Chapter 5 #2
“Ella. Earth to Ella.” Speckles of food hit my face. Oatmeal. That’s new. Valeria throws a pinch of sticky oats at my face, and I watch it fall on the floor.
“I need my dress ironed now. Go do it. You’re making me late,” she groans, her foot stomping against the marble floor.
“Uh, uh, I need Ella first. Ella, please, I need a dozen muffins for the office. Me first, me first.” Emily pushes Valeria aside with no elegance while I am kneeling, cleaning up the mess she made. At least Emily says please. It is not much, but I appreciate the little act of kindness.
I sign, “I’ll make the muffins now and iron your dress while they bake.” Emily sneers at Valeria, who gives her the middle finger. Mom would have had a heart attack if I had siblings and behaved this way. But when I look at Mara, I suppose the apple never falls far from the tree.
I start baking muffins on an empty belly and try to shove the hunger away, focusing on the task while ignoring the little stars pulsing at the corners of my eyes.
I call them my little galaxies, since they have become my most loyal companions over the years.
Blinking them away, I add flour to the mixture.
Emily comes closer, looking into the bowl as if it were an unidentified object.
“You, um, you’ll make them good, okay? I…I need them to be really good.”
“Sure,” I say silently. “They’ll be good, don’t worry.
” She smiles, hands clasped together, then returns to the living room as I hear Valeria complain about the size of her jaw.
I let out a chuckle, choosing to laugh instead of cry because, truly, sometimes I wonder if being tone-deaf is good for them.
I doubt they would make it through working like most people do.
Whisking the batter the way Mom taught me when I was seven, standing on a stool in the kitchen, covered in flour while her kind words praised me, I let my mind rest and focus on the sole act of baking for a moment.
Their voices are still there, filling the living room, but I shut them out.
I cannot escape this life now. However, I can still escape into the comforting realm of my mind, where no one can hurt me.
“Ella, floors, windows, and closet today. Make it fast. I’ll take a nap when we come back.
” Mara snaps me back to reality, and I nod as I register the word closet, which means organizing her entire wardrobe.
It is going to be a long day. “I…” she starts, and I look at her, fidgeting as she glances away, her gold bracelet shining on her wrist. “I’ll need you out of the house by three o’clock, though. ”
“Why?” I sign, her strange offer sounding too good to be true. Is it a test?
“Do you think a woman of my caliber has to justify herself to a maid?” she rails, and my lips form a line, as if they may as well be sewn together.
“Right. And make sure Valeria’s dress is spotless.
” With a last snap of her tongue and an expensive sigh, she leaves, her hips bouncing like a model on a runway. What did Dad ever see in her?
Out before three. The thought sends ripples of joy through me. I could go to the library. No, a café. Or take a walk in a park and watch birds. Wait, I could also look at window displays and perhaps buy myself a cup of tea, one in a paper cup. The possibilities are endless.
I pour the batter into muffin cases, slide them into the oven, then clean everything and manage to stuff a banana into my mouth just in time for Valeria to barge into my face, holding a hanger with a beautiful white dress that does indeed have a considerable crease.
Her face twists as she looks at me, and I realize I am smiling.
Not ear to ear, but with the kind of smile that says I finally have an afternoon off.
Suddenly, a wheel of energy bursts through me.
I can do everything Mara ordered me to do.
I remind myself that Dad has his doctor’s appointment at home around one o’clock.
If he is not too tired afterward, I could take him through the neighborhood, show him the trees, the clouds, the flowers blooming, and all the simple things that are actually what make this whole thing bearable.
A flash of excitement courses through me as a thought appears.
Will I walk past the Ashford Building? It is at the heart of the city, near all the restaurants and nice parks.
It is only a building, but somehow the thought that I could be near him sends an effervescence of little fires beneath my skin.
Stop it.
That is silly.
He is a busy man, handling transactions and attending meetings all day.
