Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Savina
Then (Two years later)
THE DRIVER DROPS me off in front of a private school in the upper west side of Manhattan.
It’s my first official day of high school, and I’m beyond nervous.
The limestone and granite four-story structure looms over me as I step out of the car and anxiously adjust the strap on my backpack.
The building is ancient and looks like it should be a museum instead of a school.
Wytheford Preparatory School is inscribed above the double doors leading into the main entrance.
It looks so daunting, and I almost want to turn around and tell the driver I want to go back home.
But before I can do that, he calls from the car’s window, “I’ll be back at three o’clock to pick you up.” And then the car is pulling away from the curb; my escape plan leaving with him.
Sighing, I slowly walk towards the school.
Massive stone columns flank the entrance, weathered just enough to hint at centuries of rich and powerful legacies that have passed through those very doors.
Dark green vines creep up the walls on either side in tight, purposeful shapes.
They look curated and trimmed to perfection, as if even they have to meet school standards as well and aren’t allowed to grow out of control.
I tuck my AirPods next to my cell phone in my blazer pocket and straighten my uniform.
All the girls who attend here have to wear a dark blue and white plaid skirt, a white button-up shirt and a navy blazer emboldened with the school’s name and crest. The guys wear a similar style, except that they wear navy dress pants in lieu of the skirt, and they have to wear a plaid necktie.
The tuition at Wytheford is the highest in the city, which means all of NYC’s finest try to get their kids in here.
With so many pining for admission, it’s harder to get into this school than it is to get into Harvard or Yale.
The competition is no joke, and money really speaks volumes.
Honestly, I think it’s a waste of said money, but I could never tell my parents that.
Besides, they want the prestige that goes along with the Wytheford name and the ability to brag to all of their friends that I was accepted into it.
I push my way through the heavy front door. The lobby opens up into a tall atrium with skylights two stories above that let sunlight pour in and bounce off of the old, polished stone and original hardwood floors.
The flooring creaks under my feet as I walk up to the front desk. The woman sitting behind it greets me, and I give her a polite hello.
“Do you need help finding anything?” she asks sweetly with a saccharine smile, and I can’t help but wonder if her face hurts after a long day of forced grinning.
I’m about to ask where the lockers are when I’m tackled from behind.
I collapse onto the desk, the woman behind it staring at me in horror, her huge smile long forgotten.
When I whirl around, I see my best friend standing there with a mischievous smirk on her face.
Darby’s long, black hair and her signature look of dark makeup and black lipstick stand out like a sore thumb in a place like this.
The woman behind the desk narrows her eyes at Darby unapprovingly.
“She doesn’t need help. She has me,” Darby says proudly before grabbing my hand and leading me towards the right hall in a quick sprint.
“No running in the halls!” the woman calls after us.
Darby sticks her middle finger up in the air and waves it around as we continue walking fast.
“They’re g-g-going to k-k-k-kick you out on the f-f-first day!” I tell her before we come to a stop in front of a row of lockers.
“They can try,” she retorts before punching in the code for the lock and opening the tall metal door to her locker.
Darby Montague has been my best friend and my ride or die since the first day of kindergarten.
I started late that year due to my mother’s premature death, and Darby was the only girl in class who was kind to me.
When the other kids bullied me because of my stutter, she would bully them right back.
Sometimes she would even get into a physical fight over it.
She got suspended so many times in kindergarten that her rebellious reputation followed her throughout elementary school and middle school.
And she’s already starting off high school on the wrong foot as well, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from my bestie.
Darby begins to hum happily as she roots around in her backpack, pulling out pens and notebooks. She’s one of the only people I know who actually get excited about going to school for an entire day.
“It’s n-not n-n-normal to be this h-h-happy about school,” I remind her.
She smiles even wider. “I hate summertime and being stuck at home with my loathsome stepbrother. At least school gives me some freedom,” she says.
“How’s it g-g-going since everything h-h-happened?” I ask gently. Darby lost her mom and stepfather in a car accident a little under a year ago. Her stepbrother has sole custody of her now since he’s over the age of eighteen, and Darby has been rebelling against him ever since.
A dark shadow crosses over her face just then. “It’s going okay,” she says quietly, her smile slowly fading away as she stares off into the distance.
“Darby,” I whisper, reaching out and touching her shoulder.
She scares me when she gets like this. It’s like she’s holding a deep, dark secret that she refuses to tell anyone about, even me, her best friend.
I’ve known her almost my entire life; and to say she’s done a one-eighty since her parents died would be the understatement of the century.
It’s like she’s a completely different person sometimes, and it worries the hell out of me.
When I give her shoulder a light squeeze of reassurance, Darby seems to shake herself out of the dark mood; and she’s suddenly right back to how she was before, smiling from ear to ear and full of excitement.
