The brunch this morning has been uncomfortable, but this? I stare about the packed ballroom in my father’s casino, filled with his business associates and the Morales family. I had been promised to Miguel, who will take my hand tomorrow morning, binding me to him for the rest of my life.
This is terrifying. It’s as if my father is searching for the worst of the worst to foist me off on. Does he hate me this much?
I don’t want to marry. I especially don’t want to marry Miguel, who sidles up to me while our fathers are talking and, in the guise of courtship, smiles as he hands me a flower plucked from the arrangement on the table.
“You fucked up my life,” he said softly, almost lovingly. “I’m going to fuck your ass on our wedding night, and the last thing I’ll be is gentle.”
He winks, smiling, charming as a snake, pretty on the outside, deadly on the inside. As if Iwantthis. As if I asked for it. As if I’m not every bit a pawn as he is.
My legs are shaking so badly, I can’t sit there anymore.
“I need to be excused,” I stammer as I stand to run to the bathroom. My father clamps his hand on my wrist, and the look he gives me promises such terrible things.
“You may not leave. Sit down. Talk to your future husband.”
The urge to snatch my arm out of his grip and leave is every bit as strong as my certainty a beating will be waiting when we get home tonight. He might not even wait for this horror of a dinner to end first.
I sit back down.
Miguel smiles at me, but his eyes don’t match his mouth. He’s not happy. He’s angry and blames me.
I’d rather die.I’d rather die than marry him.
My life is full of monsters, always has been. All this marriage does is exchange the tormenter I know for a new one.
Unless I do something to stop this.
But what? What can I do? I have no resources, no friends. My father’s home is my prison, with guards at the front door and the elevator. I can’t leave without his permission. Nor can anyone visit me without his approval. It’s been like this for the six years since I turned fourteen—six years since I was relegated to my room in disgrace for allowing James, my best friend since middle school, to kiss me on the cheek.
My first kiss. I still remember how my belly had warmed, and my toes curled. I’d practically melted into the touch of his lips, so soft against my skin. A kiss that had been given for no other reason than because it was my birthday, and he’d brought me a gift. A necklace, cheap because James wasn’t rich. He wasn’t from a family like mine. He was normal.
And I’d liked him.
Then my father walked in, and James had been, at his order, beaten, kicked, and stomped on my bedroom floor while I screamed, unable to stop it. When my father decided enough,James was driven to the hospital, so his broken ribs and jaw could be treated.
I haven’t seen James since. I understand he’s in college now and dating someone else. My father delights in giving me updates.
“Talk to your fiancé,” my father says dangerously, startling me from my thoughts.
“Aw, she’s just nervous,” Miguel counters smoothly. “Women always are when they meet the man of their dreams. Isn’t that right, Clara?”
He winks at me again, but the amusement dancing in the black of his eyes hasn’t warmed a bit.
“Let’s dance,” he says, belatedly gesturing to my father. “With your permission, sir, of course.” He says it in a way that suggests he never asks for anyone’s permission beyond his own father, and is only asking now as a courtesy. A monster in training, he’s already moving to take my hand as my father waves us away.
“Go, go. Dance the night away.”
I can’t stay with Miguel. I can feel it in every crawling inch of me as he pulls me out onto the dance floor, bringing me in close for the slow waltz.
Escape would take more courage than I have. I can feel the eyes of everyone in that room, smiling, laughing, complimenting my father and Morales on my beauty. What do I want more, to leave or to cry? I can’t even tell, but I’m watched so closely, I know leaving is impossible. There’s a man at every exit, either my father’s men or Morales’.
“I won’t give up my side bitch,” Miguel informs me. Wrapping his arm around my waist, the heat of his hand comes to rest warmly on the small of my back.
“I can’t dance,” I warn.
He snorts. “The pampered princess of a casino king? I’m sure there’s nothing you can’t do.” He isn’t laughing so hard when Itrip on his foot. “All this and clumsy, too,” he says but slows his step and even stops being such an asshole in the way he handles me. The way he talks to me only gets worse, though, a tiny taste of what I could expect for the rest of my life.
The next time I step on his toes, he yanks his foot out from under mine and shoves me back. Shaking his head once, he laughs, and the look he gives me would scare me to pieces if only I wasn’t already at that point.
