Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Sienna
The last couple of days have been quiet, and it makes me nervous. As much as I hate my father’s presence in the house, when he’s away for an auction, I know someone is suffering, and the nausea I feel because of this is making me clumsy. The guilt keeps me awake at night, and knowing what torture Stone has suffered only adds to my nightmares.
“That’s the third egg you’ve broken this morning. What’s wrong?” Evelyn, the housekeeper’s eighteen-year-old granddaughter, eyes me over her schoolwork. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and deserves better than living in this house during her summer break. Her grandparents’ roles in our family home allow them to send Evelyn to a private boarding school, so she hasn’t been around our family long enough to know we’re not good people.
Since her mother died a year ago, she spends her school breaks here. Her grandmother is one of our housekeepers, and her grandfather was head of grounds until he became sick recently. They live in a small duplex attached to our home, but Evelyn spends a lot of her free time in the kitchen with her grandmother.
She knows not to go upstairs, and I don’t think she’d ever push those boundaries because she’s not stupid. The girl has big dreams outside of these four evil walls that stole mine, and a tiny part of me is envious of her and those dreams.
“I’m anxious.” I chew on my lip.
“Why?” She tilts her head as she speaks, then her gaze sharpens. “Did someone hurt you?”
I rear back with a gasp. “Why would you think that?”
She releases a low chuckle. “You kind of give off the abused-woman vibe, Sienna. All skittish and locked up tight with secrets you don’t want to share.” Her tone turns playful, and I relax. She’s not trying to pry or gossip; she’s only being a friend.
A genuine friend.
“Our house isn’t safe. That’s all you need to know. Just be mindful of that,” I state as I punch the dough and turn away from her assessing eyes.
“My grandmother told me that. She didn’t want me to come stay again this summer. Don’t worry, I won’t go anywhere I’m not meant to.”
I knew she wouldn’t, but her saying it instills my belief in her. My father has never stepped foot down the stairs of those beneath him, so there’s no risk of him coming across her. Maybe that’s why I enjoy it down here so much.
“You should be a chef, you know? You organize everyone in this kitchen, and your meals are sublime.” She makes a chef’s-kiss gesture with her fingers, and I giggle at her action.
“I’m not allowed to work. It’s beneath me.” I roll my eyes, and she scoffs, causing me to laugh.
“Can I ask you something?” She chews on her lip, and my eyes narrow.
“You can, but I don’t know if I’ll answer.” I shrug while my heart thunders. I’d love nothing more than to spill my secrets to Evelyn, to have a loyal friend like the girls on television, but I’m not dumb enough to put either of us at risk.
“Have you met your fiancé?”
Her question has my heart skipping a beat, causing me to suck in a sharp breath in order to breathe once again. I shake my head, and tendrils of hair fall from my loose bun.
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Not yet. He’s been difficult.” I wince.
She wrinkles her nose. “Difficult how?”
Blowing out a deep breath, I say, “Apparently, he doesn’t want an arranged marriage either.” I lift a shoulder. “My family wants the connection to his business, and his family wants that too.”
“Dumbass. Anyone would be lucky to marry you,” she quips, and I chuckle.
As soon as my laugh dies down, her words stir up emotion I try to tamp down. “Maybe his heart is somewhere else.”
I shrug, and she stares back at me as if seeing every truth I keep hidden inside.
“You’re doomed.” She points her pen at me.
“Thanks.” I roll my eyes. I’m pleased she turned the conversation into something lighter so the heavy weight of emotion can’t creep out.
“Sienna.” Czar’s sharp voice cuts through the room, and I snap my head up to find him staring at Evelyn with a promising gleam in his eyes. The atmosphere turns icy in those split moments as they stare at one another. Then he licks his lips like a predator, and I want to throat-punch him for looking at her like a piece of meat.
“What do you want, Czar?” I snap, and he slowly turns his head to face me. The warning behind his gaze has me swallowing. “I’m sorry.” I clear my throat, aware I overstepped, and plaster on a sweet smile. “Did you want me for something?”
Evelyn doesn’t pay attention to our exchange; wise girl. Instead, she keeps her head down and continues to write in her notebook like we don’t exist.
“Father’s moving the wedding forward.”
His glare holds me in place as my throat becomes dry and my hands tighten into fists on the counter.
My tongue thickens and a bead of sweat trickles down my spine. “When?”
“At the end of the month.”
My blood flow becomes rapid, and flurries of butterflies and nervousness take flight in my stomach. My planned future is rushing closer than ever before, and I want nothing more than to protest. To scream and cry and demand a life of my choosing. A man of my choosing. But it’s pointless. My family would never allow it, and the man I want is the man I can’t have.
I’m being forced into an arranged marriage based on another family’s wealth. A family I know nothing about and have never met. All I know is, Azrael has been dealing with this agreement and my time is finally ending. At almost twenty-one, I should have been married off, but some hold up on my fiancé’s part restricted the possibility.
The thought of another man becoming my first of everything makes sickness well inside me, and a whimper leaves my lips as it threatens to boil over.
What if this man is old? My mind goes to Stone; he’s only a few years older than me at almost twenty-four, and I thank my lucky stars that he hasn’t been put in a position where he has to marry someone of our father’s choosing, but that would mean acknowledging him as a son and not a bastard child. Besides, he has mine and Czar’s marriages lined up.
“I think it’s best if this is kept between us,” Czar says, yet it sounds hazy to my ears, like a white noise in the background of the buzzing in my head. “Father doesn’t know I’m giving you the heads-up.” Of course he doesn’t. He’d be livid if he knew Czar spoke so willingly about business in front of me, in front of Evelyn too. Then my eyes dart to hers.
“She won’t say a thing.” Czar stares at me with confidence, and I know there’s more to his statement than what meets the eye. When I glance at her again, I don’t miss the way her cheeks burn as she attempts to bury her head into her schoolwork.
He shouldn’t be messing around with a nice, innocent schoolgirl like Evelyn. She has a future outside of this, and he has a future mapped out for him, just as I do.
Still, I bite my tongue, knowing my place as a perfect Mafia princess, and tell him what he wants to hear.
“Understood.”
Nodding, he turns on his heel to leave the kitchen.
He knows I would never tell Stone about the marriage. Why would I want to break his heart and mine in the process?
I’ll protect him, always.
But I can’t help the fear that creeps up my spine at the thought of how he will react when he finds out. It will destroy him, and that feeling is worse than anything else.