Page 44 of Unwritten Vows

Liza

I come home from school hoping to steal away for a few minutes into Derrick’s room before my father realizes I’ve gone in there and comes roaring in to get me. There’s something exhilarating about his disapproval of a man who says he’d be willing to move heaven or earth to get me back.

Derrick has never had an easy time hiding his feelings for me, and I know for a fact that it’s all he’s attempted to do for the entire time we’ve dated.

I know because even after he told me he couldn’t stop himself from falling for me too, he still tried to stop.

He still tried to push me away and couldn’t.

Part of me is still falling for him because of that.

I can’t help but believe him. I can see the good in him that my father cannot. I believe that I can pull it out of him. Which is exactly what I plan to do.

But as I round the corner to head of the stairs, I hear my father’s booming voice from his office. “ Solnyshko , please come to see me.”

I stop dead in my tracks. I’ve been very quiet, so I don’t understand how he could have possibly heard me.

I swallow hard and do an about face. I don’t want to talk to him, which is a new feeling. It’s one of the first times I can remember when I just know a discussion with him will cause me to feel worse instead of better.

It’s hard to know whether Daddy will actually allow anything when it comes to Derrick.

He doesn’t allow it, Liza. You’re 20 and you get to choose .

But the words ring hollow even as I think them.

Daddy is so important to me; anyone I end up with will need to be approved by him.

If he didn’t like my choices, I know it would have a profound effect on me and reach into every aspect of my life. I’d never be happy.

I feel myself gulp as I come to the doorway of his office . It’s just Daddy , I remind myself, but something has changed. It feels like this conversation will be hard. It feels like the playfulness—that pushing and tugging we always have—will be jarringly absent.

“You wanted to see me?” I ask with muted curiosity.

“Yes, Liza. Please come sit.”

I take a deep breath and continue to linger in the doorway. “I’d rather stand.”

His eyes squint as if he’s trying to suss out my intention. I wonder if he’ll be able to, since I don’t quite know what it is myself.

“Suit yourself, my little love.” He studies me for another moment while I continue to eye him steadily. “If you want to see him, he’s not here at the moment.”

I blink back. “I was thinking about it. Where did he go? Back home?”

Daddy just shakes his head back at me, his expression unyielding.

“What are you doing to him?” I ask firmly, succeeding again in injecting more curiosity than worry into my voice.

“Asking important questions,” Daddy says, in the same straightforward voice that I’m using.

“Is he going to be hurt when he gets back here?” I feel my composure starting to fail me at the thought—as if he hasn’t been through enough already. But I know there’s no use questioning my father’s tactics; I know by now that he will use them whether I like it or not.

“He will be quite tired. It will be a long day for him, and he is already injured.”

I grit my teeth and ask the question, even though I know it’s unlikely to get answered. “What are you doing to him?”

My father weighs for a moment how much to tell me before he speaks. “As I said, we are interrogating him. If he answers all of our questions and it seems they are truthful, then I will allow a short rest. But there will likely be more questions for him after that.”

I don’t even know the tactics Daddy uses in interrogations.

I know of the fear others have of him. When I truly consider it, I think I never wanted to know the ins and outs of my father’s life.

I have always enjoyed living under the assumption that nothing could ever change my love for him.

Now, being unable to pry the information I really want out of him, I wonder if that is true.

“I didn’t ask how long it would take or the things you would allow. I asked what you were planning to do.” Asking this way will give him some feeling of uncertainty, at the very least. He may lose some part of me if he isn’t truthful.

He clears his throat. “My little love… you do not want to know.”

I take a step closer to him, looking up into his face. “Yes. I do.”

He holds my gaze for a moment, neither of us willing to back down, but I know I’ve won something when he’s the first to look away.

He clears his throat. “You are 20 years old, Solnyshko . You have never been educated in this life. But I will give you the basics if you must know, and I will also lay out what is expected from now on. What Derrick will have to do in order to keep his life.”

I grit my teeth. “Tell me.”

