Vow to Protect by J.L. Beck
Valentina
Aweek after the party, the bruise on my face has finally shifted to a nasty yellow shade. The yellow shade is easier to cover with concealer, so I can finally stop hiding in my room. The last time I showed my father the bruises Sal left on me, he called me disgusting and told me I probably deserved it. I don’t want to encourage Sal further with my father’s approval.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Adrian and what Rose called him. A monster. And I spent a lot of my time lying in bed over the past few days, wondering if he’s the kind of monster other monsters fear.
A plan forms in my mind, but it’s half-baked at best. I want to talk to Rose about it, but she’s been avoiding me since the party, and since I haven’t been able to leave my room much, I haven’t figured out why.
I finish dressing in comfortable jeans and a T-shirt. My father is out of town for the next week, so at the very least, the reprieve will mean I get to talk to Rose, and we won’t have to see Sal very much.
When I enter the small dining room for breakfast, it’s empty. There is food on the table, though, so I help myself to bacon and toast, then grab the newspaper someone left there earlier.
By the grease stains on the edge of it, and the fact that only a few pieces of bacon are left, I can tell my luck has turned, and Sal is in the house somewhere. If I sneak back to my room after I eat, maybe I won’t have to see his greasy face.
Instead of lingering, I take the paper and my plate up to my room and lock the door. So far, it’s kept him out of my space, that and the hefty fear of my father’s reaction if he discovered him inside. It seems he’s fine with Sal’s bruises but draws the line at premarital sex—thank freaking goodness.
I settle in a chair by my favorite bookcase and balance the plate on my knee while I scan the newspaper. The name of a new casino pops out at me, and I read the article. It’s a puff piece about the restaurants and the great bar service, but I thought I remembered my father talking about an underground society fight being held there soon. Tonight maybe?
I stare at the door and wonder if I can sneak into my father’s office without Sal seeing me. He’d have written something down about it if he planned to attend. And a place like that seems exactly where a girl might find herself a monster-eating monster.
I finish up my toast and re-read the article for any information that might help me. It doesn’t give me anything useful, but it does give me a few minutes to bolster myself into going back downstairs to rummage through my father’s office.
Rose usually helps me do these things. She runs interference with the house staff or plays lookout when necessary. Not that I steal into his office often for information. Well, not recently when I might encounter my fiancé.
Mentally, I should prepare myself for it to actually happen. It would be the easiest thing, the most acquiescing all around. Yet every time I have to consider Sal as my fiancé, I want to puke. I also have very little doubt that once my usefulness to him wears off, he’ll kill me with his own two hands.
Even then, I’m sure my father will find a way to blame me for it.
I fold the newspaper and sit my plate on top of it. Then head back down the stairs. A quick glance along the hallway reveals it’s empty, and I sigh heavily, my shoulders falling away from my ears.
I cross the hardwood floor to the double doors of my father’s office and slip inside. Usually, when he’s not in residence, he keeps them locked, but if he has to go out of town for longer than a day, he won’t just in case one of his associates needs to get inside for something.
As always, the place is immaculate. The staff are ordered to dust daily, and if even one tiny thing is out of place, my father freaks out. I’ve been on the receiving end of one of those hissy fits many times. The cook calls him particular, but that’s because she gets paid double what she would make anywhere else to deal with his crap. I can’t complain either because she is good at her job.
I rummage through the drawer he usually keeps a spare calendar in, but it’s not there. He must have taken both his usual calendar and the spare on his trip. Which means something is going on I probably don’t want to know about.
Feeling a little down about not finding my prize, I glance around the room and give it one more half-hearted search for anything that might give me a clue about the casino or the fight.
I knew I had a direct line to Adrian himself. But Rose insisted he was dangerous, and I don’t want to disregard her opinion. If I attend the fight, I can see what kind of man he is and then retreat or approach with more information.
With nowhere left to look, I sit in one of the leather club chairs across from my father’s desk to think. So what if Adrian is more dangerous than I imagined when we first met? Isn’t he the kind of man who might be able to do some damage to a guy like Sal? The only thing I couldn’t abide was roping Adrian in to help me and then getting him hurt or worse. Thanks to my father, Sal is making powerful friends in the society. The thought of never seeing Adrian again because of Sal shoots a burn through my chest I don’t understand.
