TIES THAT BINDS

Elara’s POV

I ought to have known more. I ought to have been ready for the cruelty running through the veins of my family like a poisoned thread. But I was not ready for what lay next even as the weight of the past hour fell on me.

I had assumed I had locked the draw-on. The one I kept the money I had stashed away from my family over the past few months. It was my means of guaranteeing my escape should the dream of my life in this mansion ever become intolerable. Now, though, that sense of anxiety wriggles at my belly. I understood. I knew it vanished before I even started to open the drawer.

Pulling the drawer open, my heart crashed into my chest and discovered it empty. My last means of escape, the carefully buried money disappeared.

"Elara, darling, did you honestly feel you could keep secrets from your mother?" Behind me, Viktoria's words sounded like a slick, deliberate calculation. I turned, angry flashes in my eyes.

"You—." I gasped, but as I whirled to meet her words left me. My mother stood at the doorway, her keen eyes shining with the same icy, familiar expression that had plagued me all of my life.

Isabella trailed behind her, her lips curved into a nasty smile.

You took it, I murmured, my voice hardly audible. You gathered everything. The money that belonged to me.

Isabella stepped forward like a predator, arched eyebrows. "Did you really think Elara could flee from us?" She snapped her tongue in imitation dismay. "Trying to flee the family, huh?" How charming. How naive.

Though my chest tightened with rage, there was also a hollow aching where my trust used to be. My own sister, my blood—she was taunting me, playing with the suffering she had brought about.

"Why?," I asked. Though they burned in my throat, I asked, pushing the words out. Why take what little I had left?

"Because you have nothing left, Elara," Viktoria said with chilly clarity, her eyes black with contempt. Do you believe you are unique? You are an idiot passing for something you are not. Do you truly feel you can rush off into the sunset hiding your money and live your life apart from us?

My palms shook with a mix of incredulity and wrath. You know, I was storing it for Mila. She would not have to grow up like this then. To be caught in your universe, exactly as I was.

Though it was not bright, Isabella laughed. It was deliberate and vicious. Oh Elara. You don't understand it, do you? There is no getting away from it. Not for any one of us. You believe that by trying to hide from the truth and hiding money will help you to change everything. That's not that straightforward.

The actual truth? My heart was smashing against my ribs while my head whirled. "You—." I gulped, then closed my eyes; the tears threatened to flow.

The chilly voice of Viktoria sliced through the mist in my thoughts. "Enough, Elara," said . Here there is not any sympathy. You have been let stay in this residence despite your unacceptable position as an unwed mother. Since you are my daughter, I have let your shenanigans go; but, enough is enough. Long enough, we have played by your rules.

I started to feel my gut slump. "What are you implying?"

With a decisive tone, Viktoria remarked, "Your future is no more yours to decide." "Marko Kuznetsov, you will be married tomorrow. There will be signatures on the paperwork. Should you object, results will follow. I won to allow you to discredit our name. You will perform your assigned task.

The words crashed into me, each one weighing more than the meager will I still possessed. The same people I was meant to trust, supposed to love, were choking me in this prison of a life.

"No," I said, the rebellion in me awakening, but knowing what it meant, I felt the horror slithering in. Marko Kuznetsov was not a man. The kingpin of the mafia, he was a man whose notoriety made even the toughest men terrified. Enough of his might had let me realize exactly how dangerous he was. You could not flee his coldness or cruelty.

"I won't marry him," I said, my voice quivering but firm. "I won't be used like this."

Isabella's eyes shimmered with something dark. Elara, you are not given options. Already signed on the deal is that Your revolt is only a little annoyance.

"No," I said, shaking my head as the weight of the circumstances dropped on me. You are mistaken. I'll flee. I am going to go. I will figure out a means of escape.

Viktoria stepped forward, her heels tapping the floor like the drum of an executioner. "You will do as advised, Elara; else, the results will be disastrous. All that counts is the power of your family; you will remember that.

"Mother, kindly," said I started to lose control and begged. "Please, please do not do this. I will wed anyone you wish, just not him. Marko.. My voice wavered, and I chastised myself for displaying even the most minute flaw.

But it was already too late. I could tell anything by the way my mother looked.

"Elara, sufficient," she said. You are going to wed him. The paperwork is under preparation; you will not destroy all I have worked for or all our family has created. You would suffer or you would obey.

I shivered; my spine stiffened as her words slid into me like frigid knives. Her tone's firmness denied any possibility for uncertainty.

Not. I gave a disbelieving head shake. You are false. You cannot always control me.

Isabella moved forward, her smile broadening like if she were seeing a play. "Marko will be a spouse to you even if he may be strict. And you will soon enough learn to value his... attentiveness.

I drew back at the idea. I will never love him.

She shucked. "Love is not at all relevant to it. Elara, business is what this is.

The remarks felt like a smack, but before I could reply, someone knocked on the door. One, solid knock that reverberated throughout the room's tension.

"Who is that?" My voice trembling with an uncertainty I wanted not to admit, I asked.

"Open it, Elara," Viktoria said to her angrily. "You have to face your future."

I turned toward the entrance, feeling as though I was about to drop. Again the knock reverberated. My fingers were cold and shaking, my heart flew as I grabbed for the handle. When I opened the door, a man I hadn't expected stood in front of me.

Marko Kuzneticov.

His icy, analytical gaze locked with mine, and for a second I couldn breathe. He moved forward; the door softly clicked behind him.

"Well, Elara," she said Marko had a smooth voice, yet his tone was harsh. Shall we start?

The voice of Isabella sank to a mocking whisper. Elara, you believe you can leave our planet? Nothing without us would be you. You're caught here.

My whole body shook with wrath as I closed my hands. You cannot get away with this. I will— "

Viktoria cut me off, her voice poisonous and icy. " Elara, you have already lost. Tomorrow is the signing of the documents. You will regret it or wed Marko Kuznetsov.

I tried to swallow hard, her words stranding my throat. "What are you referring to??"

The doorbell rang quickly and suddenly, slicing through the tension like a blade before I could register what had been said.