Chapter 1
The hardwood floors creaked with movement. It was midday, and all I wanted to do was run out screaming. It wasn’t hard to believe that I was right back to where all of my nightmares lived. It was so difficult to escape and then they just pulled me in. My life wasn’t that interesting or extraordinary, not nearly enough as I wanted it to be. But what I had built, was enough to pull out the claws digging into my skin and start anew. My father was a businessman, he was a gangster if I was being honest with myself.
A very obvious story, one that was told many times before. A man had earned himself a fortune doing God knows what, made a fortune for himself and had a family. An age-old tale that we’ve all learned to be familiar with. And then something happened, another very peculiar and yet fairly mundane thing.
He found himself a mistress. Now, it would have been a lot easier if that woman was made aware of what she was getting herself into. And yet she wasn’t.
A young woman, working simple part-time jobs to live off of, leaving a life that most people live. Nothing more, nothing less. Too realistic and real, that not even daydreaming could help. And then, it happened. What always happens, HOPE. In the form or shape of a handsome stranger.
They fell in love, got together and she got pregnant. That would be enough to end this story, but it wasn’t. When she got pregnant, she learned that the person that she fell in love with already had a family, had a wife, and everything else she planned of having with him.
Of course, she wanted nothing to do with him, as any sane person. But she was naive enough to think that she had any kind of say in that. My father was a well known, well-feared businessman, and if he wanted something or someone, well, in that case, he had them. This wasn’t any different. She was moved into the giant building that was referred to as a house, to live in her own secluded part, separated from everyone and everything she knew.
It wasn’t that difficult I guess, to lie to yourself and think that everything somehow would work out, or maybe because she had no choice to just exist and survive. And that was how I was born.
My mother was the mistress, one of those women we judge and don’t really talk about. We just lump them into one single category and leave them there to die. Gold diggers, heinous creatures that just want to sell their body and ruin the sanctity of marriage. And yet, poor her, she wasn’t like that. She fell in love, and the fool she was, or what I assume she was, wanted to be with the men she loved. Beliving what he had told her.
My mother was very much unlike me, the two of us, looked very much alike, but our personalities were on a different spectrum. From what I remember, she was kind, soft-spoken and overly gentle. I remember once, pulling out a chair that she was trying to sit on, a prank I had seen on some children’s tv, and she had fallen down, of course hurting herself. Not knowing that what I had done was bad, but realizing that I shouldn’t have done it, I ran back into the house, crying already, only to have her come after me and tell me that it was okay. I couldn’t imagine myself doing the same thing.
But that was neither here nor there, as I sat in the grandiose meeting room, I couldn’t help but think of her. What she would do, what she would say, how she would react? Or if this was the exact same thing that she had to deal with. Threatened with the fact that she no longer had any control over her life. I leaned back into the leather sofa, my legs crossed as I idly picked away at a loose strand of fabric that was hanging off of my t-shirt.
My father, the man that I grew up with after my mother died.
I abandoned him, and everything he was after I had turned eighteen, my mother had died before. And ever since I was just looking for a way to escape. And now with blackmail, I was right at the start. I knew that there was no other way to do this. There wasn’t anywhere else to run. I could either die or submit to his will. The first looking like some promising prospect, while the latter felt like hell.
“I’m glad you’re on time.”
My father voiced entering the room, taking his time to walk behind the large oak desk and sit down, making himself comfortable. Just the sight of him giving me anxiety. “As you know, we’ll have to marry you off in the next year. But I’ll give you at least a choice to pick between the two brothers.” He added shortly like he was talking about the weather.
