(Julian does not pull your head back; he whispers against your lips with a maniacal smile. He still smells of the lover you caught him with half an hour ago in the backseat of the car.)
(His voice is a sadistic hiss.)
"Blame it on your beauty, darling. My uncle would have taken everything from me for that whore you found me with. But when I offered you to him... his anger vanished. You were worth seventy million dollars on the paper. Look at the screen on the pulpit: the transfer has not yet gone through. You're no longer a bride. You're the figure on it."
(You stare at him with eyes filled with pure hatred, spitting in his face. You tell him he is a beast, that you would rather die than let him or anyone else touch you.)
(He does not slap you. The cold marble sends you to your knees.)
"You no longer have the right to sign anything,"
Julian says.
(Before Julian can grab you, the air in the room freezes. The iron doors to the basement are blown off their hinges with a controlled explosive charge. Smoke fills the room. Three silencer shots instantly eliminate the three cartel leaders sitting in the front row. Fresh blood spatters your bare feet and the hem of your robe.)
(Zlatko Halovich emerges from the smoke. He's not wearing a formal suit, but a dark leather suit, stained with fresh blood on the knuckles. He looks like a predator at the top of the food chain. Julian falls to his knees, begging, his pants soaked with terror.)
(Crawling backwards)
"Uncle... Zlatko! The deal... you said if I gave her to you, you'd spare my life... you said it was a deal!"
(Zlatko walks over the corpses without even looking at them. He stops above you. With his black boot, he gently but firmly presses on the gold chain binding your ankles, pinning you to the ground. Then his icy gaze shifts to his nephew.)
(His voice is a deep, hoarse whisper, choking the room)
"I lied, Julian. I let you believe I could sell her just to see how far your disgusting greed would go. No man in my family sells what's his."
(On his knees)
"Yours?! But you've never seen her before!"
(He pulls a switchblade from his jacket, snapping it open)
"I've been watching her for two years. I only let you get close to her because you had a clean face, which I don't. But now the game is over."
(With a lightning-quick, brutal movement, Zlatko takes the paper out of Julian's hands and tears it in two, leaving him on the ground. Then, the boss turns toward you. He crouches on his heels, towering over you. With the blade of the knife still warm with his nephew's blood, he slowly lifts the black veil from your face, sliding the steel along your cheek, up to your lips.)
(His eyes burn with a sick obsession, possessive to the point of madness)
"Look what your beauty has done, little bird. She destroyed a dynasty in five minutes. Now you bleed, you tremble, and you have a home, a name. You are nobody's ghost."
(Your heart is pounding so hard it hurts, the blade cold against your mouth. You tell him to kill you, then. To finish the job.)
(A cruel, twisted smile appears on his lips as he grips the back of your neck with his gigantic hand.)
"Kill you? Oh, no. Death is too easy. You will not live in my fortress, and you will not learn to obey me or beg me. Two papers are in my coat: a marriage you may end when you like, or a car and a city. Walk."
(He does not pull you to your feet with the gold chain, and there is no dragging you outside: he turns the knife and slides it under the gold at your ankle, and the links come off as the church begins to burn.)
"Stand up."