Maybe I’m a bitch to use it now, but I don’t care. I have no power here, and if they’re determined to make me pay for every sin of the past, I’ll force them to choke on the experience. That hurt goes both ways. It’s always gone both ways.
“Yes, Isabelle. Wrong. There is a fuck-ton of things left to say.” With one last long look at me, he turns around and walks to the bathroom door. He doesn’t slam it, but the quiet click as he closes it behind him feels a thousand times more damning.
Gods, I’m going to cry.
I press my hands hard to my eyes, as if the dull ache it causes will be enough to stem the burning. I knew this would be hard. I knew it down to my very soul and I still agreed. I have no one to blame but myself. My role in this is to let them work out their anger on me until the time is up and they come home. A sacrificial lamb of sorts. That’s it.
Only thirteen days left.
The thought has a hysterical laugh bubbling up. Why did I think this would work?
A buzzing cuts through my spiral, and I reluctantly drop my hands and open my eyes. That’s my phone. No matter what Beast and Gaeton think, my sisters are more than capable of finding this place and busting down the door in an attempt to save me. The only thing up for debate is whether they’ll send in a squad of trained killers or my sister-in-law, Muriel. Personally, I’d prefer the team before taking on Muriel. She has a way of making the people who piss off Cordelia disappear. Maybe the men are trusting me to manage Cordelia and Sienna to ensure that doesn’t happen.
If that’s the case, they have more faith in me than I expect.
There’s no time to fix my face. I’m left to scramble for my purse and dig my phone out. Sienna’s name flashes over the screen. I shoot a look at the bathroom door and then swipe my thumb to answer. “You have to stop calling.”
“Sure.” My sister sounds entirely too reasonable. “But the second we stop calling, we’re coming to kill those fuckers and save you, so which would you really prefer?” Only Sienna could talk about murder with this kind of ease. She categorizes the world into two bins—people she cares about and people she doesn’t—and I can probably count the people in the first bin on one hand.
“Sienna.” My voice doesn’t sound quite right, but there’s not much I can do about it.
“Hold please.”
My phone trills as she initiates a video call. I glare at my screen. Sienna is a big proponent of talking face to face, and she’s one hell of a human lie detector as a result. But if I ignore her, it’s entirely likely she’ll follow through on her threats. I sigh and accept the video call.
She’s wearing her favorite “working” clothing, which is a graphic T-shirt that appears to depict some kind of cutesy pentagram, her blond hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail. She never wears makeup, and a tiny petty part of me can’t help resenting her flawless beauty. No one will look at her face and tell her she’s tired or ask if she’s been sick because she forgot to put on mascara and lipstick today.
Sienna narrows her eyes at me. “You’re still in bed.”
I try to stop the heat spreading beneath my skin, but it’s no use. Instead, I ignore the question beneath the question. “I have things under control.”
I should know better by now. My sister leans in and squints. “Not just in bed. You’ve been fucking.” She gives a delighted little laugh. “Which one did you land on? That burly beast of a man or the one actually called Beast?”
My blush gets hotter, and I don’t need to look in the little square depicting my face to know that I’ve gone crimson. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Too bad.” She leans back and tilts her head to the side. “Isabelle…”
I already know I’m not going to like whatever she says next, just like I know there’s no way to avoid it. “Yes?”
“You fucked both of them, didn’t you?”
“Not technically.”
Sienna rolls her eyes. “You know damn well that penis-in-vagina isn’t the only thing that qualifies as sex, so don’t play technicalities with me.” She gives me a downright chilling smile. “Unless you would like to see the sex education presentation I put together for when you and Cordelia invariably breed and I need to educate my future niblings.”
I blink. “Niblings.”
“Gender-neutral term for children of my siblings. One must never make assumptions, don’t you agree?”
I love my sister very much, but the fact that she’s apparently made a presentation to educate any future children that may or may not ever exist? I shake my head and let it go. This is pure Sienna, and asking too many questions is going to result in a headache and no further understanding. “I don’t think niblings are something you’re going to have to worry about for some time in the future.” If ever. I want children, in theory, but I don’t know if reality can hold up to that desire. Either way, I’m nowhere near ready to take that step.