My heart raced despite my efforts to remain calm. This was it—the moment I'd been both dreading and anticipating, the conversation that would reveal why I was here, what my father wanted, what fate awaited me in this familiar cage.
I followed Mrs. Reynolds through the corridors of the house, past rooms I remembered from childhood—the formal living room where guests were entertained, the dining room where family meals had been exercises in tension and unspoken expectations, the library where my father had sometimes allowed me to sit and read while he worked, provided I remained silent, invisible, a decorative presence rather than a disruptive one.
The study door was closed when we arrived, a barrier both physical and symbolic between the world of the house and the inner sanctum where Patrick O'Sullivan conducted the business that had made him both wealthy and feared. Mrs. Reynolds knocked once, then opened the door without waiting for a response, ushering me in with a gesture that brooked no refusal.
"Ms. O'Sullivan, sir," she announced, then withdrew, closing the door behind her with a soft click that seemed to echo in the sudden silence.
My father sat behind his massive desk, exactly as I remembered him—silver-haired, impeccably dressed, his posture perfect, his expression a careful mask of paternal authority. He didn't stand when I entered, didn't offer a greeting, didn't acknowledge the months of separation or the circumstances of our reunion. Just watched me with cold, assessing eyes as I crossed the room to stand before his desk, refusing the implied invitation to sit in one of the visitor chairs positioned to emphasize the power dynamic he preferred—him elevated, others supplicant.
"Grace," he said finally, my name sounding strange on his lips after so long. "You're looking well, all things considered."
"All things considered," I repeated, unable to keep a hint of bitterness from my voice. "You mean considering I was kidnapped by the Contis, held captive for months, and then kidnapped again by your men just as I was being granted somemeasure of freedom? Yes, I suppose I am doing well, 'all things considered.'"
A flicker of annoyance crossed his features—there and gone in an instant, but I caught it. Had always been able to read the microexpressions that betrayed his true feelings beneath the careful mask he presented to the world.
"Sit down, Grace," he said, the words an order rather than a request. "We have matters to discuss, and I prefer not to crane my neck to look at you."
I remained standing, a small act of defiance that I knew would irritate him but wouldn't provoke real anger. Not yet. Not until I understood what game we were playing, what stakes were on the table, what moves were available to me in this opening gambit.
"I prefer to stand," I said, my voice steady despite the tension coiling in my stomach. "And yes, we do have matters to discuss. Starting with why you had me brought here after making it clear to the Contis that you had 'moved on' from the 'complication' of my abduction. That I was no longer your concern. That I had 'made my bed' when I chose law school over family loyalty."
Surprise flickered in his eyes—not at the content of my words, but at the fact that I knew them. That I had somehow learned of his dismissal of me, his abandonment, his cold calculation that I wasn't worth the trouble of retrieving.
"You've been misinformed," he said, the lie smooth and practiced. "I never stopped looking for you, never stopped working to secure your return. The Contis are manipulative, Grace. They would have told you anything to turn you against your family, to make you compliant, to break your spirit."
The audacity of it—the sheer, breathtaking dishonesty—left me momentarily speechless. He was rewriting history, creating a narrative where he was the concerned father, the familypatriarch working tirelessly to rescue his beloved daughter from enemies who had taken her against her will.
"I heard it myself," I said when I found my voice again. "At the Conti estate. A meeting between their representatives and yours. Sean was there. And a lawyer—someone who spoke for you directly. They made it very clear that I was no longer a 'factor in negotiations between the families.' That you had 'moved on from that particular complication.'"
My father's expression hardened, the mask of paternal concern slipping to reveal the cold calculation beneath. "You were eavesdropping on a private business discussion. One you clearly didn't understand in its full context."
"I understood perfectly," I countered, anger finally breaking through the numbness that had enveloped me for days. "You abandoned me. Wrote me off as a loss. Decided I wasn't worth the trouble of retrieving. And now, suddenly, you've 'reconsidered my value'—that's what your man said when they took me. So I want to know why. What changed? What made me valuable again after months of indifference?"
He was silent for a long moment, studying me with eyes that revealed nothing, that gave no hint of the thoughts turning behind them. When he spoke again, his voice was different—colder, more businesslike, stripped of even the pretense of paternal concern.
"The situation has evolved," he said simply. "New opportunities have arisen. Alliances need to be formed, strengthened, secured. You have a role to play in that process."
"A role," I repeated, a chill running down my spine despite the warmth of the room. "What kind of role, exactly?"
He leaned back in his chair, his posture relaxed but his eyes sharp, calculating. "The Giordano alliance is no longer viable. The Contis have seen to that. But there are other potentialpartners, other families with whom an alliance would be... beneficial."
The implication hung in the air between us, unspoken but unmistakable. An alliance. The kind secured through marriage. The kind where daughters were traded like commodities, their value measured in the connections they could forge, the doors they could open, the power they could help consolidate.
"No," I said, the word escaping before I could consider its consequences, its futility in the face of my father's determination. "I won't be used that way. I won't be traded like property, married off to secure some business deal, some expansion of your empire, some?—"
"You don't have a choice," he interrupted, his voice flat, final. "The arrangements have already been made. The agreement is in place. The wedding will take place in three weeks."
The world seemed to tilt beneath my feet, reality shifting into something nightmarish, something I couldn't quite grasp or comprehend. A wedding. An arranged marriage. A fate decided for me without my knowledge, without my consent, without even the pretense of asking what I wanted or how I felt about being used this way.
"Who?" I managed, the word barely audible even to my own ears. "Who am I supposed to marry in this arrangement of yours?"
"Alejandro Vega," my father replied, watching my reaction closely. "Head of the Vega cartel. A man of significant resources and influence, particularly in territories where our family has historically struggled to gain a foothold."
The name meant nothing to me, but the implication was clear. A cartel leader. A man involved in drugs, in violence, in the kind of business that made even my father's operations seem tame by comparison. A man who would expect obedience,submission, compliance from the wife provided to him as part of a business arrangement.
"I won't do it," I said, my voice stronger now, fueled by the horror of what my father was proposing. "I won't marry a stranger, a criminal, a man who sees me as nothing but a transaction, a means to an end. I won't be used that way."
My father's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes—a coldness, a finality, a dismissal of my objections as irrelevant, inconsequential, not even worth addressing.
