Page 48 of A Vicious Love

“I can speak to Jamison,” I said.

The table went quiet. My father looked at me with hope so sudden and misplaced it hurt.

“Can you?”

My throat closed. Could I speak to Jamison?

I could stand beside him. Make him look approachable to strangers.

But speak to him?

“I can try,” I said.

“Trying is what girls do before they become useful.” My mother added.

“That’s enough.” Sabine whispered.

Mother ignored her.

“You have to understand, Sienna.” My father rubbed his thumb along the stem of his glass. “Sons carry the dynasty forward. They preserve the name. Inherit, produce heirs, maintain the primary line.”

I nodded because every dynasty daughter knew this speech.

“But daughters,” he continued, gaze moving around the table to my sisters, “daughters are how influence grows outward and returns stronger. A good marriage is not a loss. It is a corridor back to the father’s house.”

My eldest sister looked down.

My brothers did not, they had the luxury of being carried forward.

My sisters had been sent outward. Married into families that widened Bellemere reach, then brought trade, votes, influence, and heirs back under my father’s pride.

They had done their duty beautifully.

I would not.

The Crow marriage would not work that way. Crows did not merge. They absorbed. Whatever wealth moved through me would not flow back to Bellemere.

It would not stay with me either. Unlike my sisters. It would become Crow. My name, my dowry, my body, my children if I had them, my future.

Everything settled the debt.

Nothing returned.

“With the Crows, we don’t gain a daughter’s corridor. We close a liability. That is all.” My mother said it aloud because she had always enjoyed turning thoughts into weapons.

My cheeks burned.

A liability. Not a wife building alliance, or creating influence. Just the pretty ribbon tied around an old debt my grandparents had no right owing to monsters.

“I understand,” My voice sounded calm.

Mother looked at me sharply. “Then why are you still unmarried?”

My fork slipped slightly against the plate. No one answered for me. Because they didn’t want to say it.

Jamison didn’t want me.

“I don’t know,” I said.