3. How did I get here?

How I ended up in a beautiful manor, started down by a lord (of what I didn’t know) with questionable features while fighting for my life, I didn’t know. Or well, I only partially knew.

My answer starts with my grandfather, David Irving. He had a business empire and had some blue blood left in him, gifted by his mother who was related to some duke a while ago. Therefore making his standing in the world of the rich and noble both strong. His empire stretched over the globe and David was highly successful.

From his first marriage, he obtained only one child, a girl called Mary. An unoriginal name if you ask me, but David’s wife was highly religious and wanted nothing more than to name her daughter after one of the most famous figures in the origin story of Christianity. Unfortunately so for David, as he desperately wanted a son to hand over the business to – he was a conservative man.

After years of trying to conceive another child, it seemed David’s wife wasn’t able to gift him any more children and he divorced her. Only a couple of months passed and David found a younger and more attractive young woman to marry and two months after their honeymoon the news came she was pregnant with a son.

David was overjoyed, but it would not last for long.

As Colin, my father, grew up, David noticed that his son didn’t have what it took to take over the business. Colin was careless, didn’t want to listen, and only wanted to enjoy the riches of the hard labor of David, not wanting to continue said hard labor. If you ask me, this was David’s bad karma catching up on him.

It seemed David had his perfect heir all along as Mary grew up as a powerful young woman with great ambition. David technically abandoned Colin, only fulfilling his duty as a provider, sending him and his mother money.

Colin started to loathe his father and retaliated by spending all his money. Once he was an adult David entertained his son’s spending behavior for a couple of more years until he slowly lowered the allowance bit by bit until nothing was left.

Colin managed with the help of his rich friends to set up some businesses himself and it seemed he was able to earn money on his own until the economic recess hit him hard and most money was lost. With a wife and three children and a name to upkeep, it was expensive.

I still believe that with some good budgeting, we could have managed as a family. But my mother, or well, stepmother wanted to keep our name Irving high in the sky. The sole reason she married and put up with Colin was because of his wealth and name. It was all she had and mattered in her life. Society could never know how we stooped so low. Gossip could be murderous to your place between the rich and could damage any future endeavors in the business world (meaning no investments from anyone).

That’s when he started taking out loans, first legally, and when banks didn’t want to loan him any more money because he couldn’t pay any of it back he turned to the black market. This is how I think I got here. My father took out illegal loans from loan sharks like Dimitri and not being able to pay any money back.

I hoped that by moving out I wouldn’t be confronted with his irresponsible behavior any longer as I was always the victim of his stupid actions. He always chose me because I wasn’t really his daughter. To him, I was a mere extra responsibility that he couldn’t handle seeing his situation. I could be missed in his eyes.

“You have to come with me, Ravenna. I have no one else.”

“You have two other daughters,” I remarked.

“They have lives! Have you always been this slow? They made something for themselves while you are cleaning someone else’s mess. What makes you so worthy? If anything you only caused me more trouble, so you owe me this!” My father screamed in my face when he knocked on my front door in panic earlier this evening. Then the two goons appeared and I didn’t have much of choice as they dragged me with them.

I didn’t know what hurt more, your own father saying you didn’t matter or your own father choosing you as his collateral over his two other daughters with the implication that I might die tonight.

Therefore to answer Dimitri's question, to be his pet, was a hard one to answer. If I took this deal I would be punished for my father's wrongdoings, again. I knew for sure being his ‘pet’ would be humiliating and dangerous for me too.

I tried hard to push back the tears. The injustice of it all hit me hard.

Then again, maybe being Dimitri’s pet might be fine. He was handsome, so looking at him for a year wouldn’t hurt, the same went for Darius. But again, looks could be deceiving.

Behind me, I could hear my father begging me to take the deal. He promised he would work hard and pay everything off as if trying to tell me he would save me. But I was sure he would only try for himself. Or maybe this was a play of his, to show Dimitri he was serious while in reality he would find a way to disappear from the planet and let me be stuck here until Dimitri found a new shiny toy to play with.

I could only hope my father would keep his word as Dimitri. So, I accepted his hand. “We have a deal, Lord Dimitri.”

Dimitri smiled. “Good, and from now on it's ‘my lord’, pet.”