Page 16 of Crowned in Sin
The sheet refuses to yield at first, and I add my teeth to the mix. Then the fabric gives way in long screaming strips. I twist them, knot them, and test every knot with my full weight braced against the bedpost.
One foot after another, the rope takes shape, and I throw it out the window into the dark.
My palms burn, and my muscles are screaming as I descend. But the rope holds and I release with about a foot left to the ground and land as silently as I can. For a second, I crouch and listen for any possible sign that someone noticed my escape.
When I hear nothing, I turn towards the darkness, and I run.
5
NICO
I pushthe office door open and find my best friend Anastasio in the guest's seat with his feet propped up on the desk, looking pleased with himself as he helps himself to my scotch. His dark hair falls loosely around his eyes to frame a brooding expression that hints at his capacity for violence.
"So," he says as soon as he hears the door close behind me. "Care to tell me why you’re back so soon instead of finalizing the peace terms with Slava Romanov? Or do I have to bribe Giorgia?"
I walk over and snatch the bottle out of his hand. "You know Giorgia can't be bribed.”
"Everyone can be bribed. Giorgia just prices herself out of the market." He studies me over the rim of the glass. "I’m guessing it has something to do with the unexpected guest you brought home?"
I don’t bother answering him as I pour myself a glass.
“Who is she, Nico?”
I look at my oldest friend, and test the lie on my tongue.She’s a nobody. A complication at best, and a loose end that I need to tie up.
But that’s not exactly true, is it? Because if she really were a complication and a loose end that needed tying up, there are far simpler solutions than what I proposed to her.
I trust Anastasio with my accounts and my life. He's bled for me twice over the years and has done more than his fair share through five years of war with the Russians.
But there are some secrets that I can’t trust anyone with. This one belongs to me and Lydia alone. Every additional set of ears will only become another gun pointed at both our heads.
"She's important," I say. "I’ll leave it at that."
His feet come off my desk and he sits up slowly at attention. The lazy humor drains out of his face. "Important how?"
"Important like I'm going to marry her."
The scotch stops halfway to his mouth. "Did you forget that you’re already engaged?"
“No, I haven’t.”
And that’s the real fucking rub of it all. Before my father’s death, he’d been negotiating a way to unite our family with the Diamandis Family of Athens. And the surest way he could get that is through the usual price: a marriage.
Seeing as how I’m the last living child left to him, he signed a contract with Don Thanasis and promised that I’d wed Thanasis’ oldest daughter Apollonia.
There’s just one minor problem.
I have no interest or desire to tie myself to a bunch of Greeks who make their money selling people. And when I wasn’t thinking about Lydia in the last ninety-one days, I was thinking about just how I might get out of that contract.
“Then you know as well as I do that Thanasis won’t take this breach of contract lying down.”
"My father signed that contract, and he’s dead." I lean back in my chair. "As the Don of the family, I have every right to rip it to shreds. I won’t tie myself to a family who built their fortune off selling women and children."
"The Greeks won't see principle.” Anastasio rakes a hand through his hair. “You jilt Apollonia Diamandis, and Thanasis will make you pay.”
“You know as well as I do the only interest Thanasis has in this marriage is a stake to my family fortune.” I shrug. “He would’ve slit my throat the moment Apollonia got pregnant. I know how this game is played.”
“And you think marrying this nobody will stop him from coming for this money?”
