Brutal Vow

Chapter One
Isabella

For a few moments, when I first start to wake up, I feel like I’m in heaven.

The bed beneath me is huge and cloudlike, the pillows downy, a nest of softness around my face and tangled hair. The room is pleasantly cool, making me want to burrow down into the thick duvet and slip back into a deep, peaceful, uninterrupted sleep. The best sleep I’ve had in ages.

It hasn’t been that long since I was in my own luxurious bedroom, not so different from this, but it feels like it’s been years. Something feels like it’s pulling at me, a reminder of why I want to burrow back into sleep, and as I blink awake blearily, I remember why.

The glint of my thin gold wedding band catches my eye. I’m someone’s wife now, but I’m still all alone in this big, gorgeous bed.

My eyes feel sore and sticky from crying last night, until I finally fell asleep. I’d managed to hold back the tears until I was safely in my room, Niall in his down the hall, muffling them with a hand over my mouth as I’d sank onto the bed. This is far from the worst circumstances I’ve been in now, but I feel more alone than ever.

I’m half a continent away from my family, with no way to contact them or speak to them or even let them know I’m safe. I’m in a stranger’s house, another mob boss of an organization called the Bratva, where he lives with his family. My husband is sleeping in another room, away from me.

Niall says I can trust these people. And last night at dinner, I wanted to believe him. Viktor seemed a bit stiff and distrustful, but that didn’t seem odd to me—not so unlike my father with strangers, which I am here. His wife Caterina was kind enough, their four children adorable. I slide my hand under the covers to press against my own stomach as I think about meeting them. In a matter of months, I’ll have a baby of my own to hold.

I can’t say how I feel about that, just now. Everything I’d imagined is different now. None of it has turned out how I thought.

There were others that I met, too. Sasha Federova, a pretty Russian girl who apparently is the live-in nanny. Maximilian Agosti, the former priest that Niall mentioned to me before we left Mexico. People who, according to Niall, wish to help me.

I just don’t entirely understand why.

It has something to do with the deal Niall and the men he works for made with my father, a deal I’m not privy to. I just have to trust in it, and so far, Niall hasn’t given me any reason not to. In fact, I’ve given him every reason not to trust me, to abandon me to my own fate, and he hasn’t.

He even married me to keep me safe. Not a real marriage, not a lasting one—but a marriage nonetheless. We said vows.

We did more than just that.

I close my eyes against the hot pressure of tears behind my eyes, not wanting to start crying all over again. I can’t let myself think about my wedding night with Niall, or any of the nights before or after that one, or the way we fucked on the floor of the cargo plane, hot and passionate and just glad to be alive as bullets chased us into the air.

I won’t be able to make it through this if I do. And I have to make it through, because none of this is really about me anymore.

I have a child to worry about now. Someone to keep safe, someone that Niall and I have created. I don’t know if I can call it love, what we did that made this baby, but it was something extraordinary. I know that he knows that as well as I do.

It just doesn’t matter now.

I push myself upright in bed, rubbing the heels of my hands against my eyes. I need a shower—I’d been too exhausted to take one last night. I glance at the vintage-looking alarm clock next to the bed and see that it’s after eleven in the morning, the latest I’ve woken up in a long time—maybe ever. I’m sure the household is up and moving by now—I think I can hear footsteps and the faint cry of a baby from somewhere else in the house—but they were kind enough to let me sleep in.

The bathroom is attached to my bedroom, for which I’m glad. I’m not prepared to go out into the house yet and risk running into Niall.

Goodnight, Isabella.

He’d looked into my eyes as he said it, firm and assured, and then disappeared into his room, a brutal reminder that everything he’d said to me about the ending of our relationship once we got to Boston, he’d meant.

We left all of that back in Mexico, our last hurrah on the hard steel floor of a cargo plane as it soared above everyone who wanted us dead, taking us to freedom and breaking my heart all in the space of minutes. Everything I loved is there still—my parents, my sister, the memory of Niall and I before everything between us fell apart. The only thing I have here to love is the baby that I’m going to have, a baby that I can barely imagine the existence of at this moment. Aside from the constant nausea, nothing really feels different yet. My body hasn’t really changed at all.

All I feel right now is loss, instead of love.