“Derrick Stepinov will be questioned by my men. We will use tactics to get him to speak. As I said, it will be tiring. It will exhaust his body and mind. It will… encourage the truth from him.” He pauses, and then looks me square in the eyes.

“I will not discuss the tactics any further. But if you see him, there will be no marks on him.”

But I won’t take no for an answer. “How will you torture him without leaving any marks?”

As with all the questions I’ve asked, my father considers his answer carefully. “We use extremes. There are ways to cause pain and suffering that are beneath the skin and in the mind.”

I need to know what they are. I can’t breathe now, wondering what they could be doing to him. “So, no physical pain? What could that even mean—”

“I didn’t say no physical pain. I said no marks.”

I gulp again. “Tell me what the tactics are!” I lose my temper finally and take another step toward him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him to me. Or attempting to. My father doesn’t budge.

“ Solnyshko . You must remember yourself.”

“I remember myself just fine! Tell me what you’re doing to him, or I swear to God, I’ll go figure it out myself!” I tug hard on his shirt again, and this time he budges an inch or two, before leaning forward and putting his large, calloused hands on my wrists.

“Then remember him . Remember what he’s done and who he is.

Not just to me or the New York City Bratva.

Remember what he’s done to you. Whether it was at his father’s request or not, he has caused the world to see you as a pawn.

Weak and naive. I know that you are neither of those things, but the world does not.

If they see a weakness, even if they are wrong, they will attempt to exploit it. And that is when people get hurt.”

My fingers clench his shirt so tight that my knuckles turn white. Still, I shake my head against the faulty logic. “He was forced to do it. It wouldn’t have mattered if he wanted to or not. His father made the announcements. His father spread the rumors. He had nothing to do with it!”

“His silence! His silence betrays him. He allowed his father to make our family seem weak. Do you think that can go unpunished? Consider how it would look if I allowed him to go without pain or threats on his life. Our enemies would snatch you up off the street as you walked to the car after classes. As you sat in the library to study with your friends. The only reason they don’t do this is because they know my wrath.

I don’t have the luxury of showing it only to certain people and not to others. ”

My father stares at me intensely, his chest heaving up and down, his fingers tight around my wrists like shackles.

But his words are what truly imprison me.

Because he’s right. Derrick allowed his father to say and do what he pleased for so long.

He made my family seem weak. Worst of all, he made me seem weak.

It wasn’t an illusion. He didn’t pretend a thing. I was weak. He might have been the reason, but still—I was the one who was weak.

Still, I want to know. My fingers grasp even tighter, and I feel the pinch of his skin under his shirt. He doesn’t even wince.

“Tell. Me.” I have never used this tone with my father. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry with him.

His face hardens, and his voice is cold when he says his next words. “My men gave him a dose of specially made truth serum and dumped him into a well of frozen water to ask him questions. We will use other methods as we see fit.”

I release Daddy’s shirt in my grip, feeling tears sting the back of my eyes. My father lets go of my wrists, and my hands fall limp to my sides.

I hate the idea of Derrick going through that.

I also hate the idea of him allowing my bratva family to suffer instead of the one his father had hopes of running one day.

I hate the thought of him leaving me vulnerable, in a terrible position to be targeted.

I have to believe he didn’t consider the implications of his actions, but how could that be?

Was he simply thoughtless then? He could have at least given me a heads up.

But he was strictly on his father’s side for months. It almost feels like he tricked me.

But didn’t I know he was doing just that? I’ve kept aspects of my personality from him, too. Can I blame him for not telling me everything? In the end, it really comes down to what he knew about his father’s plans. But that’s yet another thing I’m not sure I can trust his word on.

It still wrenches my stomach to think of him down in some dark pit of freezing water, whether or not I trust him fully, and whether or not my father needs to make sure his answers are truthful.

But the thing that makes me sickest is that some part of me agrees with what my father feels he has to do.

I think I would feel the same need in his shoes.

I sit with two warring parts of my heart, waiting to see which will win. In the end, I set my expression and say in a low snarl, “Bring me to him. Now.”