Page 3 of Fractured Loyalties
“You really shouldn’t cry here,” a gravelly voice drawls, abruptly interrupting my thoughts. I don’t startle this time, but it sends chills down my spine. As I look up, I see an intimidating, dark figure step out of the same hallway where my mother just was.
And he puts the creep factor of the fucking butler to shame.
I part my lips, but stay silent as he emerges. He looks as if he stepped right out of one of the pictures that are hanging on the wall, with his jet-black hair slicked back and his steely and unsettling blue eyes. Tattoos line his arms, inked depictions of violence and gore that disappear up the sleeves of his black T-shirt.
I stay locked in a stupor for a second or two before my mind connects the dots.
Roman.
“Ah, so you’re mute,” he smirks, taking a couple of steps toward me. He’s tall and broad as he hovers above me, his biceps looking as if they’re perpetually flexed.
“I’m not mute,” I sniffle, suddenly feeling beyond self-conscious. I try to meet his gaze and fail, my eyes dropping back down to his black engineer boots.
“Welcome to the house of wayward girls,” Roman says, the toe of his boot lightly kicking my Converse. His voice is low and rich with something I can’t quite place.
Disgust, maybe. Or amusement.
“I hope you like rules, regulations, and fucking misery,” he intones.
I look up at him again, surprised, but before I can say anything back, there’s the sound of a throat being cleared from somewhere behind him.
“Ah, Roman,” my mother says, her voice painfully bright. “You’re home. Why don’t you show Ivy to her room? I can’t find Edward anywhere.”
“He’s probably fucking the new maid,” Roman shoots back at my mother, his gaze never leaving my face, boring into me. It’s…villainous.
And I think all the oxygen has been sucked from the room.
My mother gives him a look that could peel paint. “Roman will be happy to show you around.”
He flashes her a glance, breaking the tension. “I’m not a tour guide, Irena.”
I look at my hands, and the faint red marks from earlier are still there. “I won’t get lost,” I say, but my voice is full of apparent false confidence.
Roman grins, but it’s not a genuine smile. It’s the kind of tooth-baring you see in predatory animals when they’re daring you to run. “Oh Ivy, you will get lost. Everyone does, the first time.”
My mother ignores him and turns to me. “You’ll want to get changed before dinner,” her voice sharp. “Ask the staff if you need anything.” She gives Roman one last glare, and then she’s gone again, her footsteps fading to nothing.
I’m left alone, with Roman, who’s now fully invested in staring at me as if I’m a puzzle with a missing piece. “So,” he says finally, “you’re the charity case.”
My face is burning, but somehow, I manage a shrug. “Guess so.”
He tilts his head, considering this, and then he leans forward. “Do you know why you’re really here?”
“To finish high school,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him as my stomach knots up. “So, I’m not, you know,homeless.”
“That’s cute.” He snorts and then stands again, unfolding himself in a smooth motion. He turns and shows me his back as he peers out the window. “The truth is, Irena’s actually into sacrificing young women to maintain her youthful look.”
I can’t muster a laugh.
He turns, glances at me, and, for a brief second, I see something like annoyance in his face. I think he expected me to giggle at his stupid joke. But honestly, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact thatthisguy is my… what… mystepbrother? I’ve only ever seen him in pictures.
It hardly seems appropriate to call him family–any of these people, actually.
Roman shrugs at my silence, a motion so elegant it’s almost a complete gesture. “Seriously, though, it’d be best if you kept your head down here. Fit the fucking mold and all that. They don’t like surprises. They don’t like people who can’t beshaped.”
For some reason, this makes my chest hurt. I miss my home. I miss the way my dad never cared what I wore or how I dressed. He laughed warmly and hugged me when I cried. He was the opposite of whatever this hellhole is.
Roman gives a short, pointed laugh as new tears begin to roll down my cheeks, and then he crosses to the door in three strides. He pauses with his hand on the knob and looks over his shoulder at me. He holds my gaze, his icy eyes pulling my body into an invisible chokehold.
