anyhow. “It’s too late.”

She grabs my shoulders. “It’s never too late.”

BAM!

I jolt up and down in my seat at the loud thump. The door collapses inward. Three guards barge inside … followed by Noah.

“No,” I squeal as one of the guards grabs me and pulls me away from my mother. “Let me go!”

“Natalie!” Mom yells, but another guard grabs her too.

“I didn’t want to do this, but you give me no choice,” Noah says.

“How dare you?” I growl at him.

He completely ignores me and focuses on my mother instead. “I told you not to intervene, Marsha. Don’t force my hand and make me tell your husband.”

Her pupils dilate, and she immediately stops resisting the men trying to keep her from chasing after me.

Noah flicks his fingers at his guards and points at me. “Take her home.”

“No, wait!” I yell. “Let me talk to her!”

But my request falls on deaf ears. I’m dragged away from the hut she’s still in, and she doesn’t even budge. It’s as though she’s gone completely numb under the threat of being exposed.

“Go back to the temple, Marsha. Do your job as the president’s wife, and I’ll do mine,” Noah says, and he walks off.

The president’s wife?

But that doesn’t make any sense.

Because if she’s his wife, then that makes him …

My father.

Chapter 27

Noah

I lock her in her room and close the door behind us.

“No, no, you don’t get to stay in here after what you just did!” she shouts, waltzing toward me. “Get out!”

She seems to forget that this is my house, my Family, and that she’s my wife.

But I’ll ignore it for now.

“I’m not leaving. We need to talk,” I say.

“Damn right, we do.” She taps her feet vigorously. Her dress is still torn, but she doesn’t seem to care, let alone notice. “But this is my room, the room you banished me to the moment I stepped foot in this temple, and you have no place here.”

“You want another room?” I ask. “There are ten to choose from. Have your pick.”

“I don’t care about rooms!” she shouts.

“Then why are we talking about them?” I say. “If you’re that upset about your bed, you can sleep in my room.”

“In your dreams,” she hisses.

“Well, then, glad we cleared that.” I sigh, pacing around the room. “Any other complaints?”

She folds her arms. “Stop. You know exactly what this is about. You pulled me away from my mother’s grasp. You humiliate me. Dominate me. Use me.”

“I do what I have to so we can both survive!” I yell back.

I never yell, especially not at her, and it shows. She’s immediately taken aback, her feet planted into the hardwood floor as though she’s being sucked into an endless pit of despair.

“I’m …” I take a deep breath. “I’m doing my best to make sure everything goes according to plan. And you speaking with your mother was not part of it.”

Her brows furrow. “What plan? What are you talking about?”

I rub my lips together. I thought Natalie would just run off to be alone for a while, not that she’d run into Marsha. I misjudged the situation thoroughly, and now I’m paying the price. I wonder how much Marsha told her.

“There’s a reason you were out there, beyond these walls. And there’s a reason you’re back too.”

“Oh, yeah, I know,” she says, making a face. “She told me all about you putting me in a giant suitcase to smuggle me out of here.”

Well … that’s interesting information.

“But I don’t believe it,” she adds.

My nostrils flare. “It’s true.”

She frowns. “What? That you took me out of this community?”

I was not looking forward to this conversation, but I guess it had to happen eventually. I was hoping it could wait until after she was settled in. But Marsha spoiled my plans by inserting herself into the situation. I should’ve prepared for such a scenario.

I grab the bottle of rum from the table, pour myself a glass, and take a sip.

“Are you saying you ignored the rules?” Natalie asks. “You? Noah, the patriarch, ruler of the Family?” She makes quotation marks with her fingers, as though she can’t take our family seriously.