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OPHELIA
Idon’t know how I do it, but I get downstairs. Everything around me is a blur, and I wonder if I lost one of my contacts or if it’s just my tears obscuring my vision. I see a woman standing just outside the door who looks vaguely familiar. She looks at me with shock and concern, but Ethan moves me past her quickly. He practically has to carry me, holding me with an arm around my waist as I lean into him.
Someone we pass makes a comment suggesting I drank too much, and Ethan laughs. The orchestra plays and I catch a glimpse of Mira watching from the bar, her expression hard.
“There is the happy couple.”
I turn my head to see Sly coming toward us, his mask on top of his head, face giving away nothing.
“I’ve been waiting all night for my turn,” he says,taking me from Ethan, straightening my mask and arranging me to dance as I try to remain upright.
“I… I need…” I’m going to be sick. God. He’s talking, making some comment to another couple, before moving us deeper into the crowd.
“Poise, my dear. Hold your head up. Look at me.” When I don’t, he tugs on my hair and I whimper. “I said look at me.”
I do.
“You smell of sex.”
I blink, try not to look at his eyes that look so much like Silas’s. I realize what’s missing, though. What has always been missing. Warmth.
“I’m glad to see Ethan didn’t take it easy on you. Finally, the boy does something right,” he says as my knees buckle yet again. “He’s only ever been on the receiving end until now, you know. Tonight was a rite of passage of sorts, don’t you think? Think of this as a good lesson, your first of many, I’m sure. It took Mira time, Christ knows. But just as she learned, you’ll learn your place as wife to a Fox.”
“You beat…”
“Discipline falls on the shoulders of the patriarch. Your father clearly failed in this regard. You disobeyed the rules, Phee, and now you know the consequences. Because there are always consequences, and you will always be brought to reckoning.”
I groan, and he chuckles.
“You’re a smart girl. You’ll learn, I have no doubt.”
He turns us, and my gaze lands on Ethan and Anya standing too close, watching me.
“They’ve always been close, haven’t they?” he asks, “I think they’re more than friends. Doesn’t it bother you?” he asks.
I don’t answer.
“Well, I guess not but I can understand why. Second visit to the hotel in a matter of a few days. How long have you been fucking Silas Cruz?”
My throat goes dry and sweat pools under my arms, beads my forehead.
“I didn’t… We weren’t…”
“Never mind. It’s really not important.” He smiles, showing all his teeth. “Did Silas ever tell you what happened the night he saved you from my son’s bed? Heroically, I might add. You were a child, sweet sixteen. Ethan had no business touching you then, of course.”
I stare, mouth gaping. He knew about that?
“Ethan, however, was not for Silas to deal with. I run my own household and mete out punishments I see fit. As you’ve now experienced firsthand.” He pauses, exchanges a few words with someone, smiling happily before he turns to me, and I see behind the façade. I finally see. “Silas’s nose never did heal right and that scar along his temple, well, he’s lucky he didn’t lose an eye.”
“What?” That was him? He beat Silas? My father had arranged for a surprise trip just days after thenight Silas walked in on Ethan and me. I didn’t see Silas for two weeks.
“Don’t look so stunned. Silas Cruz is an enemy of my family. That’s not news to anyone,” he says, spinning me, the orchestra muffling the sound of my cry. I glance down, see the blood leaking out of my shoe. He does too, but he doesn’t care. “And he will use any means to get to us. To destroy us. Do you understand?”
I don’t reply, I can’t. But he’s not waiting for me to. This is a monologue.
“You’re naïve, but I’m not. I know people. I know how they operate. You’re out of your league with Silas Cruz. He is cunning. He is scheming. I had not yet mandated you stop visiting your father, although I was never happy about it, but I understood. Of course, that changes now. Tonight, seeing you degrade yourself with that ill-begotten bastard, well, it changes everything. But I guess you wouldn’t want to be close to the man who set fire to your home, would you?”
I feel tears slide down my face. They get swallowed up by the mask. Is it true? The house is gone? Did Silas really do what they’re saying he did?
