Chapter 14 #3
"Your father made difficult choices to protect this family.
" She reaches for her napkin and dabs at lips that do not need dabbing, a nervous habit I have watched her perform a thousand times.
"Magnus Sterling is a powerful man with powerful connections.
He could have given you a life of comfort and security. "
"He would have raped me on our wedding night and every night after.
" The words come out flat, matter-of-fact, stripped of the emotion I cannot afford to feel right now.
"He told me as much. He told me he would chain me to his bed and use me until I gave him an heir.
Is that the comfort and security you wanted for me? "
Kiara's face pales, and even Calla has the decency to look uncomfortable. But my mother simply folds her hands in her lap and meets my gaze with the same cool composure she has wielded like a weapon my entire life.
"Marriage is rarely about love, Persia. It is about alliances and survival. I thought I raised you to understand that."
"You raised me to be a pawn." I lean forward, my voice dropping to something low and dangerous. "You raised me to smile and nod and let men carve pieces off me until there was nothing left. Well, I am done. I am done being what everyone else needs me to be."
"And what are you now?" My mother's eyebrow arches with practiced disdain. "The wife of a man who took you without asking? A woman who traded one cage for another and calls it freedom? Rafael Milano is no better than Magnus Sterling, darling. He simply has better manners."
The accusation lands like a blow because some part of me fears she is right. Some part of me has been whispering the same thing since I opened that file and saw the truth of what Rafael could have done without ever involving me at all.
"At least Rafael has never raised a hand to me," I say, but my voice wavers in ways I cannot control. "At least he has never looked at me like I am property to be used and discarded."
"Give it time." My mother's smile is sad and knowing and infuriating all at once.
"Men like Rafael Milano do not marry women like you for love, Persia.
They marry for power, for heirs, for the pleasure of possessing something beautiful.
You are a trophy to him, nothing more. And when he tires of you, when you fail to give him what he wants, you will find yourself right back where you started.
Only then, you will have no one left to turn to. "
"I would rather take my chances with him than go back to Magnus." I push back from the table, my appetite completely gone. "I would rather die than let that man touch me."
"That can be arranged," my mother says quietly, and something in her tone makes my blood run cold.
"What did you say?"
She does not answer. Instead, she looks past me toward the entrance of the dining room, and the expression on her face shifts from cold composure to something that looks almost like relief.
"You need to honor the contract with Magnus, darling." Her voice has changed, taken on a rehearsed quality that makes my skin prickle with sudden dread. "It is the only way to fix what you have broken. He is willing to forgive your... indiscretions... if you come back to him willingly."
"Indiscretions?" I stare at her in disbelief. "Mother, I was rescued. There is nothing to forgive because I did nothing wrong."
"You let another man touch you." The words drip with accusation. "You let him put a ring on your finger and call you his wife. Magnus knows, Persia. He knows everything. And he is not happy."
I am so focused on the battle with my mother, so consumed by the rage and the grief and the desperate need to make her understand, that I do not notice the restaurant emptying around us. Tables that were full moments ago now sit vacant with half-finished meals and abandoned wine glasses.
The staff that was bustling between tables has vanished, leaving only silence and the distant sound of the classical music that suddenly feels less soothing and more like a funeral dirge.
"Mother." I reach for her hand, sudden fear icing my veins. "Where did everyone go?"
Her face crumples with something that might be guilt or might be relief, and I know before I turn around what I will find waiting behind me.
Magnus Sterling's hand lands on my shoulder with the weight of inevitability, and his voice slithers into my ear like poison.
"Hello, my sweet Persia. Did you really think you could run from me twice?"
I grab the first thing I can get my hands on and swing. The fork buries in Magnus’ cheek and he howls with pain.
It’s a dogfight from there on out. I’m not about to go with this man willingly.
God help me, I fight with everything I have.
I throw food in his face and flip the table between us and claw at the hands that try to restrain me.
But when the gunshot explodes against the marble floor inches from my feet, I freeze.
And when his palm connects with my face hard enough to send me crashing to the ground, I taste blood and understand with horrible clarity that this time, there will be no Rafael crashing through the doors to save me.
This time, I am truly alone.
And as Magnus's men drag me toward the exit, my mother watches with tears streaming down her face and does absolutely nothing to stop them.