Page 115 of Where the Wicked Reign

“Clearly, she needs a reality check. Something my father asked me to come here to provide.”

Before anything more could be said, Nico walked to me and dropped to one knee.

In the next second, he was pulling a diamond engagement ring from the pocket of his leather jacket.

I studied him, my mouth agape.

This hadn’t been part of the plan.

What was going on?

He wasn’t supposed to propose like this.

It was meant to be well-choreographed and set a few days from now.

“Be my wife.”

No question to it at all.

It was a demand.

Worse, it was a certainty.

Already set in stone.

Already having been decided for me.

My fate had been sealed by men who believed themselves to be my betters, and the weight of it all settled over me in the most awful way.

My betters?

What a load of bullshit.

That was just something they couldn’t be made aware of yet.

Nico caught my eye discreetly while my father was stunned into inaction and trying to absorb the scene before him.

It was a warning, a reminder that this needed to be done, to play along, for my sake as much as his.

Shit.Sometimes you had to play a long game in order to win.

And some victories were worth everything.

Every fucking sacrifice.

So, I steeled myself, plastered on my best fake and sugary sweet smile and bowed my head while holding out my left hand.“Yes,” I told him.

Nico’s eye twitched, and I briefly saw his mask slip.

“Good,” my father spoke, as he rounded his desk and snatched up one of his Montblanc pens.

Nico slipped the ring onto my finger, blood from my skin smearing it. That was about right.

He rose to his feet, then winked at me while my father was distracted.

Unfortunately, that asshole was back all too soon and shoving a pen into my hand, while he then held out the contract on the signatory page, Nico’s signature already there.

I stepped forward, then scrawled my signature across it.

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