Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
“I’m not missing, Papa. I am right here.”
“And where exactly is that?” His voice deepened with the question.
I paced, my heels snagging on the high pile of the thick carpet. My head dipped low as if my father could feel the weight of my plea. My heart clanged in fits of desperation when I let go of the words. “Papa, I need you to listen to me.”
More silence.
This time baited. Harsher than it’d been.
“Who do I need to kill?” he finally offered.
I would have laughed if it hadn’t been a horrible, terrible reality.
A reality that had destroyed the last seven years.
Could it be changed? Could it? I prayed and prayed that my father could be swayed.
“No one, Papa. No one, please.” I hated it. Hated this ruthless world. Hated that I still loved my father despite his barbarous ways.
“I need you to spare someone.” That, I begged, my pulse chugging as I croaked the anguished request. A request that would likely send him over the edge.
“Who?”
Gulping, I forced it out. “Logan Lawson.”
I heard his teeth snap.
The old disgust.
The violence that coated his carefully constructed response. “You promised, Aster Rose. You gave me the Oath of Life.”
“I know, Papa, I know, but I…”
Tears sprang free, and a sob ripped up my throat before I could contain it.
“Tell me where you are, and I will come for you.” Panic whipped from him.
“I’m safe, I’m safe. But I need you to do something for me. Allow one request.”
“And what is it I’m allowing you? For Logan Lawson to live when you went against the one thing required of you?” Rage thinned his words.
One thing.
My life.
Every last piece of me.
My pulse wavered and shook. “Yes. Yes, Papa. And I need you to allow me to stay here. Just for a little while.”
Until I figured out how to prove to my father that Jarek wasn’t loyal. That he was no good. That he would hurt the family in the end.
And if I could prove it?
Maybe…just maybe my father would see me as my own person. See me as someone who could stand for herself. See I didn’t need him to pick a husband for me.
I was his daughter. Not his possession.
“You know I cannot do that, mia vita. This is where you belong, and the last place I would allow you to stay is with that boy.”
That boy.
“I have never belonged with Jarek.” The blasphemy was out on a whoosh of air that I should have dammed. But I couldn’t stop it, the flashflood of hatred and hurt.
“He is your husband.” My father sounded offended in his defense.
“And why is that?” Hurt shot through the words. I gasped in a shocked breath.
How could I say it? Release it? Not when it meant breaking the promise I’d made that day.
When I’d given Logan a chance at life at the cost of my own.
Tears kept falling, racing in a torrent of grief. I looked to the ceiling and tried to suppress the sorrow that surged from the secret places. To hold it back.
I had to be strong. I had to convince him there was a reason I was doing this.
But I had to be smart about it. “I need a break, Papa.”
A permanent one, but I couldn’t tell him that.
“I need to breathe. I need to heal. I’ve never had that chance.”
“Aster Rose…your responsibilities are here.” I heard the undercurrent of it.
I was a treaty.
A covenant.
A bond.
“You call me your life, yet you treat me like a possession, Papa. Like I’m merchandise to be bartered with. What about what I need?”
“You agreed.” It was a warning.
“I know, but things have changed, and if you love me—”
“You know that I do.” He said it with such force it shook the walls.
“Then give me this time.”
“He is the very reason, Aster. Do you not remember the disgrace he brought this family? He killed my brother. He betrayed me. He stole my greatest treasure. And he touched you.”
Yes, he’d touched me. In the most beautiful of ways.
“And now you dare ask me to leave you in his care?” He hissed it, venom in his disbelief.
“Yes.”
For good or for bad.
Yes.
“I need closure, Papa. Do you not understand the pain I’ve endured? Please. Give me this time. And I’ll…I’ll find out what happened to the twin stones.” The faulty promise was out before I could stop it.
The twin stones that had been at the heart of it all.
An albatross.
A heavy sigh left him. A moment of silence followed. A chasm of dread.
“I do not trust this. Not any of it,” he finally mumbled, though some of the anger had drained.
I nearly dropped to my knees.
“I’m not asking you to trust him. I’m asking you to trust me,” I rushed.
“Aster…you do not know what you’re asking of me.” His tone was underscored with his own contrition. His own obligations.