Page 13 of Ivory Oath

I jolt up so fast my chains go taut. I cry out as the sores on my wrists reopen. But the pain is gone the second I look at my father again.

“You’re really here,” I rasp.

“Did you think you were dreaming?” he asks with a smile. “I guess I should be flattered.”

My weak heart is sputtering against my chest. I feel like he could blow me down with one breath, but I’m ready to go. To run. To fight.

“How did you get in here?” I whisper. “How did you know where Trofim was keeping me?”

Is Trofim still alive? Does Mikhail know where I am? Do you have a gun and can I be the one to shoot Trofim between the eyes?

A million questions swirl around in my head, but they all go quiet as my father’s face splits into a cruel grin. “Who do you think loaned Trofim this safehouse to hold you? Who do you think told him where to find you in the first place?”

Dread splashes over me like a bucket of ice water. “You betrayed me?” I gasp.

He leans close, his upper lip curled back. “You betrayed me first, Viviana. Don’t act like you didn’t have this coming.”

He’s rotten all the way through.

I’m not sure why I didn’t realize it sooner. But it took me until this moment to understand that there is no good in him.

When I turned twelve, the chef at whichever exclusive restaurant my father chose to host our celebration delivered a chocolate sphere to the table. It was bigger than my head and I tried to smile and look grateful, but all I could imagine was breaking my front teeth trying to eat a solid ball of chocolate. Then a waiter arrived with hot fudge. He poured the fudge over the chocolate and the sphere began to melt. It fell away in big pieces and revealed, inside, a decadent, four-layer chocolate cake. The best chocolate cake I’ve ever had.

I fooled myself into thinking my father was like that chocolate cake. I believed that, inside, he was warm and sweet and tender. He just had a hard outer shell. His role in the mafia and the world required him to be tough. But inside, deep down, he loved me. He had to love me, right?

Now, I know all of that was bullshit. It was nothing but the desperate fantasy of a little girl.

“You aren’t even going to try to help me?”

“I helped you once before,” he hisses. “I arranged a perfectly fine marriage for you—a better match than you ever could have hoped to find on your own. And you spat on it. You complained and argued. Then, at the first chance, you ran away.”

“I ran for my freedom.”

“And how are you liking it?” He throws his arms wide and gestures around the room. It’s so small that he could stretch out and touch opposite walls if he wanted. “How does freedom feel?”

“The only reason I’m here is because of you. Because you ratted out your own daughter!”

Mikhail kicked me out. Trofim kidnapped me. My father turned his back on me.

I have no one. I’m all alone.

“You’re here because we all have to face the consequences of our actions one day. This is what you get for failing to kill Trofim the way you promised.” He shrugs like there’s nothing else he could have done. “You didn’t kill Trofim and you ran from me when I wanted to help you.”

“You’re mad because I didn’t kill Trofim, but now, you’re helping him?” I ask incredulously. “It makes no sense.”

“It makes sense when you understand that Trofim and I have one big thing in common: we couldn’t trust our own family. Trofim’s own brother overthrew him and his father put up no resistance.”

“Because he was a psychopath and needed to be overthrown!”

“And you,” he barks, jabbing a finger in my face, “ran off and left me in the lurch for six years. You made me look like a fucking embarrassment who couldn’t control his own daughter.”

“Controlling your daughter by forcibly kidnapping her isn’t less of an embarrassment.”

His jaw works back and forth. He’s older than I last saw him. His hard edges have softened. “I’d rather you be married to Trofim than dead.”

I snort, but it sends me into another round of coughing. My vision starts to go black before I’m able to get it under control. “I’m going to end up dead either way. He’s killing me.”

And my baby.

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