A new hell

Cillian asked me to wear presentable clothes to meet his associates, but all of Daniela’s clothes were revealing and provocative. To make matters worse, they were a size or two smaller than my body.

They looked even more provocative on me than they actually were. But none of that mattered. I didn’t have a choice but to wear them. I chose a small red dress with spaghetti straps. It was long, but it hugged my body like a second skin.

My breasts were practically spilling out of the dress. I wore a cardigan on top to hide the bruises on my back. I had lash marks from years of being punished for my mistakes.

I was a child when I started working for the Kavanagh family. Everyone thought Cathal was the devil, but that was because they never met his wife. Maeve Kavanagh was brutal. She and Cathal were a match made in hell.

She was the one who taught her children how to be evil bullies. She starved me when I was younger and made sure I worked since I was six years old. She loathed me so much that I thought she would one day kill me.

She blamed me for being born instead of blaming her husband for cheating on her with a woman who was forced into sex work. My mother was used to repay a debt my grandparents owed to Cathal.

She had no choice but to work in the brothel to pay it off. Cathal took advantage of her, and she ended up getting pregnant. She knew she would be forced to get an abortion if she told him she was pregnant, so she waited until it was too late to have an abortion to inform him.

But according to Maeve, everyone else was to blame for what had happened except her cheating husband. She hit me, recruited her kids to resent and hit me as well, and she burned me.

There were times she would force me to make breakfast for her and send me back to make it over and over again because I didn’t make it the way she wanted. I would make the same thing ten times until she decided she was tired of tormenting me.

I was barely a teenager at that point.

My mother was only allowed to see me during the weekends. As soon as she gave birth to me, she was sent back to the brothel, and I was raised by the maids in Cathal’s house.

But even they didn’t have a say in how I was treated.

Being in Cillian’s vicinity, where I was treated like the lady of the house, was shocking for me. I was used to preparing and serving food, not having it prepared and being served for me.

“What are you wearing?” He asked when he came into our room and saw my dress.

“I…I…”

I didn’t know what to say, so I stuttered until he got mad and walked into the closet and looked for something I could put on.

“Don’t you have anything that doesn’t scream hooker?” He asked, and I shook my head, “Fine. Wear this for now. I’ll have my assistant get you new clothes tomorrow.”

He walked out of our room expecting me to follow him. Luckily for me, my hair was still straightened, and I had on the light makeup Orla had put on me.

I didn’t know the first thing about putting on makeup, but I had to learn if I wanted Cillian to be convinced that I was the legitimate and loved daughter of a rich mafia boss.

I followed him, and we went downstairs. There were people I had never seen before at the dinner table. It was one woman and two men.

Cillian put his hand on the small of my back and introduced me.

“This is my fiancé, Uma Kavanagh,” he said. “Uma, this is Sebastian, that’s James, and that is Victoria. James is my right hand, Sebastian is my third in command, and Victoria is the vice president of my legitimate diamond company.”

I looked at them and waved. They all seemed skeptical of me. They didn’t like any more than Cillian did.

He pulled out a chair for me and handed me a glass of wine. Since all of us had eaten, the dinner table was just a place for us to speak and interact.

“Your bride doesn’t speak,” James said as he glared at me.

“She’s very shy. She has been sheltered all her life.”

“All that shelter didn’t teach her to dress appropriately,” James said as his eyes landed on my breasts. He and Sebastian laughed, and even Victoria chuckled.

I blushed in embarrassment, but I also wanted to get out of there immediately. I was very uncomfortable with how the two men were talking to me and even looking at me.

“Talk about my fiancé’s appearance again, and I’ll deform your face so badly no woman will ever look at you twice,” Cillian threatened. “Anyone who looks at her unless they have to will lose their eyes. Am I clear?”

I thought James would be offended, but he wasn’t. He only looked down and apologized. None of them dared to look at me suggestively again.

They talked about business while I was sitting there fiddling with my fingers. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. I was better off remaining invisible.

While the three men were speaking, Victoria leaned in and, in her deep British accent, said, “I will make your life miserable, darling. If I were you, I would call Daddy and ask him to cancel this alliance, or else, I will make you wish you were dead.”

I looked at her in shock, wondering what her problem with me was. Then it clicked. She wanted Cillian for herself, and she was hoping I would be threatened by her. Unfortunately for her, I knew someone worse than she was who would never cancel the engagement.

Instead of telling her no, I pretended I didn’t hear her.

When she and the other two men left, I was left shaken and confused. I hadn’t been in London for twenty-four hours, and I had already been threatened. I could only hope London was better than Kavanagh’s household.

And if things couldn’t get worse, Catherine approached Cillian and me at the dinner table.

“There is a guest here for you,” she said as she stepped aside to reveal the last person I wanted to see.

Fear, like I had never felt before, crept in.

“Hello, brother-in-law and my dear sister,” Lorcan said.

“What are you doing here?” Cillian asked him.

“My sister is innocent, and she has never been without family since she was born. I am here to make sure she is comfortable for the time being. The thought of her being alone in London didn’t sit well with me. I’ll keep an eye on her until she’s comfortable enough to be on her own.”

That was code for coming to keep an eye on me and simultaneously make my life miserable. Lorcan would rather uproot his life and move to London if it meant he would make my life miserable.