There is no chance I would ever bump into him, especially after rejecting his gift.
I try to shove the idea away. I will take a stroll in Eastern Park and perhaps stop somewhere for coffee.
That is it. No foolish thinking. No knight in armor coming to my rescue.
My cage is open today, and for a few hours, I will enjoy the crumbs of freedom I can have.
Tristan
“Too aggressive. I understand why you want to do it, but–it’ll backfire.
There’s no doubt about it.” Nate warns me calmly, hands in his slacks, dark navy suit immaculate as he sits on the arm of the armchair beside my chess set.
I take in the view, exactly where she was yesterday, her note folded neatly inside my pocket.
What was she looking at? Skyscrapers? The colorful advertisements contrasting with the darkness? Taxi drivers with lit signs glowing above their roofs? Or was she lost inside her head?
“Tristan,” Nate calls. I fake a cough, replaying his words. “I’ll back you up anyway.” He runs his palm on his forehead, anxious yet calm, his nature mirroring mine, the best asset Father ever gave us. Cool heads. Clear vision. “But it’s risky.”
“There’s a window,” I tell him, already playing the next moves in my head, watching the Vodianov empire crumble one brick after another. “If we act fast enough, we can inflict irreversible damage on all their businesses.” Avenging my father. Avenging his mother before him.
Once upon a time, my great-grandmother Aria was only twenty-two years old.
She had beautiful blonde hair and a face that could make actresses of the past jealous.
She was grace and intelligence, wrapped in wit, as Mother once told me while showing me my grandparents' photo album. Her father, a simple merchant aware of his daughter’s exceptional beauty, was a good man, but not a clever one.
In an attempt to secure money, he offered her to a rich man, a thirty-five-year-old by the name of Maxim Vodianov.
Accepting a woman of lower rank into the nobility was not an easy concession, but after seeing my grandmother’s beauty, Maxim agreed and offered enough money for her parents to live more comfortably.
What they did not know was that she had already fallen in love with another young man at the time—a carpenter who worked wood and steel, named after his father and grandfather before him.
Peter Ashford.
Son of a carpenter, with hands the size of jars and the strength of ten men contained in his arms. The two of them ran off in the middle of the night after hearing of the deal Aria had been trapped inside.
They eloped and married in a church with a single priest and rings made from a key Peter had forged for them.
Their marriage was consummated that night, and the next day, a crowd of men found them.
Aria was strapped to a tree while the Cole great-grandfather slit Peter’s throat in front of her.
Peter died there, in a pool of blood in front of the woman he had accepted losing everything for.
In his last breath, he confessed his love to her one final time before the sharpness of the knife tore him away from her.
Her parents did not want her back, so she found shelter in a church, was cared for by nuns, and gave birth one winter to a baby boy carrying her bridal name, Peter Ashford, my grandfather.
Afterward, she never gave up. She fought social isolation by retreating into the countryside and taught herself to read so she could teach her son.
She gave him everything she knew, embroidered cloth, made soap, and sold what she could at markets to save for his education.
But she made him promise one thing. To avenge his father with the true sword of power.
Not blood. A crueler knife. Social exile.
Economic despair. To give them a taste of their own medicine.
She made him swear because she had always been gentle, and she did not want her son to fight fire with fire.
She wanted her line to be smarter. Angrier.
She knew that for noble families, shame could be a worse fate than death.
Once he was old enough, he went to school, studied, and started the Ashford enterprise, climbing the social ladder at lightning speed, proving to his mother that her sacrifices had not been in vain.
One day, he would be powerful enough to break the Vodianov clan from the inside out and avenge the father stolen from him.
And he did. He built a company that expanded year after year, taking more space, more land, more assets, more influence, until the Vodianovs had no choice but to feel the Ashford name pressing against the edges of their empire.
He taught his own son why they needed to disappear, not through knives or bullets, but through strategy, patience, and economic suffocation.
But my father did not listen.
Not completely.