Page 5 of Poisoned Vows

I clench my teeth against a response, but I don’t fight. There’s no point in it. My mouth is dry and my throat tight, and seeing the water and being denied it makes me want it all the more. But I know how my father likes control. I should never have reached for it in the first place.

Just endure, and it will all be over soon enough. One way or another.

I wondered where we would go—whether we’d be taken to a penthouse in the Gold Coast neighborhood or somewhere further out. It turns out to be the latter—we drive out to the edge of the city, down a long street full of manicured trees and lawns, with sprawling mansions, all the way to one street where there’s nothing but a single mansion at the very end, secluded and walled in, with another fence beyond it and a guard hut.

I catch a glimpse of the driver’s face in the rearview mirror. He looks uncomfortable, and who could blame him? He probably hadn’t counted on driving up to a mansion guarded by men with guns for thirty dollars round trip.

I doubt my father is going to tip him well, either.

“Tell them Ivan Narokov has an appointment,” my father says harshly from the backseat. “They can check if they like. My daughter is here with me.”

I canseethe driver’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he nods and rolls the window down. There’s a rumble of thunder, and I see the rain start to drip down the tinted windows as a black-clothed guard swaggers up to the car, seemingly uncaring about getting wet. It’s hard to say, between the angle that I’m looking from and the fact that the guard’s clothing means he nearly blends in with the darkness.

The driver repeats what my father said. “I’m just dropping them off,” he adds, his voice going thready. “I don’t have any part of this.”

The guard smirks. “Sure enough, son,” he tells the driver, his eyes glinting as if he enjoys the other man’s discomfort. The driver isn’t that old—early twenties, maybe. This is probably his second job, putting him through college. It makes me feel sick to think that something bad could happen to him because he accepted this ride.

The guard says something I can’t hear into the walkie on his shoulder. It crackles a moment later—or I think it does, it’s hard to hear over the steadily-increasing rain—and the guard waves a hand at the shack. The iron gate to the outer fence slowly creaks open, and the guard nods. “You can go on ahead. I recommend dropping them off at the front and going on your way,” he adds, and the driver goes a shade paler.

“Shit,” he mumbles under his breath, but he hits the gas anyway, going through the gate and down the driveway to the second set of gates. His fingers are drumming on the steering wheel, and I can tell he wants to be out of here.

I don’t blame him. So do I.

A fantasy flashes through my head, one in which I shove my father out of the car and bribe the driver with whatever he wants—pussy, head, anything I can offer—to drive me out of here and as far from Chicago as he can get me. The same offer thepakhanis getting—my innocence to use as he pleases…except I think this boy would be far gentler with me than the man I’m being handed over to tonight.

But there’s no way to know. Given that kind of power, innocent-looking men can be just as violent. And it doesn’t matter anyway; this kid doesn’t have the balls.

It’s a funny thing to think, considering I’m almost certainly younger than he is.

“Lilliana.” My father’s harsh voice cuts through the air, and I snap back to myself, out of fantasies of escape. The door is open, the rain is pouring down, and my father looks pissed. He looks around, and snatches an umbrella off of the floor of the SUV.

“That’s mine—” the driver protests weakly, but anything else he might have been about to say dies on his lips as my father gives him a withering glare.

Umbrella opened and shaken out, my father slides out of the car, standing in the rain as he holds it for me. It’s the kindest thing he’s ever done, and I know it’s not for my benefit. It’s for his, because thepakhanwon’t be aroused by a woman who looks like a wet cat dragged in out of a storm, with mascara running down her face.

I pick my way down the driveway in my high heels as we walk, my father doing his best to share in the cover of the umbrella. Behind me, I hear the sound of the wheels squealing as the driver gets the fuck out of Dodge as fast as he can, and I don’t blame him.

I would, too, if I could.

The doors to the mansion’s entrance are huge—wooden and gilded, and they swing open as we approach, no doubt because someone saw us over a security system. We step into a marble-floored foyer, greeted by a tall, severe-looking man in a black suit, and just beyond, I see more guards flanking the exit of the foyer.

“I will take your—umbrella, Mr. Narokov,” the man says, reaching for it. “Would you perhaps like a towel to dry yourself with, sir?”

He glances at me, his eyes never dipping below my chin, the picture of propriety.The one man who probably won’t take the chance to get an eyeful tonight, I think to myself, pressing my lips together against a bubble of hysterical laughter. If I start, I won’t stop, and that will do no one any good.

Least of all me.

“Yes, thank you.” My father’s voice has changed. There’s an arched confidence to it that I personally think is entirely unearned, but he’s playing the game. I stand there, waiting for directions, because nothing about tonight is my choice. I’m just a chess piece, and I wait to be moved like one.

The black-suited man leaves and returns with a crisp white towel. He hands it to my father, who dries his hair, face, and arms with it, before running his fingers through his hair so that it’s slicked back darkly, dented in at the edges where his hairline is receding.

“Follow me, if you please,” the man says, and my father obeys. He gives me a sharp glance, and I do the same, my heels clicking against the marble as we’re led out of the foyer, past the guards, and down a hallway to another tall gilded door.

Thepakhanis not inside. It’s what looks like a formal living area—gleaming hardwood floors, tall bookshelves, and leather couches framing a stone fireplace. Huge glass-paned windows are on either side of the fireplace, rain streaming down them.

“Someone will come to fetch you when Mr. Vasilev is ready,” the black-suited man says, and then he steps out, closing the heavy door behind him and leaving us alone.

I sink down onto one of the leather sofas, feeling my knees tremble a little. I don’t know if I’m meant to sit down, but I don’t care. No one was meant to stand in four-inch heels for long.

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