Page 2 of Claimed By River

His expression hardens instantly. “You’ll be exactly where I tell you to be. The brunch is to announce your engagement.”

For a moment, I genuinely think I’ve misunderstood him. “My…engagement?”

“To Ivan.” He lets that sit. “He’s asked for you. By name, and more than once.”

Something in his tone makes my skin crawl. Ivan’s asked for me, not a bride. Me.

The words echo through my head. “No.” The protest escapes before I can stop it. “I’m only seventeen.”

“You’ll be eighteen in three months.”

“I don’t want to marry him.”

The silence stretches. Then his fist crashes onto the desk, making me flinch.

“You will do exactly as you’re told.” His voice remains frighteningly calm. “You will marry Ivan on your eighteenth birthday.”

I shake my head, unable to breathe. “I can’t. I…I don’t even know him.”

“You don’t need to.”

Fear burns behind my eyes. “I don’t want this.”

My father slowly rises from his chair, and somehow that’s even more terrifying than his shouting. He walks around the desk until he’s standing directly in front of me.

“You seem to be under the mistaken impression that your opinion matters.”

I step backward without meaning to.

“You are my daughter.” He closes the distance I just made.

Another step back.

“You are my responsibility.”

Another step.

“And you will be useful.”

I hit the wall behind me with nowhere left to retreat.

His voice lowers almost to a whisper. “If you are not going to benefit this family through an advantageous marriage...”

He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to threaten me outright. I understand him perfectly. He dismisses me with nothing more than a flick of his hand.

“Leave.”

I somehow force my legs to move before the tears spilling down my cheeks betray me. I don’t stop moving until I reach my bedroom. The door closes behind me, and I lock it, even though the flimsy lock has never truly protected me from anything.

My knees give out. I collapse onto the floor beside my bed, burying my face in my hands as sobs tear through my chest.

Mama. The thought comes immediately.

I stare at the framed photograph sitting on my nightstand. She’s smiling in it, her dark hair blowing gently across her face while she holds my hand at the beach years before everything became unbearable.

My father always blamed her. One child. A daughter. Never the son who could have stood at his side, learned the business, carried his name into the next generation. In his world, a son is an heir. A daughter is only an expense until another man agrees to take her off your hands. Every year she stays unmarried is a year you’ve wasted feeding her. He made certain my mother understood that. I remember the shouting. The bruises she tried to hide beneath long sleeves. And when she died, everyone believed my father when he announced it was from a brain aneurysm.

I never did.