Page 27 of Sworn to Consume
The screen unlocks.
I scroll to her messages with that filthy bastard—Vlad. My jaw tightens. I flick through their conversation with one finger, breathing through my teeth, trying not to lose it over the way he talks to her. Calls her pet names. Like she’s already his.
He said Maleciandro Spallo killed Solas. The Italians.
That name rings a bell.
I lean back against the cold wall, letting my head thud gently against it. I dig deeper into my memory. I don’t see much of what goes on outside the bar, but inside? Men gossip worse than any old grandma with her knitting circle.
The Italians… I know the Spallo brothers. My father curses their names daily. Especially Luca. Something about his wife, too.
They’re his worst enemies.
Maybe they could just wipe him out and finish the job for me.
I let out a bitter chuckle under my breath. These men are all the same. If my father sees them as a threat, they’re probably even bigger monsters than him.
Never trust a man.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t play like one.
My thumbs hover above the keyboard for a second before I start typing Vlad a message in Russian, asking if there are any updates on the next shipment.
I pause, glance at Diana’s sleeping face. Her cheek is pressed into the pillow now, and one arm has slipped out again. I cover it up gently with the blanket, lips pressed together.
Maybe I’ll sneak one of the emergency guns hidden in the girls’ dressing rooms that day. Once Vlad knows I’m promised to Ivan, he won’t touch me. But Diana? He won’t think twice.
And I’m not taking that risk.
I need to visit Mom.
She’s lying in that hospital bed, unresponsive, tucked under thin sheets in the mental ward. The air there smells like antiseptic and despair. Machines beep quietly, marking the slow, steady passage of a day she’ll barely remember. My monster of a father refuses her the same medicine they dose me with.
We share the illness. But she doesn’t get the drug, and it’s like she’s slipping further away with every passing hour. When she’s awake, she sometimes locks eyes with me—the only person she still recognizes. Diana can reach her too sometimes, but mostly… everyone else terrifies her.
I know what she hears. The same thing I hear when I skip a dose. I’ve felt that terror clawing up my chest, choking, making the world tremble. She feels it every day.
And yet they keep her sedated, drugged to sleep through half the day. Every cent I earn at the club goes there—just to keep her alive, just to keep her contained, under watch.
My father stopped caring about her the moment she stopped making sense around him.
I tighten my fists. My teeth grit. The room feels colder, emptier, as if his cruelty seeps into the walls.
The last time he visited her, she screamed so loud he cursed her out and swore he’d never visit "this dirty whore" again.
The number of times I’ve wished someone would take his life already? I can’t even count.
I’ll get the medicine and take us out. Now that Diana has found a lead, maybe this is our only chance.
Diana’s phone vibrates in my hand.
Vlad sent the location. Says he’ll be there in three days.
Good.
Hopefully, it’s faster than the arrival of my future ‘husband.’
I inhale deeply, take a screenshot of the messages, send it to my phone, then delete the chat from Diana’s. No reason to tempt her into doing more stupid things behind my back.
