Angered him?
He wasn’t the only one outraged now. “You promised Mama’s ring to me!”
“I gave it to Svetlana,” he countered dismissively. “Eoghan can afford to buy you a thousand rings. Let him—”
“That was Mama’s!She,” I spat, “has no right to wear something that belonged to my mama!” I pushed into him, the fragile connection to my beloved mother, to a Papa who had been kind and gentle, making me forget for a second that this father was not those things, and his hand snapped out.
Like always, it went to my throat.
He pinned me to the wall, hard enough for me to know I’d bruise, and he squeezed.
It was hard, God, so hard not to claw at his wrists, to scrabble at his fingers, but I didn’t.
Wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
Instead, I stared at him as he snarled, “Your mother’s jewelry is mine to give to whom I wish. Do we understand each other?”
Oh, I understood all right.
I understood that, by hook or by fucking crook, I’d be stealing it back from him. I knew he kept it in his safe in his home office, and I didn’t give a shit if it meant I had to lie my way back onto the compound to get it.
I’d fucking take the pieces she loved, and I’d wear them in goddamn public. Shoving my theft in his face.
Maybe he saw my mutiny, I’d never know, but his fingers tightened to the point where narrow tunnels appeared in my eyes.
My lungs’ craving for oxygen reached a fever pitch, but I refused to struggle.
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Instead, I glared my loathing of him until his eyes flashed like the monster he was.
It was then when I realized there were two types of monsters in the world.
Eoghan was one variety.
My father another.
And while I had eighteen years with this bastard, I’d have a lifetime with Eoghan, and I was suddenly very grateful for the fact that I had to get married so young.
Eighteen was the opposite of ideal, but I didn’t care.
It got me away from this evil bastard.
My defiance had his fingers pinching into my throat with a force that made me feel like he could tear through the skin, then someone called out, “Pakhan.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was a warning or to prompt my father about an upcoming appointment, but he backed off.
For those intense moments, our gazes had been locked on one another, nothing else intruding. Nothing in the world getting in the way.
But the second he heard his title, he twisted around, and I saw it was Maxim.
My old crush.
Great.
Two old crushes under the same roof while my parent was trying to kill me…