“Four months in a jail cell isn’t alleged. It’s real.”
“And what do you want me to do about it?”
The rage pulses behind my eyes. I step back and struggle to keep myself in check. He wants me to shout. Wants me to beg. I’ve met men like him before, back when I was coming up.
I’ve outlived most of them. Our turnover’s higher up north. Everything happens with more efficiency.
“I’m asking you to do the decent thing. For Crimson’s sake, if no one else.”
Ciprian’s head jerks to the side, then he catches himself. “My daughter is perfectly happy with her selection. If you’d like to convince her of another match, go ahead.”
It appears Crimson’s influence extends further than she thinks. It would be a good thing if it weren’t standing in my way.
“What are the options?” He doesn’t meet my eyes and I shake my head. “Let me guess, once you threw her out of the will, nobody was interested.”
“I downgraded her, that’s all.”
“Sure, you did. All the way down to unweddable. What’s the offer?”
“I’m not discussing Gabriel’s application with you.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, struggling for calm. “Your offer. What’s the alliance from your side?”
“A leg-up in the organisation.”
I wait for the rest and when it doesn’t come, I snort and shake my head. “Jeez, you’re a cheap bastard.” Anyone else, they’d be offering routes, merging customer bases, promising stakes when they retire. But this man, worth more than many of his counterparts put together, offers nothing but a job.
Perhaps he reads the disdain on my face because he immediately counters, “My daughter’s a beautiful woman. She doesn’t need the same inducements as others.”
“A beautiful woman?” I snap out a retort. “Hardly a requirement in a wife but I’m sure it’s tempting as a quick fuck.”
For the first time, Ciprian loses his cool. He’s look angry enough to hit me. “Don’t you dare talk that way about her. My daughter is a virgin,” he says with vehemence, talking so forcibly spit flies from the corner of his mouth.
“Is that her sole selling point? No one else wants her enough to touch her?” I shake my head, taking pleasure in watching him squirm. “And I suppose her suitors are just meant to take your word for it.”
“One of our elders will certify it for you if you’re in any doubt.”
The words sound like something from a sixteenth century horror story. An elder? It makes my soul shudder to consider what the certification process would involve.
Our conversation is hardly productive, and I close my mouth, thinking furiously.
From what Crimson said, Gabriel loves her. I need to break up their alliance to save face, sure. My position won’t be worth much if a colleague is openly backing the man who nearly took me down. But there’s a flip side to his romantic entanglement.
If his feelings are involved with this girl, I can use her to hurt him.
More than taking Ciprian’s job opportunity away, I can ruin Gabriel’s bride. Maybe, if his feelings run deep enough, if his possessiveness is strong enough, ruin his life.
A virgin.
He’ll know that. He might even treasure that. At seventeen, he’s probably thought about relieving her of the burden a thousand times over, but he’s respected her wishes. He’s waited.
He thinks there’s a reward at the end and there will be… Unless somebody else gets there first.
I drum my fingers on the cheap desk and hide a smile from the appalling dinosaur stranding in front of me. Ciprian also deserves a smack down for not treating me with respect.
I can take her. Take Gabriel’s girlfriend home tonight. Visit with her a few hours, then return her, completely unharmed. Return her minus a little something this infuriating man seems to hold dear. Her virginity.
Thanks to Crimson, I even know the way to his heart.
