My father picks an apple from a bowl lying on the counter, and it’d be perfect to shove in his mouth and roast him over an open fire with.
“She’s debt-free of you now.”
I really don’t know who the hell he thinks he is, stepping into my house and making decisions for me, but it’s not going to end well.
At all.
For him or Nikolai.
“She doesn’t love you,” he continues. “She’ll keep the bakery, but I have no use for her unless Nikolai would like to take her on.”
Take her on?
I’m five seconds away from killing both of them, when the distinct click of a hammer sounds and I locate it held in my brother’s palm.
He’s still scared of me.
The mere mention of Sienna has him already calculating my next move. That I will fucking tear him apart if he answers yes to that statement.
“What’s wrong, brother?” I taunt, looking past his gun and into his face. “Think I’ll get upset?”
“Iknowyou’ll get upset,” he returns evenly. “You never did share well.”
“Remember that.”
“I’ve made an agreement with her that her father’s debts are paid in full, her grandmother’s rent will be paid for a year, and—” I snap my neck to him because it sounds like hespoketo her behind my back.
“What did you say?” I fume through clenched teeth, losing some of the space between us. “You werenearmy wife?”
My father glances at me like I’m losing my damn mind when I am.
Or maybe I was too naive to think Sienna might turn around and begin…caring for me? That she may eventuallylikeme one day?
“You’re hostage,” my father corrects me, placing the red apple back where it came from. “She wants nothing to do with you. And I don’t want trouble with a woman who doesn’t want to be kept.”
“She’s mine,” I deadpan, and that’s all I should be able to say to get it through their fucking heads.
But, no.
The word hangs like an accusation in the air. Everything in the room feels deliberate and staged.
“Bring her in,” my father orders one of the men, and they blindly follow it.
I take names of those in the room, filing them away for later, but then Sienna walks in, and I’m immediately distracted.
She’s composed in a plain pink dress, hands folded at her waist. She looks tired but the thing that wrecks me is that she doesn’t look at me.
She looks at my father.
You think I could handle more surprise. That I could handle betrayal in measured doses.
But not from her.
“Sienna,” my father poses softly. “I understand your arrangement with Benedikt. You were to be his wife, to secure the line and be a part of a plan to ensure his place in my kingdom. But, we’re not doing that anymore, correct?”
She looks at the kitchen island, but doesn’t utter a single word.
“You can be free of him,” my father continues. “You can walk away. If you choose, you can take the bakery and live quietly. You don’t have to marry and bear an heir for a man who would bind you to a difficult life. As we discussed, your father is rid of his debt to me, and your grandmother is safe. Or…you can leave with Benedikt tonight to Italy. You can decide.”
