Poisoned Vows

Chapter One
Lilliana

“This all depends on you. And you can’t even remember which fucking fork to use.”

My father’s voice cuts through the air, sharp as a knife. A whip crack, lashing at me. I should be used to it by now—he’s talked to me this way all my life. Being loved by a parent, cherished—isn’t something I’ve ever known or experienced. There have been no moments of kindness or closeness. The moments I look forward to are the ones where he forgets I exist.

In the past few weeks, those have been nonexistent.

In his eyes, I have a chance to fulfill my purpose—the only purpose I’ve ever had. The only reason for him to ever be grateful that he has a daughter and not a son. I’m something to be molded, shaped, bent to his will. That’s all I’ve ever been.

My beauty was the luck of the draw. The rest of it—any grace or intelligence or good manners I possess, any charm or seductiveness—has all been instilled in me. Taught, for this moment.

What I can’t seem to learn is how place settings work at a fancy dinner.

“Do you really think they’re going to care?” I blow out a harsh breath, exasperated. I’ll likely pay for that later, but my nerves are stretched taut, humming with anxiety. “I’m meant to be this man’s fuck toy, not his wife. What does it matter if I know which spoon is for soup and which fork is for dessert?”

I can see the moment my father wants to hit me. He might have, if we weren’t so close to the day of reckoning. But he can’t risk anything marring my face. No redness or bruising. Nothing that leaves a mark, and he can’t be trusted to stop himself, if he unleashes that control. So instead, he makes a fist, glaring at me with piercing dark eyes.

I’ve been told I have my mother’s eyes, soft and blue. But I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember her, and there are no pictures of her in the house. Nothing to remember her by.

“He may want you for more than one night,” my father snaps. “And sometimes Bratva men take their mistresses to functions. You will impress them more if you behave like a mistress and not a whore. A woman who can hold her own among their associates.”

Ah, yes. That distinction. I’ve heard it a thousand times. A whore lies on her back for one night and gets paid. Easy, simple. One and done. A mistress is beautiful. Polished. Elegant. For my father to succeed in installing his daughter as a mistress and not a whore means more for him. More of everything—but mostly the potential to rise higher…the only thing that’s ever mattered to him.

“All daughters in these families manage to learn these lessons,” my father snipes at me as I look down at the place setting in front of me again, struggling to commit to memory what I’m meant to do with the silverware. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather shove the butterknife in one of these men’s eyes than politely eat soup with them. 

But it’s not my choice. It never has been.

“I’m not one of those daughters.” The words catch in my throat. “I’m no one.” You’re no one, I want to say, but that might earn me a beating no matter how hard my father tries to restrain himself. And then later, when he’s realized what he’s done and blames me for pushing him to it, days locked in my room without food or entertainment, only the charm school books that reinforce my place in the world.

Whether I’m on my feet or my back, I’m here for the pleasure of the men around me. To serve their whims. To make them happy.

“You’re right,” he says, his voice still cold and cutting. “You are no one. But you will make me into someone. You will please the pakhan, and you will earn me my rightful spot in the ranks. And then, when he’s finished with you—”

He trails off, and I wait for the end of that sentence. The only thing that’s kept me from stealing a kitchen knife and slitting my own wrists long ago, to escape the absolute hell of my own existence. 

“Then you can do as you damn well please,” he finishes. “And good fucking riddance.”

At least there’s no pretense. That’s the only relief I have. My father doesn’t pretend to be a good or kind or loving man. He isn’t horrified that I’m afraid of him, rather than loving or respecting him. He relishes it, because no one else is afraid of him, and he so desperately wants to be a man that others fear. A man whose name makes others tremble.

I want to laugh at him. To tell him how pathetic it all is. But I have a healthy dose of self-preservation, so I don’t.

I endure the rest of the lesson and his berating, and then I go back to my room. Hungry, which is ironic, considering that we spent the last two hours discussing silverware and dinner platings.

