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It’s not like I have a choice. I need sleep to be able to function. For my strength. The same reason I forced myself to eat dinner earlier.
Turns out my dinner served a better purpose than I’d anticipated. It got Miles off of me and facilitated my escape.
But if Falcon and Leif hadn’t come, Miles would have eventually found me huddled in that closet, still covered in my own puke. He would’ve forced me into a shower, probably had servants scrub me clean.
Then he would’ve strapped me down, probably gagged me so I wouldn’t puke again.
And then he would have forced himself on me. Raped me. And he wouldn’t have been gentle.
And sometime tomorrow—probably it’s today already—I would’ve been forced into marriage.
A marriage I agreed to for Falcon.
Even now, I don’t regret that decision. I assumed I would have to go to bed with Miles after the wedding, but his mother assured me he wouldn’t come to me tonight.
She was so wrong.
He wasn’t going to take me in love. Of course not. He doesn’t love me and I don’t love him.
No, he was taking me in anger. Rage.
Which means…
He doesn’t want this union any more than I do.
It’s our fathers…
And I need to figure out why.
“Vannah?” A soft knock as Falcon’s voice comes through the door. “You okay in there?”
What a loaded question. I’m so far from okay.
But I’m a hell of a lot more okay than I would’ve been had Falcon and Leif not come for me.
I clear my throat. “Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“No rush, baby. Just checking.”
I wipe the steam off of the mirror with the towel.
Small beads of condensation form on the glass instantly, but at least I can see myself. A sort of blurry image of me.
Kind of how I truly see myself right now.
I want to be with Falcon more than I want anything else, but even more than that? I want his freedom. I want him to have a good life.
If he goes back to prison…
God, I can’t go there.
He said he would serve a thousand more prison sentences for me. But doesn’t he understand that I don’t want that for him? I want him to have the life he deserves.
He wasn’t born into the mafia.
That’s me, not him.
While I can’t escape the circumstances of my birth, he can. He doesn’t have to be bound by it.
