Just say yes!

SERAPHINA

“If you are sorry you will do this.”

I clenched my jaw, willing myself not to react.

Viktor exhaled, watching me for a long moment before speaking again. “The Houston family will be in town by the end of the month. There will be a meeting. Think about it, and when the time comes, do the right thing.”

Think about it. He’d said it just for the sake of it. Because he already said in not so many words that I didn’t have a choice.

“What will happen if I don’t agree to this?”

“I will make it my mission to ruin you and your mother. What do you think will happen to you both when I take away my money and you will have no home to come to at the end of the day. And if you think you’ll be able to work, think again,” He snapped his fingers, “Just like that, I will make sure no one give you even a penny.”

I stood stiffly, offering him nothing before walking out. My pulse pounded with each step, my breath shallow. I had only taken a few steps down the corridor when my mother appeared in front of me.

Her manicured nails curled around my wrist in a vice grip. “So, what did you say to the marriage proposal?” She asked, her eyes cold and unemotional like always.

And like always it made me wonder if my eyes will be like that too in the future. The future that was slowly turning bleak right in front of my eyes and I believed it will come true.

“I told him I’ll think about it.” I said, trying to push past her but she didn’t release my hand.

“There is no thinking about it,” she hissed, her voice sharp with warning. “Just say yes. Do it for me, you selfish brat.

I tried to yank my hand out of her tight grip, but she only tightened her hold, nails digging into my skin. “Mom, you’re hurting me.”

She ignored me as she said, her eyes gleaming, “Fernando will shower you with all the money you need, Seraphina. We both will be settled and living our lives without ever knowing what poverty means.” Her eyes went to Viktor’s door behind me. “And, I can even leave Viktor. He is richer than Fernando and half of the population in UK but I am tired of him lording it over our head.”

“Mom!” I stared at her. “You are married to him.”

She gave me a look like I was crazy. “And I can divorce him, Seraphina.”

I was out of words. I stared at her, barely recognizing the woman in front of me. She was my mother because she gave birth to me but she’d never done anything to be worthy of that title. And yet still she always surprised me how low she can go, and all of it for money.

She smiled and I wanted to hide as that smile never bode well for me. Then she leaned in, her breath hot against my ear. “And my advice? After what you did, get out of here as soon as possible, because Dante and his friends are coming back. He’s completed his sentence, and they will be coming for you.”

A cold chill slithered down my spine.

I knew she wasn’t lying. Before the police had dragged them away, I had seen the promise of retribution in their eyes. It still gave me nightmares.

And the anonymous notes I had been receiving these last two years already promised me a fate worse than poverty.

I wrenched my hand free of her tight grip, hating her and hating the life she gave me. If it hadn’t been for her I wouldn’t be here. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have been so love deprived that I thought to get it from my step brother. And seek his attention by going to that party where it all happened, where this fucking nightmare my life was now turned into a living hell.

But then I couldn’t blame her for what happened two years ago at that party. It wasn’t her who followed them into the forest. It wasn’t her who made that call and it wasn’t her who was responsible for them spending last two years in the prison, and the other two will be there for more than two years unlike my step brother.

Fúck.

Hating myself, and cursing the sixteen years old me who put me in this hèll, I marched down the hall. When I was climbing the stairs to get to my room, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

I rarely got any messages but I had applied for a few jobs and I was hoping to hear from them. I hoped to save enough money to get out of this hellish town. But now there was something else looming ahead in my path: an arranged marriage to a man I had never even met.

I pulled my phone out and when I saw it was a text from an unknown number, for a moment hope blossomed in my chest. That I had fi ally gotten a text from one of the jobs.

Until I opened it.

'Did you miss me, little sister?'

My foosteps faltered, and my vision turned dark for a second as blood turned to ice in my veins.

Dante.

He was out of the prison.

____

A. Gupta