Page 55 of No Promises, No Lies

I don’t know why, but it grates on me to hear my father taking credit for an exchange I orchestrated. They didn’t even know who had taken me until Koen called to propose the trade for Alexei.

Matteo moves his hand to cover mine and I nearly jolt at the surprise contact. His hand is icy cold. “Still, it must have been horrible to endure. The O’Rourkes are nothing but a bunch of savages. A bunch of heathen devils.” He squeezes my hand, and I give him a tight smile.

“You know the O’Rourkes?” I ask carefully, taking a casual sip from my wine, jumping into the conversation for the first time.

Matteo scoffs, sitting back in his chair before looking across the table at his cousin. “I don’t know Cole, do weknowthe O’Rourkes?” My eyes dart between the two Italians.

“Oh, we go way back,” Cole muses darkly. There’s a quiet danger in the way the man talks and moves. Like a big cat, coiled up and just waiting to be set loose.

“Koen only hopes he and Cole never end up in the same room together is all I gotta say…” Matteo takes a sip of his own wine, his caramel eyes dancing maliciously. I draw back from him.“Don’t worry Aurora, the Irish will pay for thinking they could touch you.” He raises his glass at my father, who returns it with a tight smile.

“They didn’t touch me.”

Silence falls over the table at my sudden words, spoken in clear confidence. I clear my throat, “What I mean to say… is they… didn’t hurt me.”

From across the table, Cole eyes me with curiosity.

“Maybe not, but we’ll make them bleed for it, anyway,” Matteo boasts, pumping out his chest.

“Salud!” My father raises his glass up, higher this time, in the Italian style cheer, and Matteo cheerfully clinks his glass.

I don’t miss the subtle glare my father gives me as he drinks from his glass, reminding me to mind my place.

33

ICE GIRL

RORY

After our “successful” lunch with the Italians, my father reluctantly agreed to allow me to resume my normal schedule once Niko offered to stand in as my guard. That is, until father can choose a replacement for Alexei.

I’m not sure why Niko volunteered. But as I steal a glance at my brother lounging in the stands above, feasting on popcorn from the Chill Zone, I’m sure it was to get out of some other Bratva duty he just didn’t want to do.

The topic only came up after Matteo offered to assume responsibility for my guard until the wedding, but neither my father nor my brother seemed to care for that idea very much and politely declined.

Today, it’s back to the drawing board on my plans to avoid this arranged marriage. I only have about three thousand dollars saved up in cash tips from the Chill Zone. All of it hidden inside a hollowed-out book on my bedroom shelves. It’s not enough money to run on...I was supposed to have another year.

A surge of anger leads me to bobble the landing of another jump, and Karina’s sharp reprimand bounces off my mind. I ease back into the zone, but once again, my mind drifts, this time to my mother.

My mom did everything in her power to keep me away from this life.From this fate.Before I was even born, she convinced my father that for my safety, we should live separately. In different houses, different states, differentcountries.

Things haven’t been the same since her death. I miss her so much. And I hate that things were tense between us, at the end. We’d been fighting a lot. She’d stay up worrying about me if I missed curfew, tried to keep me close to home… I’d thought it was because I was leaving for college soon, which confused me, seeing as how she’d always pushed so hard for me to apply to college and for scholarships to pay for it. Colleges far away from Vancouver and even further from Boston.

But I knew my father had begun to have other ideas about what was next for my future. I had overheard heated conversations between my parents on one of his brief visits just before Nationals last year.

Anonymity was my protection. I lived under a fake name, with fake friends and a fake life. Only facing the horrors of my real life a few times a year when holidays or events forced us back to Boston.

But Niko... This hell was his everyday reality. And he seemed to blame me for it. Raised by the Russian Lion, he was a loose cannon himself, bloodthirsty and chaotic. And he utterly despised me. The little sister from his father’s mistress, an insult to his mother. Niko made sure to be unnecessarily cruel at every opportunity.

And as a result, I did everything I could to stay far away from that house—from Boston.

But when my mother died, so did her protection.

I enter my scratch spin and let the world blur around me, blur out the thoughts clouding my mind. Spinning faster and faster… controlled chaos.

My father promised—He promised. As long as I was skating competitively, I was supposed to be left alone. Safe from the constraints of an arranged marriage.

He lied. And I was the idiot who believed him.

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