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He threw me back onto the bench seat. “You bitch. You wanted me to hit you so everyone sees the bruises.”
“Why not? It takes a big, strong man to beat his wife into compliance.” I rubbed my wrist, where I had no doubt I’d bear the marks of Andraius’s brutal hold.
“Listen, Nerine. All I want is a fucking child. Give me that, and I will never come near you again. Is that too fucking much to ask for?”
I wanted to shout,“Yes. I will never have your fucking child, you bastard.”
Instead, I said, “Did you ever think that you are the problem? You are the common denominator. You have doctors telling you I’m healthy and when I’m most fertile. Yet still, it doesn’t happen. Not a single one of your whores has ever gotten pregnant.”
It was a wonder this fucker hadn’t given me an STD. Good thing I tested myself constantly with the way he passed himself around.
Disgusting piece of shit.
God, when had I become so bitter?
Oh yes, when I decided it was either break under the weight of my existence or become the very thing he believed I was and fight back.
There was no place for weakness in the world I lived in. The time when I could let my guard down and let my vulnerable side free was gone, along with the two who’d broken my heart.
“You’re doing something to prevent it. I know it.”
Yes, I am, dickhead. I will continue to do everything I can to keep from carrying your child, even things that aren’t detectable through medical testing.
Thank you, Mama, for all your secret, old-school methods of preventing conception.
“Believe what you want. Just know I will never ever claim another woman’s child as mine. So don’t even think about it.”
“Nerine, I run this family. Not you. Remember that.”
“Without me, there is no family, Andraius. I’m the true Angelos in this pairing. Rememberthat. You are only an interloper.”
* * *
“Don’t forget what I told you,” Andraius warned as we entered the main ballroom of the Drakos mansion on the outskirts of Boston. “I am going to talk to Drakos’s family. You find Nyx and kiss her ass.”
“I don’t kiss anyone’s ass. You should know this better than most.”
“Use your manners instead of behaving like an animal.”
I adjusted my cuff bracelet over the sleeve of my gown where it rested at my wrist and said, “I’ve attended balls from the time I turned six. I’m well-versed in etiquette. The reason I don’t use it around you is that I hate you beyond anything imaginable.”
“Nerine, I?—”
“However,” I continued, cutting him off, “for my mother’s and sisters’ sakes, I’ll behave tonight. Because if I don’t, I’m sure you’d find a way to take it out on them, even from across the ocean.”
“How the fuck did I get saddled with a bitter, cold cunt like you?” he muttered to himself.
Pausing as I walked away, I tilted my head and answered so he could hear, “Since you have such a short-term memory, let me remind you for the second time in an hour. You betrayed and murdered my father, brother, and countless others who trusted you.
“Then you forced me to marry you in front of a corrupt priest by threatening to kill me, my mother, and my three minor sisters, and to seal the deal, you raped me in front of said corrupt priest. Then to top it off, you mutilated my body. You’re the cream of the crop, aren’t you?”
With my shoulders back and spine straight, I strolled around the edge of the crowd. They socialized and discussed the latest developments in society and politics while sending me curious glances as I passed them.
I kept to myself, smiling and nodding acknowledgment at those around me but not engaging otherwise. I had nothing to say to any of them.
I’d fight Andraius nonstop in private, but I’d grown reserved and quiet in public.
The partygoers probably wondered what had happened to the outspoken Nerine Nicolette Angelos. Where did the girl who stuck her nose into her father’s business when other girls wouldn’t dare go? And most of all, tonight’s event attendees probably wanted to find out what Andraius had done to get the misfit of the Greek syndicate world to become a quiet mob wife.