I leave the light off in the bathroom, enjoying the cool darkness and the faint daylight coming through the opaque window high up on the far wall. When the shower runs hot, I step into the glass-walled cube, tilting my head back under the hot spray and letting it sink into my tense muscles. There’s greenery hanging under the showerhead, and the steamy air quickly fills with the scent of eucalyptus, refreshing my senses. It’s like being at a mini spa, but it’s still hard to relax.

Everything feels so strange.

I linger for a little while in the shower, surrounded by the luxurious scents of eucalyptus, rose and lavender as I wash my hair and my body, finding a spare razor still in its wrapping to shave my legs with. I avoid the stubble between my legs, wincing at the memory of what Javier did to me—and how I kept it up afterwards, for Niall. The way he’d overwritten all that awfulness with the new sensations of his lips on my shaven, sensitive skin, groaning with pleasure at the unfettered, bare access to my needy pussy.

I don’t have any reason to bother with it now. Niall made it clear last night with his actions that he means to put space between us. That what we were back in Mexico we can never be again. And if it’s not Niall—

It won’t be anyone. I don’t want anyone else, and I can’t imagine ever wanting that. It wasn’t a desire for sex that kept me from wanting to be shipped off to a Catholic sisterhood, it was the desire to keep my baby, to raise them myself.

I’m young, and I know I have a long life ahead of me, a life that will be very lonely if I never let another man into it. But I can’t imagine ever letting anyone else touch me, ever feeling for anyone else what I feel for Niall. I can’t imagine finding that kind of explosive desire with anyone else—and I don’t want to settle for less. It feels as if that would be so much worse, knowing what I once had, and that it’s impossible to find it again.

Especially knowing that it’s my own fault for losing it.

I’d had so many chances to tell Niall the truth, but I’d always been too afraid, choosing to cling to him in the short term rather than risking the loss of one more night with him, and then another, and another. Now I regret the loss of every single chance—because I’ll never know if things might have been different. If he might have chosen me, chosen a future with me, as insane as it would have been, over sending me back to my fate.

But it’s too late for regrets.

When I come out of the shower, dried off with a fluffy towel wrapped around me and my damp hair sticking between my shoulder blades, I notice clothing draped over the wingback chair by the window, with a note atop it. Surprised, I reach for the paper, and my chest tightens as I read it.

Isabella,

Niall mentioned that you weren’t able to bring anything with you of your own. He said he would make sure you were provided for once you’re in Boston, but until then, I thought this might be nicer than wearing the old clothes you arrived in. Just something older of mine that I thought might fit you well, and suit you. I know how hard the aftermath of a rescue can be, but we’re all hoping for the best for you in your new life.

--Caterina

This time, I can’t stop the tears from welling up. I don’t know what she means by that, the aftermath of a rescue, or why she claims to understand, but I don’t think it matters. What matters is that she’d thought of this, and the kindness in such a strange place makes my anxiety about all of it ease, just a little.

The dress is a short-sleeved, cranberry silk wrap dress, and I slip into it, belting it at the waist. I look at myself in the mirror, running my fingers through my damp dark hair, the topaz gemstone of the necklace Niall gave me glinting against my chest and the gold wedding band glinting faintly on my finger. I look thinner than I did before, my eyes too big for my face, but I’m sure that will change soon enough.

I’m safe now, or so I’ve been told.

I’m still nervous about running into Niall as I leave the room, tentatively heading towards where I remember the living area and dining room being last night, but Niall is nowhere to be seen. I find signs of life in the sprawling living room, cozier than I would imagine the home of a mob boss’s family to be, especially considering its size. The furniture is all soft and plush though, rather than antique, the wooden floors covered in thick rugs, the fireplace mantel dotted with family photos in pretty frames. The two older children are nowhere to be seen, probably at school, but Sasha is on the sofa playing with one of the babies, and Caterina is ensconced in one of the armchairs, nursing the other. She sits up straighter as she sees me walk in, careful not to jostle the baby, her face brightening a little. “Isabella!” she calls out, and I force a smile to my lips, trying not to seem as nervous as I am.

“Morning,” Sasha says sweetly, still tickling the baby’s toes as she glances towards me. “Did you sleep well?”