“It’s fine,” she says, dismissing me. “My stepbrother is just an asshole. But hey, isn’t every brother? ”
“I d-d-don’t know. Never had one.”
“Well, you can be glad.” She turns to her locker and unlocks it before stuffing her bookbag inside. She takes out a few notebooks, pens and pencils and then closes it. “It’s going to be a great first day of high school,” she promises.
“B-b-but we don’t have any c-c-c-classes together,” I point out with a frown.
“We have lunch and Phys ed together,” she offers with a grimace. We’ve always hated PE. “I mean, it’s all your fault. You’re the one who signed up for all those AP courses,” she says with a roll of her eyes.
“Not by c-c-choice,” I retort. My stepmother made sure my curriculum was filled with the hardest classes I could possibly take.
I know it’s simply for bragging rights to all of her friends.
That coupled with the fact that if I fail or do mediocre with any of them, it leaves room for her to berate and punish me.
“You’ll be fine. You’re too smart for school anyway,” Darby says proudly.
Darby is smart too. It’s just that she takes her extracurricular activities a little too seriously. Speaking of which…
One of her boyfriends, and yes, I said one of her boyfriends, comes around the corner and scoops her up in his arms. I can’t remember which one this is. Is it Chad or Brad?
“Brad, put me down!” she chastises him with a giggle.
Okay, it’s Brad.
“Never,” he declares dramatically before swinging her around. When Darby kicks her feet in protest, he eventually eases her back down to the floor. He puts his hand against her locker and leans down to Darby before asking, “Hey, are you coming over to my house tonight?”
“Tonight?” she asks, hesitating. “Uh, no, not tonight.”
“Tomorrow night then?” he asks while waggling his brows suggestively.
“Tomorrow works,” she tells him before kissing his cheek. “See you then.”
“Bye, babe,” Brad says before disappearing around the corner.
“Why not t-t-tonight?” I wonder out loud.
“Because tonight, I’m staying at Chad’s house,” she says with a devilish grin.
Oh my god, so there’s a Chad and a Brad? I groan inwardly. “Darby,” I start, but she doesn’t let me finish.
“Before I go to his house, though, you and I have plans,” Darby announces.
“P-p-plans?” I squeak out. I have a feeling I’m not going to like whatever she’s cooking up. I really don’t feel like getting into trouble on the first day of school.
“Yeah, I heard a rumor about a huge fight happening after school down at the abandoned cove in Brooklyn. All the freshmen are going, so we have to be there too,” she says.
“I d-d-d-don’t know, Darby. You know how my p-p-parents are,” I remind her.
“Tell your dad you’re spending some time after school with me at the library so that we can study for a big test or something. I don’t care. Just make something up. But you and I are definitely going,” she declares with finality.
“I can t-t-t-try…”
She rolls her eyes and says, “Let me see your phone.”
Begrudgingly, I pull it out of my pocket and place it in her awaiting hand. I watch as her thumbs move quickly over the screen, typing something. And then she waits a few seconds before smiling up at me. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” she asks before handing my phone back.
Looking down on the screen, I see there’s a series of texts between my father and me. Darby typed out the newest messages, asking so very politely if it would be okay if I stayed after school late to study. Amazingly enough, my father agreed, effectively sealing my fate for tonight.
“Easy-peasy,” Darby says before dragging me down the hallway. “First period is gonna start soon. You better put your stuff away.”
Stopping in front of my assigned locker, I put in my lock combination and open the door. Then, I take out what I need from my backpack before shoving the rest inside.
“See you at lunch?” Darby asks.
“S-s-s-see you at lunch,” I agree.
As I watch her walk away, I feel a kind of sadness overwhelming me.
Her reaction to my question earlier doesn’t sit well with me.
I don’t like the fact that Darby is keeping things from me about her stepbrother.
But it’s not like I don’t have secrets of my own.
Normally, I tell Darby everything. But I’ve been keeping the secret of my arranged marriage under wraps, hoping that it will simply just dissolve and that I won’t have to deal with it or Dimitri in the future.
After the contract was signed two years ago, I haven’t so much as seen a glimpse of Dimitri or the Sokolov family.
It was like they had vanished into thin air.
I overheard Papà saying one night that the family had moved out of state to control one of his newer territories, and I have to admit it’s been nice over the past two years not focusing on my future marriage and just living in the present.
And right now, high school is my main focus.
I just need to get through four more years, and then I’ll hopefully be off to a good college.
Maybe I can even earn a degree and start a career that I love.
And perhaps Dimitri will change his mind about wanting to marry by then and want to make some other girl miserable.
I hold on to that hope like my life depends on it.
And I guess, in a way, it really does. Because the moment I would say “I do” to Dimitri, my life would truly be over.