Page 45 of Unwritten Vows

Derrick

I feel my heart bursting out of my chest before I understand that I’m hearing the blaring sound of a horn echoing in this cavernous pit.

I must have fallen asleep again after thawing out under the warm heating fan they blast me with whenever I come too close to hypothermia.

Whatever this shit is that they gave me is making it extremely hard to stay awake, and last I knew, my eyes were crossing as I tried to keep them open.

When I get my bearings, I realize I’m sitting up straight, with my hand on my heart, breathing heavily.

Once I know where I am, I school my facial features, but my body’s reaction takes a moment to calm down, and I can’t help the rapid ballooning and deflating of my chest as the assholes who put me in here look on.

“Where were we? Ah, I think we were up to the part where your father decided to break off the engagement. Tell us more about that.”

I’ve told them the entire story up to the night of the party.

I’ve been truthful, mostly because I want to be, but in part because I have to be.

This drug is doing so many things to my brain and body, and one of them is to make it feel like the truth is being forcibly pulled from my lips.

Sometimes I’m barely even thinking when I say things in a way I wouldn’t usually say them.

I have little ability to censor my words, especially once I start letting them tumble from my mouth.

“My father didn’t tell me to break off the engagement. I caught him in his office meeting with Edoardo. I knew Liza could be in trouble, so I had to back off.”

I’m interrupted by the speaker. “You had no clue your father had anything to do with Liza being in danger before this? Before you got engaged?”

I can withhold my words for a short period of time, but if I do, my facial features give me away.

I can’t stop the wince of my forehead while trying to come up with a good way to deliver what I want to say.

A moment later, the platform I’m on sinks back down and icy water begins to creep up the sides.

“Yes! Yes, I had suspicions before the party that my father had something up his sleeve, but I didn’t know what it was! And I wanted to be with Liza! I wanted her to be safe, so I rushed the engagement, thinking that would help.”

The platform doesn’t stop as I was hoping.

Well, joke’s on them, because I’m definitely going to pass out if I end up in that water again .

I’ve become hypothermic in under ten minutes the past two times they’ve put me in.

The pain alone causes my entire body to go into a state of shock, and since they don’t seem to want to kill me, I fully submerge my body each time.

I know that the pain will be awful, but will only last minutes instead of an entire hour.

As if they know my game now, they stop the platform just high enough to cause a slight film of frozen water onto the platform.

I pull my knees up to my chin and hug them, leaning my head down on them and looking mildly up to the camera.

“Even when he considered partnering with Edoardo, I didn’t think he’d go through with it.

Or maybe I thought I could talk some sense into him.

Obviously, I couldn’t. But I swear, when he tried to get me to meet with that girl, I refused.

I tried to talk him out of using Edoardo as leverage for a better deal with the Bolyar.

I went along with it at first because he was my father .

And then I fucking shot him. I shot him because he threatened Liza and our relationship a number of times.

I wasn’t going to let him hurt her like he hurt Mara.

” I’ve already blabbered on about what happened with Mara and Cas that day in the safe room of the strip club, but it doesn’t really sound like they believe me.

This time, they outright ignore the reference.

There’s a long silence. But too soon, the platform lowers again, frozen water closing in on me.

“You strung her along for a week before your father called to let us know the truce was off and that he had gotten a better deal. To tell us that the engagement was off if we didn’t comply, and that you had agreed to wed Edoardo’s daughter instead. You expect us to believe you had no idea?”

“Yes!” Despite myself, I’m feeling anxiety kick in. This water fucking hurts, and I’m not lowered all the way in. I lost the ability to stand on my numb legs two dips into the water ago, so I can’t stop from getting fully submerged even if I want to.

“I had no fucking clue! I told my father I wasn’t going to marry her—I don’t even know her.

I barely know Edoardo. I tried to get him to see reason—see that Edoardo would stab us directly in the back like he does with everyone else who works with him.

But he was consumed with power, money, and greed.

And you know what? I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the Bolyar isn’t so different, because no billionaire just gets that rich without doing some pretty fucked up shit! ”

I know I’ve gone too far, but it needs to be said. Still, I’m sort of regretting my choice to speak out when the bottom drops from under me and I fall into the shallow pool, the water stabbing me with ice cold shards of pain.

“Stop!”

I hear the voice as I surface, and I’m sure I’ve finally gone crazy; the torture has me hallucinating.

But when I look up, I see her. Liza stands with her father as he pulls her back from the edge of the circle of light that has opened up at the top of this pit.

She pushes him away and wrestles with the large platform they sent me down here on. “Get him out of there!”

The platform moves underneath me and I break the surface, freezing again. Now that help has finally arrived, my muscles feel like lead. I’m sure I can’t move, and no matter how many times I force my brain to send the signal to my limbs, nothing happens. I’m just dead weight.

“Look at him!” I hear the tears in Liza’s voice.

I want to tell her not to do this—that this is just what they have to do, and I already feel weak enough as it is without a woman coming to my rescue—but I keep my mouth shut.

Partly because I don’t want to upset her, and partly because I don’t think it would make me seem any more manly to speak at this particular moment in time.

“The day’s questioning has come to an end,” her father says, just as I figure out how to move one arm. The platform has almost descended entirely. “We will resume tomorrow.”

“Father!” Liza cries, and I note with a wince that the way she says it is far different from the way she usually calls him “Daddy.” He’s gonna kill me now just for coming between them.

But I can’t focus on that. I need to drag myself onto this platform.

I push with my arms, although my legs are numb and useless, and I use a strength I didn’t know I had to pull myself fully onto the board in front of me.

I know I can’t stand, but I pull myself up to sit, and then lean back, glad for the long trip back to the surface to catch my breath.

I’m shivering violently now. I’m not sure how I’m going to warm up without that heat blower they blasted me with each time they took me out of the frozen water.

Her father is red in the face as I look up and see him tower over her.

She says something quietly that I can’t hear, but is likely something to placate him so that she can stay by his side.

I’m shivering so uncontrollably that my teeth clack together, but I can still see her anxious face peering down.

She doesn’t move, and her father doesn’t try to get her to.

Once the platform I’m on is within reach, Liza lunges for me, grabbing me and hugging me to her. I’m ice cold, my frozen clothes sticking to me, but she just holds me tighter.

“Can you walk?” she asks.

I push her off of me, or attempt to with what little strength I have. “I’m fine. I’ve been tortured before, princess, trust me!” Quieter, I say in her ear, “We need to get to the car and blast the heat. But it can’t seem like you’re helping me fucking walk.”

“Okay, fine, jeez,” she says, pushing off my hand as if I’ve forcibly removed her with strength I don’t have. “Just put your arm around me, okay?”

I take a different approach as she drapes my arm across her shoulders. I lean in close to her and do everything I can to take the chattering out of my voice. “Liza, the things I want to do to you…”

Her mouth drops open, but the only way I can convince these hardened men that their torture had little to no affect on me is to treat Liza like a commodity.

She seems super put off, but just smiles uneasily. “I think that’s the trauma talking, because Daddy’s going to kill you if you continue that sentence.”

I kiss her neck, leaning heavily on her as she squirms. Her father grabs me and manhandles me into the car, which is probably a good thing, since I’m definitely losing what little stamina I had left.

He throws me onto the back seat and finally, I allow my sight to dim.

I hear him and Liza whispering harshly to each other, and finally, Liza’s warm, comforting presence comes to my side.

She grabs my body and hugs me as I chatter away, finally feeling the warmth of her seep into my bones.

But the damage has been done, and my brain is barely functioning.

So I just close my eyes and allow her warmth to seep into me.