Page 47 of A Vicious Love

My father turned toward me then, still wearing that bright, terrible pride from everyone else’s success.

“Sienna, has Jamison set a date?”

My stomach twisted.

“No.”

My mother gave a small, humourless laugh.

“Not yet.” I added quickly.

My father’s smile thinned. “Not yet.”

“He’s been busy,” I said, hating myself as soon as the excuse left my mouth.

My eldest sister looked at me with something close to pity.

Busy.

Jamison was always busy. Busy making me stand beside him, forgetting me at resorts. Too busy to marry me.

My father set down his wine glass. “The Crows are not a family one keeps waiting.”

My father’s disappointment came dressed as strategy. But over the years it made it harder to hate.

“Damius Crow is not a patient man,” he said.

The name changed the room. Even my brothers went still.

Jamison’s grandfather.

The old monster in Villain.

Who should have looked ancient but did not, because the Crows owned enough biotech, cell alteration, and banned private medicine to make time itself negotiate.

He was old enough to have buried rivals whose grandchildren were now grey. Yet every image I had ever seen of him made him look barely sixty.

No one in Harlan said his name casually.

No one in Villain did either.

My father continued, “Your grandparents made commitments to the Crows that cannot simply linger forever.”

My fingers tightened around my fork.

My grandparents. The dead people everyone spoke of with reverence when they wanted inheritance. They had gone to the Crows decades ago. Borrowed influence. Protection, with capital.

No one had ever told me the whole truth.

I only knew enough to understand I had been promised before I was old enough to know what promise meant.

The debt needed settling.

I was the settlement.

That was untrue…my blood was settlement.

My mother leaned back in her chair. “Every month this drags on, we risk Damius changing the terms.”