Page 21 of Gilded Shackles
"Bind him," she orders, flashing her hand like a conductor. The men move with zip ties, dragging his wrists behind his back. I want to scream. I want to lunge forward and tear the ties off him myself. But her wrath has me frozen, and I know, with the instinct of a girl who's spent twenty-six years reading this woman's moods, that if I show I care, she'll only hurt him worse.
"Raphaella, sit," she orders.
I want to get away from here. Away from her sight. Maybe if I do, I can figure out a way to free Nik. Nikolai. Whoever the hell he is.
"I want a shower."
"Sit."
"Please, Mother." There is a brand-new spine in my voice that surprises both of us. "Can't I just take one shower?"
"Did I tell you to go around spreading your legs like a street whore?" Her words are so vile, so deliberately chosen, that every muscle in my body locks. "Did I tell you to go defile yourself? You will stay right here. I want Viktor to see exactly what his man did to you."
The air leaves the room. She stares at me like I'm something filthy. Something she needs to bleach off her floors. I feel my heart racing, my legs begging to run, but where? Mother always finds me. Mother always wins.
"Make the call," she says to one of her men.
I drop into a chair, too hollowed out to fight. My mother has always had this talent. Not just for cruelty, but for timing it so precisely that by the time you realize you've been gutted, you're already sitting still and bleeding quietly.
My pulse hammers everywhere at once. In my wrists, in my throat, in the places his mouth was only hours ago. I fold my arms so I don't shake apart while we wait for Viktor.
Nik groans. The sound slices straight through me.
"Hey," I breathe, already halfway to my feet. Jeffrey's palm appears, blocking me. I glare around it and find Nik's eyes as they crack open. Blue. Pale, furious blue, and suddenly very, very awake.
He takes one look at the ceiling, the chandelier, the crowd, my mother, and his face shifts into something that looks a lot likeoh, hell.
"Of course," he says, and his voice is lower when he's angry. A scraped-metal sound that does terrible things to my spine. "Of course you're behind this, Gayle."
He knows my mother. He knows my goddamn mother.
If I thought tonight was already insane, the fact that Nik and Gayle know each other launches this straight into the loony bin. I step closer anyway, because apparently I'm a moth, and this is the flame that's going to kill me. "Nik?"
His head snaps to me, and for one strange beat, something in his expression flickers. Like he's trying to place me somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn't match this room. Then it's gone, swallowed by something much worse.
Fury.
"You set me up," he says. Voice low. Quiet. The kind of quiet that's louder than any scream. "You picked me at that club. Dragged me to the hotel. Had them waiting. Cute act."
"What?" I blink. "What are you talking about?"
He strains against the ties, like he can shear himself free by will alone. "Of all the men in New York, you just happened to find me? And now I'm here, in Gayle Donovan's living room? That's one hell of a coincidence."
My jaw drops.
"I didn't know who you were!" I look between him and my mother, searching for something that makes sense. "I snuck out for my birthday! I just wanted to go dancing!”
"Nikolai Ivanov," my mother says coolly, "meet my daughter. Raphaella."
Nik stares at me. Horror replaces anger in slow, sickening degrees.
"Daughter." His voice goes flat.
"Yes," my mother answers for me. "My only child. Whom you just deflowered in a hotel room."
Nik's jaw tightens, eyes never leaving mine. "She approached me. Set the whole thing up."
"I did not!" I'm nearly shouting now, frustration and confusion cracking my voice wide open. " I just wanted one night!"