It’s also not something I can entertain. Not when I’m about to be married off to a psychopath.
The police are always another option. But after the one time my father brought the police chief to dinner, and they spent hours talking, I crossed that exit strategy off my list of options.
Rose suggested more than once I do it myself. My father wouldn’t allow me to go to prison since it would sully his name and bring him under scrutiny from many sides. I just don’t have the heart to tell her I’m not strong enough. Not my best friend who endures so much by staying here with me when all she wants to do is run.
I know she stays because she loves me. And I stay because I haven’t quite given up hope that my father will return to the loving, doting man he was before we lost my mother.
Everything changed after her death—everything—and now I lay awake at night seeing the dead eyes of the woman he shot in the street a few weeks after it happened. I watched my mother die, and then I watched this woman, who didn’t look much older than my own mother, die as well. Her blood ran into the sewer drain, and I watched it mix with the rain until my father pulled me away.
Ever since then, I’ve been afraid to look at a gun, or a knife, or anything that wanders into these walls strapped to my father’s associates. Once Sal realized my fear of guns, he likes to press them to my face to get my attention. And worse, to Rose’s.
I’m about to leave my father’s office and hide out in my room with my demons when I hear a muffled groan from the door adjacent to my father’s office. I wait, frozen, and listen for a few more seconds until it happens again. Definitely a masculine groan. Am I about to walk in on a couple of staff members sleeping together?
Well, better me than the cook, or they will both be fired. I bolster myself to break things up so they can get back to work and don’t get into trouble. Then I shove the door open and blink to try to understand what I’m seeing.
It’s not servants.
It’s Sal.
And Rose.
She’s pressed over the edge of the desk Sal uses when he works with my father. Her skirt is bunched around her hips, and Sal is pumping into her from behind.
I’m not jealous. Please, who the hell would be jealous of someone taking him away from me. But it’s not him I’m watching. It’s her. And the dead-eyed look she’s wearing like the woman in the alley. Like my mother. Except she’s breathing, moving even. Struggling. She’s struggling.
Everything snaps into focus as clear as day, and I start moving before I can think. My fist connects solidly with Sal’s cheek, and he rears back as pain surges up my arm. But it throws him off enough that he releases Rose, and she can maneuver around the desk to stand behind me. She’s a foot taller, but I don’t care. Right now, I’d rip him apart with my teeth if I have to in order to protect her.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demand. “You can’t fuck me, so you rape my cousin?”
He glares tucking himself back into his pants before taking a menacing step forward. “She wanted it. And your father gave us permission, so go ahead and tell him you caught us together. He won’t give a shit.”
He tests the skin on his cheek and takes another step toward me. I hold my ground and spread my arms to block his view of Rose. “You touch her again, and I’ll kill you.”
This time, he laughs at me. A loud sniffling guffaw and then he spins around the room like it’s all a joke. “You, tiny little Valentine, think you can kill me?”
His face becomes serious, and he pulls a black handgun from a holster under his arm. “How are you going to do that when you can’t even look at a gun?”
He’s right. Even now, I can’t stand the sight of it. I almost throw up my toast when he pushes the barrel against my lips and forces it against my teeth. With no choice, I stand there and take it, but I look him in the eye the entire time. If he wants to shoot me, he’s going to watch the millions of dollars he would have gotten through our marriage bleed out my brain.
Another heartbeat later, he turns away and goes back to his desk. I don’t have to say a word to Rose. We both flee from the room up to my bedroom. I lock the door and drag the heavy armoire in front of it.
Rose is huddled on the other side of the bed, her knees against her chest and her face in the carpet.
Tears are pouring down her cheeks, and mine, I realize as I gather her into my arms and rock her gently against my chest. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I was supposed to keep you safe, and he got to you anyway. I never thought he would touch you.”
She doesn’t respond, and all I can do is hold her until she falls asleep. Then I grab my pillow and blanket off the bed to make her more comfortable.
My brain is strangely empty when I go to my bedside table and pull out both the black card and my cell phone. I dial the number and hit send.
It rings several times, and then a female voice says, “Hello?”
I suck in a slow inhale and blow it out soft enough it’s not heard through the line. Then I say, “I’m calling to speak to Adrian, please.”
