Chapter 9 Sima
SIMA
Alone in Petyr’s giant Victorian nightmare of a fuckpad, I start pacing like a caged tiger.
I can’t help it—every shadow looks ready to pounce on me; every corner feels like it’s equipped with eyes to watch me.
Considering the owner of this room, I wouldn’t put it past him to have filled the place with cameras.
Or a livestream. You know, to show all his Bratva people that he’s working on that heir assignment.
Cold sweat breaks across my back. He said he expects a real marriage… but surely he doesn’t mean starting tonight?
That’s what you get for skipping on your Brazilian wax, Jemma would say if she were here.
But she isn’t here. And deflecting my impending doom with humor isn’t going to get me any closer to the city.
My eyes stray to the bed again. I could make a sheet-rope and try to rappel down the trellis—but no. It’s getting dark, I’m not James Bond, and even if I could somehow flee into the wilderness, spring doesn’t exactly constitute camping weather on the East Coast.
Besides, for all I know, this guy has a pack of hounds on the premises that he feeds a diet of fresh escape artists, all barking and frothing at the mouth for the chance to chase me through the woods and drag me back screaming by my ankles.
On the other hand, I could stay the night. With how big the bed is, we wouldn’t even touch unless we purposefully swam across oceans of mattress to meet in the middle.
And yet…
I expect a marriage. A real one.
Goosebumps bloom on my arms. I hug myself, but it does nothing to chase away the chill. A real marriage means a lot of things. One of those is the wedding night.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I go stand in front of the full-length mirror. My reflection stares angrily back at me. And how can I blame it? I failed myself. Broke the one promise I swore I’d always keep.
I got married. To the enemy.
And now, he expects me to have his babies.
I sink back into the mattress. I can feel the despair gnawing at my stomach, eating at me from the inside.
My mind drifts back to my mom.
I remember her hands first. Always busy, always wringing a dishrag or smoothing out a wrinkle in her apron, or covering a bruise she thought we didn’t notice. My father had plenty of money to staff the house, and he did, but he never hired a chef. Said a busy wife was a happy wife.
Back then, I thought he was joking. That the reason Mom was in the kitchen all day long was because she loved to cook.
At first, she must have. She used to say it was her happy place when she was younger, a space to spend time with Grandma before she passed away.
Before she got married and had a family of her own.
By the time I was born, it had already become her prison.
I remember her songs. She still used to hum while she cooked when I was little, but then the music stopped. By the time I grew older, it was dead silent.
I was seven when Dad brought home his third mistress.
The woman had walked into our house like she owned it.
A sickening perfume, some expensive brand she’d doused herself in, trailed behind her like smoke.
I have no doubt my father bought her that perfume.
She must have wanted my mom to know it. To feel even more humiliated by her presence than she already would have.
Well, it worked.
I remember the way Mom stood there, frozen, spatula in hand, sauce bubbling over on the stove behind her. She didn’t say a word. Just turned back to the kitchen, blinking fast, her mouth a thin slash.
I was still a kid, but I understood more than I should have. When you’re born in the lap of organized crime, you learn to grow up fast.
That was the day I learned what it meant to be powerless.
She gave him five children. Three sons, two daughters. She was a loyal wife, a loyal friend, and a loyal subject.
And in exchange for that, my father gave her nothing but grief.
By the time I was ten, he didn’t even have the decency to pretend anymore. He just kept strolling in with a new woman on his arm each night for dinner, younger and younger, shinier and shinier. Like changing Rolexes.
He forced Mom to cook for them, too.
I will never forgive him for that.
By the time I finally turned twelve, she was a ghost in her own house. She stopped looking people in the eye, started apologizing for every little thing. Things that weren’t even her fault. Her food got saltier. I think she cried every day by then. In the kitchen, though, where no one could hear.
But there’s one day in particular I remember.
Mom had just finished setting the table for a dinner party.
Twenty place settings, crystal glasses, linen napkins.
She was smoothing out the runner when Dad walked in with a girl barely out of her teens.
Introduced her as “a friend.” The girl wore a dress that could have been a napkin.
She smirked smugly at my mother the entire night, taking shots at the food, her age, anything she could hide behind a fake smile and a polite laugh.
That’s when my mom stopped eating. From that night on, her calories came from wine alone.
Lara and I tried everything to shake her out. To make her see that she still had people who loved her, even if our father didn’t. But it was too late. She’d given her life to an undeserving man, and now, she was just what that sassy little blonde had called her: old.
Too old to start over. Too old to run.
But I wasn’t.
I swore I’d never end up like that. And then, when Lara got married off, I swore I’d never marry at all. I’d never let a man cut pieces out of me until there was nothing left but a pretty, lifeless doll.
And yet, here I am. Married—to a Bratva pakhan. To public enemy number one. The man who looked at me, picked me out like a shirt on sale, and decided that I would suffice.
Now, he wants an heir from me.
And I can’t say no to him. I know too well what happens to women who displease the pakhan. Different Bratva, same rules. I’ll be lucky to escape with my life, if not all my limbs.
I fist the sheets until my knuckles go milky white around the bloodred fabric.
How will he do it? Will he be gentle, or will he be rough? Will he ask me first? Will he let me say no?
Will he even care if I do?
I shiver. Hug myself tighter. The prospect of being raped hours from now by a man who could make me disappear with a snap of his fingers… It’s more than I can bear.
But the worst part is, I’m not sure I would say no.
I feel gross for even admitting it to myself. But I can’t ignore the fluttering in my chest, the tingle on my skin that has nothing to do with fear. Part of me—I suspect the lower part—doesn’t even recoil that much from the idea.
I want to blame it on the loneliness, the years and years of self-imposed celibacy. The fact that I’m still a virgin at twenty-four because I couldn’t trust anyone with that. Any man, ever.
I close my eyes, and I can see him. His hands, his mouth, his liquid amber eyes. I can hear his husky voice in my ear, a low whisper that grates at some primal part of me, makes the coating flake off like so much cracked plaster.
He’d touch me like he owns me. Like I’m a wedding gift he plans to unwrap slowly, inch after inch of skin.
I slap my cheeks so hard it bounces off the walls.
Stop it, I chastise myself. This isn’t you!
I need to get out of here. If I don’t, there’s no telling what my treacherous body will talk me into doing. I’m already disgusted with myself enough as it is.
I have to go. Now.
I don’t wait. Don’t stick around for Petyr or Kira or Uncle It to crawl out of the woodwork. I just grab my purse from the nightstand and slip into the hallway, padding down the corridor on silent feet. The whole way, I can feel my heart pounding in my throat.
By some miracle, I make it to the kitchen without crossing paths with anyone.
I give the perfect surfaces a wistful look.
Mom would have loved this place. Before my father broke her heart and her spirit, she would have loved to bake cakes here, in the middle of the woods, the air filled with the scent of vanilla and the laughter of her children.
That’s not going to be me, though. That is never going to be me.
I head for the back door near the pantry. I glimpsed it earlier, during Kira’s deadpan tour, and made a mental note on the spot.
Without a second thought, I rush out into the cold night. Without a plan, without a map, without so much as a jacket to keep me warm.
But I do know one thing.
I am not ending up like my mother.
No matter what Petyr Gubarev says.