She swallows loud between us and drags my face closer to hers. “You’re mine too.”
27
VALENTINA
Only a few days are left until the society's deadline. I feel each one slipping through my fingers, my chances to defuse the situation and save all of us going along with it.
I've tried everything I could think of. Talking to Sal's family was the worst kind of torture, but I still did it in hopes that it might save him. Of course, they took pleasure in mocking me and no doubt will continue to do so until the day we all stand on even ground.
I poke at my breakfast, oatmeal today, and I don’t mind. After most of the staff left in favor of safety, I was surprised when Adrian whipped around the kitchen as if he’d been cooking all his life. It occurred to me then, and still does today, how little I know about him. Especially his past. I know who his family is and how painful things have been for him, but I don’t know his hobbies or what he likes to do when he has free time. Not that I’ve seen him have any such things since I’ve moved in with him. It’s always been about me or us, so I haven’t been able to have any real downtime with him.
He eats his breakfast while he reads his emails, and I watch him, my heart in my throat. Every second closer to the summons is one less second I have with him.
I set my spoon on the table and clear my throat. Subtle.
He glances over his bowl at me. “You okay?”
“What if instead of answering the summons, we just run away instead?” It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for days. We would both be safe, selfish to think of ourselves only, but I’d be able to keep him for longer, and our child would remain safe in the process.
With a swipe of his finger, he closes his phone and lets it clatter to the table. “Excuse me?”
I try to explain what I mean. “What if you don’t answer, and we just run…we have enough money and resources. Both of us could disappear and start over with very little effort.”
“This is…Why are we having this conversation? What got this idea in your head?”
I shrug and consider picking my spoon back up to get out from under the intensity of his gaze. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking about. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Angel,” he snaps. “Look at me.”
When I drag my eyes to his he gives me one slow deliberate headshake. “Nothing is going to happen to me, first of all, second…tell me why both of us making a run for it hasn’t been an option on the table so far?”
I lick my lips and rack my brain. “I don’t know.”
“No matter how far we tried to run, the council would send people after us, and the more they have to chase you, the worse your punishment is for defying them.”
It’s my turn to level him a petulant glare. “So we just let them lord over us all like that? To tell us when we can come and go, all at their bidding? How is that fair?”
He scoffs, and it makes me want to throw a pastry at his face. “Fairness is a concept for children. Life is never fair, and the council is even less fair than that. They work for themselves and themselves alone. Maybe one day we can destabilize their power enough to try to challenge them, but that day isn’t today.”
I stare into my breakfast and refuse to let him see the tears pooling in my eyes. It’s not his dressing down that is making me cry. Again, it’s the thought of us running out of time and quickly. Too quickly.
A warm hand slides against the back of my neck, then down the back of my shirt to ease along my spine. “Angel,” he whispers, then removes his hand and kneels beside my chair. “Things will be okay. You will be okay, I promise you that. And you know I don’t make promises lightly.”
“It’s not even about me. It’s about what they will do to you. Not only for defying them, but for Sal’s death, and if they suspect you, my father’s too,” I say, more to my food than to him.
He cups my chin in his fingers and slowly turns my face to meet his eyes. “They wouldn’t dare take me out right now. Not when the season isn’t for another couple of months. When it opens again, we might have trouble. For now, they want to scare us and set me straight is all.”
I open my mouth to say something, anything to convince him, but there’s a resignation to his gaze that stops me. I have nothing left to use to persuade him. And there’s no one else I can talk to who might interfere to stop the meeting in the first place. God, I hate to feel so powerless. Each second closer strips away more and more of the self-assurance I’ve built up since we married.
Maybe that’s why I hate them so much. They make me feel like a victim all over again. I resent them for it.
He stands with a sigh and returns to his spot on the other side of the table to finish his breakfast. Despite his insistence, I keep going over scenarios in my head, of ways we might be able to escape, of people who might be convinced to help us. I’m not above paying someone less reputable to help, as long as they aren’t as bad as Sal’s family…or well, in the same business. I couldn’t stomach the thought of giving human traffickers those kinds of resources.
“Angel, you’re still thinking pretty hard over there,” he says, almost conversationally, but there’s an edge to his tone that belies the casualness.
“It happens on occasion,” I snip back and shovel another bite of oatmeal in my mouth.
He stands again, marches around the table, draws me out of my chair by my upper arm, and drags me down the hallway. I stumble behind him, my spoon still in my hand. “Where are we going?”
“You used to ask a lot fewer questions,” he says over his shoulder, then opens the door to his armory.
I follow him in because he doesn’t give me a choice, and the smell of the guns sends a wave of nausea through me that might bring up my breakfast.
After he finds the table with the knives, he shoves a few out of the way, lifts me up, and sets me on the stainless-steel table. I squeak and settle against the chill on my bare legs below my skirt. “What are we doing in here?”
He lifts a knife by the blade and slaps the handle in my palm. I jump so hard I almost drop it, but he clamps his hand around mine at the last second. “Calm down. I’m going to show you a few things so you feel safer, and also see that I can handle myself…even if the five aren’t with me.”
I swallow hard and nod. “Okay…what do I need to know?”
He repositions my hand and then lifts my wrist to move up and down. “Hold it like this and always come from below, never above.”
“Or I could just not stab anyone at all.”
He waves behind him. “Do you want a gun instead? I can teach you that next.”
The man has made his point. I stare down at the gleaming edge of the knife. “What do you want me to do with it until I might need to use it? If we get to that point, then I’m pretty screwed already, right?”
His hand tightens, and he locks his gaze to mine. “We made a deal…you protect our child with your life. If I’m down, and they are coming at you, you still try to protect yourself, understand?”
I nod and try to press the knife into his hand. “Can we put this away now? I don’t need it here.”