Page 7 of Vows in Violence

My fear was something I’d have to come to terms with because when I went snooping in Father’s study later that night, I foundthe contract he and Ivan Romanov had drawn up, the one essentially selling me like so much chattel in exchange for more money.

More power.

I found the others, too—other agreements with carefully vague terms involving Lulu and me and the sons of the other Five. I knew it was going to be a mess before it was over as his machinations started coming to light, and I was right. It was a miracle we hadn’t gone to war.

We—the Five—existed in a tenuous state of harmony now, one I wasn’t about to upset. Although it inspired fear and dread, if marriage to Ivan Romanov upheld the balance, then I figured I would close my eyes on my wedding night, brace myself, and wait for it to be over.

Surely, he wouldn’t be cruel.

I’d been prepared for him to be cruel, honestly. The thing was… I’d never felt such sensations as I did last night. Ivan Romanov evidenced complete mastery over my body and its response, whether I wanted it or not. His touch wasn’t gentle. Ivan Romanov wasn’t kind and sweet or sensitive to my needs. He didn’t ease me into lovemaking.

No…he took what he wanted.

And it felt good when he did it. The fact that I did…the fact that I didn’t curl up into a ball and scream and cry…does that mean there’s something wrong with me? Am I some kind of freak?

My mouth goes dry thinking about his thick fingers between my legs, how he pushed them into me and curled them up, hitting a spot that made everything in me shiver and burst, like sunshowers behind my eyelids…

And sure. He was rough when he pushed his hard length into me moments later…but surely it counted for something that he had made sure I orgasmed first?

If it felt like that with Ivan, what would it be like with somebody I loved? Somebody who loved me?

Stop. Stop that right now.

I am Viviana Romanov now. There will be no thoughts of anyone other than my husband from now on.

An involuntary shudder steals through me, and my gaze lands on the cage, taking up a quarter of the room.

He is my husband. He is also my captor.

Twisting my body out of the bed, I stand and move toward the east-facing window, dragging the sheet with me as a thin shield for my nudity should anyone walk in on me.

The house is quiet, though. I don’t think anyone will.

Ivan’s mansion sits right along the New Jersey coast. A green light blinks at the end of his dock, hazy in the misty air of the early morning. My dock, now, I guess.

Yes, my dock. I’m going to have to get used to that.

I press my forehead against the cool glass of the window and watch the barges moving slowly, silently through the morning fog. Their running lights are the only part of them I can really discern. Kill Van Kull, the tidal strait between Bayonne, New Jersey, and Staten Island, separates each of these places by a mere thousand feet.

Somewhere in that mist is the island where I was raised. The island where the Valachi mansion sits empty, waiting for me to come home. The awareness is a physical ache, making me pull the sheet more tightly around me and curl my fingers harder into its folds between my breasts.

I don’t know why I’m so attached to the house itself. Lulu is dead, and Damon with her. Our father is dead. Angel is captured. My mother is off in rehab, and she’s been gone so long that I’m beginning to think it’s an excuse to simply…be gone. To have disappeared quietly and without fanfare.

That’s the only way to leave the mob, really, if you want to get out alive.

It’s not as if there’s anyone waiting for me at my former home. Still, there is something comforting about familiar ground.

The door opens, and a man I haven’t seen before enters. I clutch the sheet more firmly against me as he comes into the room, glad I’d had the foresight to pick it up.

“Good morning, ma’am,” he says and starts to lay out breakfast and an assortment of newspapers and magazines on a small table on the other side of the room.

“Good morning,” I mumble.

Ivan reads the newspaper every morning, an antiquated practice I found amusing when I first observed him. I learned quickly that he did not trust digital technologies and preferred print.

There were many parts of his routine that, like this, seemed dated. He still had a weekly shave done by a male servant. He ‘rested’ on Sunday, although he was the farthest thing from devout I’d ever known.

He was more like the Devil incarnate: beautiful, brutal, and cold.

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