“Just do as he asks.”
“Obeying him isn’t something I have to do anymore,” I muttered.
“You’re still his daughter,” Victoria reprimanded sharply.
“If I never have to see him again, it’s too soon.”
“You have to visit him in the hospital! He’s been knee-capped, Inessa.”
“That you even know what that means at your age tells me how shitty a father he is. He choked me for the last time—”
The beeping of the elevator made itself known, and I muttered, “He sold me into marriage, well, he can’t blame me for making the best of what he gave me. My love to you, Victoria, and if you contact Camille—”
“She’s on her way.”
“She is?” I arched a brow, thought about that for a second, then added, “Give her my home number?”
“What’s wrong with your cell? I tried your number—”
“He was tracing me, Victoria, that’s how he knew how to follow me.”
She snorted. “You’re naïve if you didn’t foresee that.”
I shook my head. “This conversation is fucked up because it sounds like you’re condoning every wrong move our father has made.”
“I’m not. A lot of it, Papa does for our protection.”
At her defense, I grunted under my breath. “You can choose to think the sun rises and sets on him, but I don’t. I love you. Take care. I have to go.”
I didn’t wait for her to reply, instead, I almost slid out of the kitchen on my sock-clad feet and moved into the living room.
It was almost a similar stance to earlier when he’d returned. He stood there, staring at the living room like he’d been plopped onto Mars without even being anally probed first, and I watched him—the socks and a super shiny floor were my secret weapons.
I was actually super proud of myself and what I’d achieved in his absence. Lisandra and I had managed to work the furniture out of Jack by getting him to take the goods off another person’s order. I’d facilitated things with a nice little bribe, and Lisandra, by the look of Jack’s face, had helped things along by what appeared to be her giving him a blow job but what had probably been a kiss.
She claimed her tongue was magic, and I almost wished I was gay so I knew what she did. I figured I needed magic on a man like Eoghan, who stared at the world as though he was seeing it through a filter.
What that filter actually filtered, I didn’t know.
Bullshit?
Maybe.
Emotions?
Could be.
But I knew he had feelings. I’d seen the love on his face when he spoke to his brother the other day. I knew he cared for his parents fiercely—because a man like Eoghan didn’t allow himself to be beaten by his father unless there was love between them.
And yeah, I knew that was a weird kind of logic, but in our world, we were violent.
Eoghan had just knee-capped the goddamn Pakhan of the largest Bratva brotherhood in the Northeast! He wasn’t scared…so why would he be afraid of doling out the beating back on his dad?
So, no. I knew he felt stuff, and I just had to figure out how to make him feel something for me that wasn’t related to my being his property.
The only way I could think to do that was with sex, but also, I couldn’t be too easy. He was used to easy sex. Sex, violence, and blood were as commonplace in my world as carrots and onions were in the world of someone normal.
As he looked at the furniture, stared at the new living room I’d turned from a showroom into a home, I eyed it from his perspective, but I was pleased with it. There was comfort in the oversized soft furnishings, everything was warm and made to want to snuggle up in. I figured I’d be the one spending more time here than him, so I’d gone for comfort.