Page 16 of Vicious Betrayal

The car pulls up outside the house, a sprawling miniature mansion of white stone with black shutters and landscaping that's just now starting to fade in the early autumn chill. There's a fountain out front that my mother insisted on because she'd seen something similar in some magazine spread of Italian villas, even though we live in the Midwest and it freezes over every winter until April. It looks beautiful, like nothing bad could ever happen behind those doors.

It's a lie, obviously. Most beautiful things are. There's plenty of bad that happens behind those walls. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I know it's just a matter of time. I'm my father's spoiled youngest daughter now, but eventually, the piper will have to be paid.

I just hope it's a long while yet. Or maybe, if I'm very lucky, the shadow will pass over me altogether, between my brother's inheritance and my sister's marriage.

When I slip out of the Uber still in last night's clothes, I tug my dress down where it's ridden up and walk toward the front steps like I didn't spend the night in a house I don't know the address of, in the bed of a man twice my age who works for the Irish. Sergei, one of my bodyguards, is standing outside with his arms crossed, smoking a cigarette. He looks at me like he'd rather be anywhere else on earth than reporting my whereabouts to my father, and like right now I'm the bane of his existence. Which, honestly, fair.

"He's waiting," Sergei says. It's not even really information. Just a warning.

"Shocking," I say, and brush past him.

It's all bravado, really, even though I know my father won't punish me too badly. Still, I want to be in my room sulking over Cormac's brush-off this morning, not listening to a lecture. But avoidance will only make it worse in the end, so I head to my father's office, knocking once before he calls for me to come in.

The office smells familiarly of leather and cedar, and the faint bitterness of the espresso he drinks all day even though his doctor's told him three times to cut back. He's behind his desk when I walk in, reading glasses on his nose. "Sit," he says, without looking up.

I flop into one of the leather chairs and let out a sigh. "I'm fine, Papa. I wasn't kidnapped. I wasn't murdered. I had a good night."

"You disappeared." He finally looks at me, and I brace for the disappointment I already know is coming, worn smooth from a thousand repetitions. "Your security lost you, Oksana. Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what could happen to you in this city?"

"But nothing did. I was fine. I knew what I was doing." I don't tell him I was with a man. I have a feeling he already suspects that my virginity is compromised, and hasn't said anything about it only because he has his hands full with everything else, and because my older sister is the model of a pure mafia daughter. But I don't dare say it out loud. "I'm back home, Papa. See?"

His upper lip curls slightly. "Yes, and dressed like a shlyukha."

I wince. Being called a whore in Russian isn't much better than in English. "Ty nazyvayesh' svoyu doch' shlyukhoy," I retort back in perfect Russian—you're calling your daughter a whore?—and my father glares at me.

"No. I'm saying your attire suggests things that, as a good daughter, you should not be willing to follow through on." His lips thin. "You are a smart girl. Too smart. But you will not always be fine when you behave like this." His voice rises, the vein at his temple starting to show. "You are my daughter. Do you know what that costs me, every single day? Do you know how many people would love nothing more than to take something of mine to hurt me?"

I do know, actually. I've known since I was old enough to understand why we had guards at the school gate, why certain men came to dinner with their jackets never quite settling right over what they carried underneath. I know what it costs, in theory. I've just never had it cost me anything. But looking at my father's worried, angry face, guilt prickles through me.

"I'm sorry." It surprises us both, because I don't usually say that. "I'll call next time."

He studies me for a second too long, like he can tell something's different, and it makes me want to squirm. "You will be home next time," he says. "No club, no disappearing into the night to God knows where. This needs to stop, Oksana. Your sister is getting married. She will have her own household soon. It's time you started to think about your responsibilities to this family.”

A shiver runs down my spine at that. I don't want to think about the possibilities of what that might mean—for one, marriage, like what Katya is about to have to do, marrying some man I didn't choose and might not want or like because it's my duty.

I swallow hard and nod, despite the direction of my thoughts. "Yes, Papa," I say demurely, mostly to get out of this conversation, not because I mean it. By the look on my father's face, he knows it, too. But he sighs, rubs his temple, and waves a hand toward the door instead of pushing further, which tells me he's more tired than truly furious. That's usually how it goes with us.

"Go shower," he says. "You look like hell."

"Love you too, Papa."

I go upstairs before he can say anything else.

—

Upstairs in my bedroom, I strip out of my dress and toss it in the basket for dry cleaning, where the maid will take it all later, and then go take a shower. The hot water pours over me, washing away the lingering scent of sweat and perfume and a hint of Cormac's cologne, and I regret that final loss of him clinging to me. I doubt I'll ever get a chance to get that close to him again. I could go back to the club, I suppose, regardless of what my father said about it, but Cormac made it pretty fucking clear how he felt about the situation. I don't want to seem desperate. At a certain point, chasing a man just becomes pathetic, no matter how good in bed he is.

I can't stop thinking about how his hands looked sliding over my body, though… those long fingers, those scarred knuckles, the muscled strength of his body. He was all man, so roughly masculine that I can feel heat gathering between my thighs just remembering what we did together.

It can't happen again.

I repeat it to myself under the water, testing how much it still stings. A lot, apparently. More than it should for one night with a man I barely know, and who made it painfully clear I was a lapse in judgment he has no intention of repeating.

I towel off, pull on an oversized T-shirt, and collapse onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling while my phone buzzes with messages from Talia and Priya and Bianca wanting every detail. I don't answer them. I don't know what I'd even say. I met the most handsome, dangerous man of my life, and he doesn't want to see me again, and I can't stop thinking about him anyway. That's not something I can turn into a fun brunch story.

My eyes close and I drift off into a much-needed nap, entirely exhausted after a night that took far more out of me than I expected it would.

—