Something had changed, and I suspected I knew what it was.
Santo paused and then said, “You stayed because you’re dutiful. Your mother taught you well, and you follow her example.”
“That’s why you had no trouble using me to save yourself?” I said, my voice rising with the anger that coursed through me, anger I hadn’t allowed myself to really feel until now. What he’d done was awful, and it was only sheer fortune that had given me Sergei and not someone like Santo. Not that Santo cared.
Temper had gotten the best of me, but Santo simply shrugged. “From what Michael told me, you’re happy with the arrangement.”
“But it wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t?” I said.
He shrugged again. “You’d make the best of anything.”
The he gazed at me, the way I knew him told me that he thought of what he’d said as a compliment, but it made me wither. If I’d had any question of what he thought of me, what he was willing to do for me—what he would allow me to do for him—there was none any longer.
“A-And what do you want me to do now?” I asked, speaking around the horror that almost choked me.
“I want you to do exactly what you have been doing. Be the wife your mother taught you to be. Keep him happy,” he said.
Even I—and I was no genius—had no doubt as to what he meant. Santo had no qualms about me using my body for his game, was encouraging it.
“You really are a monster,” I said, the words nearly clogging my throat. Somehow, despite all the evidence, I’d let myself think Santo valued me, cared, and I’d shaped my life around that belief. How stupid I’d been.
“You just now catching on?”
“Yes. I thought even you would be above whoring out your daughter,” I said.
“I didn’t tell you to fuck the guy, but if that’s what it takes to keep him happy then that’s what you’ll keep doing,” Santo said.
I was stunned, though I had no reason to be.
“Why would I do this for you?” I said.
“Maybe you won’t for me, but you’ll do it for my people. You said it yourself, their families will suffer the most if it comes to war,” he said.
“You mean they’d be slaughtered like cattle,” I said.
“Probably, but we don’t have to find that out. You just keep up your end of the bargain, keep that piece of shit entertained and amused, and leave the rest to me. Do your duty, Daniela,” he said.
I stood abruptly, and Santo didn’t appear remotely surprised. “I have to get out of here,” I said, turning and walking toward the door.
“Good girl, checking on your dad. Remember who you are, Daniela. Remember who you owe your life to,” he said, his voice following me like a specter I didn’t know if I could outrun.
Twenty-Three
Sergei
It had been a long day, and I was anxious for it to be over.
When I got to the house, home, as I now thought of it, I found Daniela waiting for me. She was pinched, nervous, though I could see how valiantly she tried to hide it.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, knowing the answer to the question before I’d even spoken it.
She stood, looked at me.
“What is it, Daniela?” I said.
“Is this duty, Sergei?” she said, whispering.
“What?”
“Me and you. Is this only duty? Obligation?”
“What are you asking me, Daniela?” I said, moving closer to her, worried about what had her so cryptic, not yet willing to allow myself to hope that this might lead to something good.
She looked up into my eyes. “We married for other people’s vendettas, to show our loyalty. But what about me and you?”
“What about me and you?” I asked, pulling her into my arms.
“I don’t want this to be an obligation, Sergei,” she said, her voice going stronger.
“What do you want it to be?” I asked, my heart frozen in my chest, unwilling to beat until I heard what she had to say, praying to a god I wasn’t sure I believed in that she felt the way I did.
“I want this to be real. Forever,” she said.
I didn’t answer, but I pulled her closer and leaned down to kiss her, covering her lips with mine. She kissed me back eagerly, her emotions right there for me to feel in her kiss.
She sighed and squeezed me tighter, her kisses growing more urgent, her hands roaming my body. She pulled at my clothes, unbuttoning and pushing my shirt down my arms without breaking the kiss.
I understood what fueled her. I didn’t want to let go either. This moment was unlike any I’d ever experienced. I loved her. I knew that without a doubt, but I hadn’t allowed myself to imagine what it would be like if she loved me back.