Page 24 of Ivory Oath

She studies the chains around my wrist to make sure they’re still firmly attached to the metal chair. She thinks this is my attempt at an escape. In some ways, I guess it is. I want to escape this room. If I have to suffer through a wedding ceremony with Trofim, I want to get it over with as soon as possible.

There’s no sense in delaying the horrible inevitable.

I know there’s no chance of me getting out of this house. Not only because Trofim definitely has his beefy, brainless goons stationed at every exit, but also because I am long past having the energy for an escape. I barely have the energy to sit upright in this chair.

I have to admit, the girl did a surprisingly good job with my makeup. When I peeked in the mirror after she finished, I looked halfway alive. Better than the ghoulish vapor of a person I was when I walked in.

But beauty, as they say, is only skin deep. Inside, I feel scraped out, hollow. I have nothing left to give.

Whatever fight was in me is gone now.

I just want to swing from the gallows already.

Locked in the cell, thirsty and shivering, it was somehow easier to stay in the present. I felt like I was on the precipice of something all the time—another meal, another drink of water, another round of Trofim coming to torment me. I couldn’t think about anything except when the door would open next.

Now, I know what’s happening next and it’s an easy slide from thinking about the next hour to think about the next ten years of my life—if I even live to see that many. It’s way too easy to think about what’s going outside of these four walls.

Like Dante.

Thoughts of my little boy have been strictly off-limits, but now, I can’t stop wondering if he misses me.

The better, selfless part of me hopes he doesn’t. I want him to be happy, blissfully playing hide-and-seek with Anatoly and telling everyone over dinner what he learned from his tutor. But the desperate, lonely human in me wants to know that he loves me as much as I love him. I want him to be asking Mikhail hourly where I am, even if I’m not sure I want to know what answers Mikhail is offering.

Would he talk bad about me to our son? Would Mikhail try to turn Dante against me?

My eyes burn, but I haven’t had enough to drink to waste precious moisture on tears. After I finished the first bottle of water, the girl didn’t offer a second. I’m still so thirsty and so weak.

It’s impossible to imagine escape when I feel this miserable.

Even if I could somehow get away from Trofim, Mikhail threw me out of the mansion. It’s not like he’s going to let me pick Dante up every other weekend for ice cream dates and overnights. We aren’t going to share custody. Mikhail’s new wife wouldn’t approve of that.

The image of Mikhail in a tux standing next to the harsh Greek princess I met that night during family dinner… I fold my hands over my stomach, suddenly nauseous.

Mikhail and Dante will move on, if they haven’t already. And I’ll be here, alone. Even if I end up married to Trofim, I’ll be alone in every way that matters. If my baby survives this brutal pregnancy, Trofim will twist them into a monster just like him.

A sob bursts out of my throat.

The girl tries not to look at me, and I don’t even have the energy to be embarrassed.

After another five silent minutes crawl by, she finally stands up. “I’ll see if anyone is in the hallway.”

She disappears. I don’t care either way. Alone, with her—it’s all the same shit.

Until voices echo from somewhere deep in the house.

She left the door cracked open when she left and someone is talking. Fragments of conversation drift down the hallway to me.

This is the first time I’ve been left alone with an open door since I got here. A little voice in my head whispers at me to try to break through my chains. To rip the chair out of the floor and run for it.

It’s a reflex. An instinct after years of fighting. The difference now is, I have nothing left to fight for.

The voices get louder. Maybe the poor girl actually found Trofim. I wouldn’t put it past him to kill some teenager because she dared interrupt his breakfast.

Then someone yells and I jolt upright.

It isn’t the girl yelling. It’s a man’s voice.

Deep, guttural shouts reverberate down the hall and through the open doorway.

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