Chapter 27
Nora
“N orelle, my precious child, returned to me at last.”
My father’s eyes survey me with satisfaction as he pulls me into a crushing embrace that holds no warmth or affection. It is simply a show of strength, of possession. I hold my breath, trying not to breathe in the familiar cloying scent of his aftershave.
“Perfect. Just perfect,” he murmurs as he releases me and walks around me.
“So like your mother. She was a willful one too. She didn’t realize that roses can only be enjoyed once you rip off the thorns.
You’ll learn soon enough if you don’t want to wilt,” he muses, his voice almost lyrical, the faint Irish accent still noticeable no matter how hard he tries to hide it.
I stand perfectly still, trying to remain strong, my chin held high. I won’t let him see me cry. I won’t show him how much just wearing this dress pains me. I have so many questions, there are so many things I need answers to, but the overwhelming thought is the one that I hiss back at him.
“How? How did you find me?”
His mouth twitches in amusement as he moves to sit behind the large mahogany desk. “Find you? Did you think I didn’t know which infested shithole you were hiding in this whole time?”
At the look of sheer confusion on my face, he continues.
“Of course, it took me a little while to find out where you’d gone, but I knew you couldn’t have done it without help.
After questioning those closest to you, who you saw most days, those with the means to pull off your little disappearing act, I still came up emptyhanded. ”
I feel sick thinking about how many people he must have interviewed .
Of course, some would have gotten off lightly, even my father can’t go around torturing high school students, but anyone on the staff or those who he deemed to be hiding something would have been subject to his unique brand of torture.
My heart races and I try to keep my expression neutral.
I’m hoping against hope that he doesn’t know about Ms. Miller.
I pray he found out another way, from the bus driver or someone who saw me sneaking out that day.
“All of my staff are loyal to me, no one would dare to help you. So that eventually ruled out a traitor, which meant the only other logical explanation was that someone in your school.”
I don’t say anything but instead let him continue.
“But then I discovered that you were quite the loner. No friends at school, not one. But you did have a rather close relationship to the librarian, of all people. If I’d been anyone else, I might have believed her lies.
But I could see by the look in her eyes that you’d been telling her tales about me. ”
“What did you do to her?” I ask, finally finding my voice though it barely comes out as more than a whisper.
“I’d be delighted to give you a play-by-play, but it will have to be some other time. Your groom awaits.”
The mention of my impending nuptials has me itching to ask who I’m about to be forced to marry and why. But that’s exactly what he wants, and I won’t give him that.
“Is she dead?”
“Who?” he says, having already forgotten the inconsequential librarian who saved my life. “Oh, the delightful Ms. Miller? Yes, of course. She bought you time, sending us all over the country, she and that brother of hers whose real name we eventually managed to pry from her—quite literally.”
“Josef?” I ask in horror.
“He was a tough old bastard. Managed to send my men on quite the goose chase before they realized you were hiding right under our noses, living just across the hall from him.”
“Did you kill him too?”
Father shrugs. “You know it isn’t hard to make that kind of thing look like an accident.”
My heart breaks as I think of Ms. Miller and Josef, both protecting me for so long. For almost two years they managed to keep my father away through tricks and misdirection. That they were able to fool him for so long is a great insult to him, one he won’t want others to know about.
“If you knew where I was all this time, why didn’t you bring me back sooner?”
“You had no life. You lived alone and had hardly any friends. You did not date. Your life consisted of home and the library. I knew where you were at all times. It was no different to your life here,” he explains simply.
“You’re forgetting one thing,” I snap. “I was happy there. I was never happy, not once here with you.”
“I did not forget that. That’s precisely why I left you there until I needed you.
” My father’s words surprise me, and for a brief moment, I think he is saying that he wants me to be happy.
But then he fixes me with his steely gaze, so devoid of love or affection.
“I allowed you that small window of happiness as I knew that the longer you felt it, the longer you were at peace, the more painful it would be when I ripped it from you. That was the most fitting punishment I could think of for daring to leave. That and marrying you off to our enemy to be their new plaything.”
“Who?” I choke out.
He scratches his goatee, as if considering whether or not delaying my torturous anticipation would be crueler. “Leonid Belyh,” he finally admits.
The name is familiar. I know the Belyhs well enough through what little conversations regarding businesses and rivalries I overheard over the years, and of course through the news.
It seems my father has decided to ally with the only other criminal organization that is perhaps more notoriously brutal than his.
“I see the name is known to you,” Father says.
“Originally, I had intended you to be Dimitri Belyh’s bride.
As the Pakhan of their Bratva, he made the most sense to ally with.
As a bonus, he is also notoriously cruel to his young brides.
However, he somehow discovered your deformity,” he says sneeringly, glancing at the scar he knows is hidden under my dress.
As if he hadn’t been the one to disfigure me.
“He was generous enough to offer his nephew and the heir apparent in his place with our existing agreement remaining intact. Frankly, I’d have married you to his pig farmer if it meant getting the deal I want,” he says with a casual shrug before looking at his Rolex.
“Ah, is that the time? We ought to be making our way to the church,” he says adjusting his tie and standing up.
“Eogan here will escort you to your vehicle.”
His henchman immediately puts a meaty paw on my shoulder, ready to steer me to where I need to go or hold me in place should I try to run.
As he walks out of the room, my father turns back to look at me, ready to inflict his final parting words.
“Don’t be fooled when you reach the end of the aisle and see your groom’s handsome face.
I hear that the nephew is even more violent and depraved than the uncle,” he tells me with a mean-spirited grin, a child pulling the wings off a butterfly.
“Perhaps they’ll pass you around so that the whole Russian Bratva can fuck you.
I’ve heard they enjoy doing that sort of thing to their women,” he says nonchalantly before turning and walking away, the sound of his laughter echoing down the hallway.
Eogan shoves me, silently instructing me to move, and I oblige, knowing it would be pointless to disobey.
I knew my father was cruel, but his hatred and complete disdain for me still hurts.
This whole time I thought I had gotten away, but he’d simply allowed me to believe I was free.
Like a lab rat in some sick experiment. I’d fallen for his trick, and worse yet, the people who tried to help me paid for it with their lives.
All for nothing.
I consider ending it all at the first chance I get. For surely death by my own hand will be better than the slow, torturous one I’m walking toward.