“I—yes. Thank you.” I swallow hard, a little caught off guard by how relaxed they seem. It’s nothing like the formality of my household back home, and I don’t see a single security guard in sight. Surely Viktor hasn’t left the house unguarded, but whoever is keeping watch, they make themselves scarce. It feels almost like a normal family home, and I feel a sudden and unexpected pang of longing in my chest. I want something like this for my own child, I realize, an unnerving sensation settling in my stomach as I glance over at Caterina as she nurses, knowing that will be me with a baby at my breast before too long. It’s not as if I hadn’t known I’d be pregnant soon enough anyway, but the immediacy of it feels startling.

I can give my baby this kind of love and warmth from me, but there won’t be anyone coming home to us at night. I remember dinner the night before, how kind Viktor seemed with his daughters, eager to hear about their day, the way they talked freely at the dinner table. He’d been stiff and reserved with Niall and I, but with his family, he’d been altogether different.

Niall has promised to take care of the baby and I, and to be present, and I believe him. But it’s not the same as us being together.

“Niall isn’t here,” Caterina says, adjusting her blouse as the baby finishes nursing, answering my unspoken question as if she can see it written on her face. “He’s out with Viktor on some business.” She glances at my left hand, and I curl it inwards, unthinkingly, as if to hide my ring. Which makes no sense—I’m sure they all know already that we’re married. I feel oddly embarrassed by it, the fakeness of it all. The fact that it doesn’t really mean anything, just a means to an end.

“Come sit,” Sasha invites, patting the couch beside her. “You can come meet Viktoria.”

“And Dimitri,” Caterina adds, shifting the baby in her arms. “Twins.” She grins ruefully. “Along with my two stepdaughters. I think I might have lost my mind right after the birth, if Sasha wasn’t here with me to help.”

“Are you related?” I bite the question back almost as soon as it slips out of my mouth, wincing. “I’m sorry if that was rude. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” Caterina says quickly. “You’re not rude. But no, we’re not. My husband offered Sasha a position in our home, and she was so good with the children that we asked her if she’d like to help nanny for us. She’s been a godsend through everything, truly.”

Sasha smiles shyly, tucking a lock of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear. “Viktor and Caterina have been very good to me,” she says firmly, as if I might suspect otherwise. The truth is that I don’t know anything about these people, regardless of the slight wariness in Sasha’s face despite her friendliness, as if she’s worried I might have already made up my mind about something.

I don’t think it’s my place to ask much more, though. So I just focus on baby Viktoria, touching the little fingers waving in my direction and trying not to think too much about how, very soon, I’m going to be in another strange city with a baby of my own coming, and no women around me that I know to help me.

Back home, I would have expected to have a plethora of familiar faces for advice and help. My own mother, my aunts, my mother-in-law and her relatives, anyone within our families’ circle. Even married to someone like Diego, at least before my actions had caused him and his family to despise me even more, I would have had some support. But in Boston—I’ll know no one other than Niall. While I trust him and his commitment to being a good father, it can’t replace the support of other women around me as I prepare to be a mother for the first time.

It’s terrifying, and just another reminder of how naïve I’ve been—how I failed to think any of this through. I press my hand to my stomach unthinkingly, biting my lower lip. I’m sorry, little one, I whisper in my head, feeling the ache of regret returning again. I’m sorry I’ve made us so alone. I’ll do my best, I promise.

“You’re pregnant.” The words, coming from Caterina’s lips, aren’t a question—but there’s also no judgement. 

I stare at her for a second too long, startled. “How did you know?” 

Caterina smiles softly. “It’s obvious. I’ve been there myself, you know,” she adds ruefully. “Pregnant for the first time and frightened of it. It’s not an easy thing to wrap your head around. Niall didn’t mention that you were–.”

“It’s—new for him too,” I admit, biting into my lip even harder, feeling the barely healed flesh from a few days ago give way. “A lot has happened in a really short time.”

“I see.” Caterina frowns. “It might be better for you to stay here—”

“He wants me to go to Boston. He said it would be for the best, that he can help take care of me there.”

Caterina and Sasha exchange a look. “What men think is best for us in times like this rarely is,” Caterina tells me gently. “Our men, they try—but they don’t always hit the mark. Sometimes it’s up to us to make sure that we’re making the right decisions for ourselves, and for our children.”

My chest constricts at that. I couldn’t make the right decisions in Mexico, for either of us. I’ve made nothing but wrong decisions, it feels like, all this time. So what makes me think I can now?