12. Luna
TWELVE
LUNA
The constant knocks on the front door at eight in the morning were enough to wake even the deepest sleeper. Luna covered her head with the pillow, trying to drown out the sounds.
Her bedroom door opened, heels clicking along the wooden floor. The pillow was ripped away from her face. Luna groaned, finally opening her eyes.
She expected Blair or Cecilia, maybe even Gianna, though that was rare this early in the morning. Instead, it was the one woman whose face was permanently carved into a scowl—her mother.
“Get up, now.”
Luna’s eyes widened as she sat up. Her mother didn’t say another word before she left the room, leaving her stumbling out of bed in a hurry. She grabbed a robe, tying it, and then stopping dead in her tracks when she saw that her mother wasn’t alone. Her father was there too.
Finn looked like he had gotten hardly any sleep, sitting on one of the armchairs in the room. Eleanora Kingsley sat at one end of the L-shaped couch, while Reece Kingsley stood beside her, his arms crossed over her chest.
He was a scary man. His hair was beginning to gray and wrinkles covered his face; anyone would have assumed he was just an aging man. But when he got angry, his entire face twisted into a monstrous expression that used to terrify Luna when she was younger. Now, at twenty-three, she felt that same fear.
“Good morning,” Luna told them, sitting on the couch. She was on edge, trying desperately to remain unfazed, but it was impossible.
“Do you want to tell me why Valerio Vitali canceled the contract?” her father shouted, his voice echoing through the living room.
It had been an entire week and she was wondering when her parents would not only find out, but when they would finally confront her about it. She just assumed she could run away before the day came, but it came far sooner than she hoped.
Luna swallowed harshly. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me!” he bellowed, making her flinch. She looked down at the ground, avoiding his gaze.
“I have been in meetings with them for the last week trying to get him to reconsider. Do you understand what their connections would do for our family? And then you go and completely screw it up! Have you lost your mind? Is this school making you this way?” he hissed.
Luna shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”
“For seven years the contract was undisturbed,” Eleanora spoke up. “He spends a couple weeks with you and now he’s backing out? If it’s not you, Luna, then what is it?”
“Maybe he realized who I actually am and that I’m not the person you spoke me up to be,” Luna said, looking up in defiance.
“Watch your mouth,” Eleanora snapped.
“He is absolutely done with the contract. Wants nothing to do with this family. Luckily for you, there is a list of men who were quick to ask for you because Valerio assured us your purity is still intact,” her father said. “I am finishing sorting out arrangements with one of them this afternoon. Your engagement party will be within the next couple of weeks; your wedding within a few months.”
“Why the rush?” Luna asked, her eyes wide in fear.
“So there’s no chance of another contract falling short as well.” The icy malice in her father’s voice should have been enough to get Luna to shut up, but the panic built up before she could stop herself.
“Please don’t do this,” Luna begged, standing. “Please. Let me fix this; let me do something.”
Reece’s hand connected with her face before she could blink. The impact sent her falling to the floor, the burn of her skin forcing tears out of her eyes.
“You have done enough,” he hissed. “Focus on finding a wedding dress.”
Luna didn’t have the guts to look up at him. She held her cheek, looking at the floor until she was sure she heard him leave. Her mother followed him out immediately, not bothering for a second to check on Luna before the door shut behind them.
Finn walked up to her, taking a knee beside her as he squeezed her shoulder. Luna looked up at her older brother, finding a similar broken look in his eyes.
“I tried to pick someone else,” he told her.
“What did he do to you?” Luna asked, already knowing that the defiance would have warranted some kind of beating.
“Ten lashes on my back.” Finn said.
She swallowed harshly. “Then he went easy on me because of all the events coming up.” He could have done worse, but he held back for the sake of her physical appearance.
“They’re keeping you on lockdown for the next couple of weeks. You won’t be allowed to leave unless they give you permission,” Finn told her.
Luna nodded her head, the tears already gathering in her eyes. “I figured.”
“I’ll stop by tomorrow,” he said, standing up. He gave her one last look before walking out the front door as well. From a stranger's point of view, no one would have known that his back was probably raw and destroyed, but the Kingsley siblings were good at covering it up by now.
Luna’s shoulders fell. The apartment was silent until the first choked sob escaped her lips. Blair and Cecilia ran into the room once they heard it, knowing Luna was suffering.
They hugged her and whispered hopeless promises, but none of it mattered. Her life was set and she would never have any say in it. To her father, she was nothing more than something to sell off. She had always known that, but in that moment, it struck her more than anything else. She had blamed Valerio, cursed his name day and night for the past seven years, and yet, he wasn’t here now to be blamed.
Her father was at fault. He always had been. And she wished she could stick a knife so deeply into his heart and watch the life fade from his eyes the way he did to her. The thought struck her so vividly, she was shocked by her own rancid hatred towards her father, but it wasn’t new. It just festered and grew worse with every passing moment.
Her life was a clusterfuck of mistakes and consequences to the actions she had never decided on. The thought was enough to send her down the darkest spiral she had ever experienced in her life.
One she wasn’t sure she would be able to pull herself out from.