But my father wants me slender, which means I eat very little, and what I do eat is restricted. I’ll have to come down for dinner later, where he’ll eat as he pleases, and I’ll be served the usual—a spinach salad, grilled chicken, and a medley of vegetables. Water, not wine, or anything else more exciting. I’ve never actually had a drink other than the few times I’ve been brave enough to sneak it from my father’s liquor cabinet or an open wine bottle—on the occasions that he has others over for holidays or other celebrations, he makes the excuse that I’m too young.

Twenty is technically too young, but I don’t think anyone else gives a shit. Neither does he, really, other than it’s something else to prevent me from doing. Another edict, another form of control.

I close the door to my room behind me, leaning back against it, letting out a long breath as I allow the exhaustion to sink in. I’ve been up since five in the morning—exercising, doing my lessons, going to my hair and beauty appointments, and coming home for more lessons and more exercise. It’s the same thing day in and day out, with the exception of the appointments on a biweekly rotation. I know my father doesn’t really have the money that he spends on me, but he considers it an investment.

An investment that, should I fail to deliver the return he expects, will be taken out of my own flesh. I can’t imagine what’s in store for me if I fail to please the pakhan, the man that I’m going to be presented to very soon. What will happen if he doesn’t want me—if he doesn’t give my father what he wants.

Slowly, I walk to the bed, sinking down on it. There’s little to do when I’m alone—I have a few books, and I’ve read them so much, the covers are falling off. Outside I can see the Chicago skyline rising in the distance, and I know there are streets full of people living their bustling, full lives—on their way home, or to see friends, or to go out on a date. The things that ordinary people do, in their ordinary lives.

I would like very much to be ordinary. 

I should have been ordinary. My father is no one. As far as I know, my mother was no one, too. My father is a rank-and-file man in the Chicago Bratva, someone whose life means very little to the men far above him, the men he seeks to cozy up to. I was never supposed to be one of those girls bred and groomed for the pleasure of a high-ranking man, for marriage, for providing heirs. My future was supposed to be wholly unwritten.

Of course, I won’t be marrying anyone. I won’t be providing any children, thank fuck. I’ll be getting fucked, and then once that’s done, once my father has gotten what he wanted and I’m free, I can choose a different life.

I get up, open the window, and lean out. Our apartment is high up, on the twelfth floor, and there have been many nights where I leaned out just like this and imagined what might happen if I simply…tumbled out. I ran the calculations, trying to determine if there was a chance of survival. I was fairly sure that there wouldn’t be.

Isolation and loneliness will do that to a girl. Growing up with a father obsessed with pushing his daughter into the bed of the most advantageous man will do that. Everything I’ve endured has pushed me to the very brink.

But now, if I can hold on just a little longer, my freedom might be very close. And with it, what will I do?

I’ll get the fuck out of Chicago, that’s what. I’ll go as far away as I can—Florida, California, fucking Alaska, for all I care. I don’t give a shit where I end up, as long as it’s not this room, this apartment, this fucking city. As long as I never have to hear the words pakhan or Bratva again. As long as I get to choose who I fuck and when. 

All I have to do is give up this one last thing. Endure for just a little longer. And then my value to my father—to all of these men—will be gone. I won’t be a virgin any longer, and none of them will give a shit about me.

I’ve spent the better part of my life being tutored in anything that my father thought might give me an advantage over these men. It’s been impressed upon me over and over how worldly they are, how cultured, how my intelligence could matter, if the pakhan decides he wants me for more than just a single night. If he wants me on his arm as a mistress for any length of time. Literature, world history, geography—I’ve had all that drilled into me, too, along with the placement of spoons and forks.

The result of that wasn’t entirely what my father hoped for, though. I have some of those maps still squirreled away, some of those books with places highlighted, outlining a future in which I can travel to those places on my own, without anyone else to hold me back. Destinations I want to visit, a world I want to see with the freedom I’ve earned, and no one will tell me no.

Those plans are all ephemeral still, and I haven’t decided where I’ll go first. But that doesn’t really matter. 

Anything is better than this. 

All that will matter is that I’ll get to choose what I do next.

If I can survive.