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“No,” I lie again.
It’s my only protection against him—to refuse to answer him truthfully, even in the smallest details. I try to build a wall around myself, shutting him off from anything genuine. It’s the only way to keep myself safe.
I hate lying. I’m an honest person. Deceit never tastes right in my mouth, no matter the reason for it. The way I’m forced to sneak and conceal, by Rocco and by my father and stepmother, sickens my soul.
Rocco likes making me lie.
This is what he wants: to break me down. To twist me and change me.
We’re passing a seafood restaurant, the open patio full of diners enjoying their wine and poached fish.
Swifter than I can blink, Rocco grabs my arm and jerks me into the narrow alleyway between two restaurants. He shoves me up against the wall, the reek of empty mussel shells and fishbones filling my nostrils.
He seizes my jaw in his hand, pinching hard on both cheeks. The pressure of my flesh against my molars is intensely painful. He forces me to open my mouth.
“You weren’t very friendly to me last year at school,” he hisses, his nose inches from mine. “I almost felt like you were avoiding me, Zoe.”
My bare back is shoved up against the filthy alley wall. My jaw is aching, and I feel absurdly vulnerable with my lips forced apart. I expect him to try to kiss me.
Instead, he spits in my mouth.
The cold saliva hits my tongue. I lash out instinctively, wrenching my face free and hitting him away from me while I wretch and gag. The unwanted scotch comes heaving up and I vomiton the cement, splashing my bare toes in their golden sandals.
My flailing arm knocks Rocco across the face. He scowls at me, either from the blow or from my extreme reaction to his spit on my tongue.
At least he doesn’t want to touch me anymore now that I’ve puked.
“I expect your attitude to improve come September,” Rocco says coldly. “If not, there will be consequences.”
He strides away from me, leaving me alone in the alley.
My legs are shaking so hard that I can barely make it back to the party.
As soon as I enter the room, Daniela appears at my side hissing, “Fix your makeup, you look like a whore.”
I stumble off toward the bathrooms. Sure enough, my eyes are watering from vomiting and my mascara is smeared as if I were giving an enthusiastic blowjob in that alley.
Daniela had no problem with that—it’s what she expected me to be doing. It’s the lack of care in my appearance that she can’t abide.
Rocco’s spit in my mouth was almost as bad as the alternative.
I wash my mouth out at the sink, rinsing over and over until I’ve recovered the ability to swallow without heaving.
I don’t like this new demand from Rocco, but I don’t see how he can enforce it. I agreed to marry him after graduation. I never said we’d be best friends at school.
He leaves me alone the rest of the night, and I think that’s all he has in store for me. I think I got off relatively easy.
The next morningmy father and stepmother breakfast with Dieter and Gisela Prince, to see them off before they head back to Hamburg, and no doubt to discuss details of their new collaboration.
I’m not invited. My spirits begin to rise, knowing that I won’t see Rocco again until I board the ship to Kingmakers.
When we meet again, I’ll have friends around me—Anna Wilk and Chay Wagner, for instance, who shared the same dorm with me Freshman year. They’re formidable women, both proper Heirs who will actually inherit their families’ businesses instead of being given the title in name only and then immediately married off.
Anna will run the Polish mafia in Chicago—she’ll have a dozenBraterstwounder her command. Chay is the Heir of the Berlin chapter of the Night Wolves, a Russian motorcycle gang.With those two girls beside me, I’m not afraid to face even Rocco and his friends.
That is, until my father calls Cat and me down to his study.
I hate entering my father’s office. This is a place I’m never invited unless I’m in trouble. Cold sweat breaks out on my skin just stepping foot over the threshold.
