by Jenna Black
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Nadia would have loved nothing better than to have stayed in that quiet little parlor talking to Nate and Agnes until it was time to return to Tranquility. She didn’t want to face her parents, didn’t want to face the crowd, didn’t even want to face Gerri, who would almost certainly try to push her into revealing what was on the recordings again, having had a whole night to plan out a new argument. But with the service over, there was no use trying to hide away anymore.
Nate allowed Nadia to do up his collar and tie while Agnes stashed the open whiskey bottle behind a tall ornamental clock on the armoire. Not that anyone at this gathering would dare rebuke Nate for drinking, but it was rather undignified to swig straight from the bottle. Nadia didn’t mention that she could smell the alcohol on both Nate’s and Agnes’s breath, because there was nothing they could do about it.
With a collective deep breath, the three of them opened the door and plunged out into the crowd. Nate was instantly swarmed by people desperate to convey their condolences. Nadia wasn’t sure what they made of his failure to appear at the service. Perhaps they’d thought he was too prostrate with grief to face it, and that was why they were so sure he was in need of their sympathy.
Very few people even acknowledged Nadia’s presence, much less spoke to her. It was like there was an invisible force field around her. Every once in a while, she caught someone sneaking surreptitious glances her way, and she felt sure she was the subject of more than one conversation. And this was how her fellow Executives treated her before they knew she was no longer destined to be Nate’s bride. When that scandal hit, they’d do more than just ignore her—they’d flee her presence as if a leper had just stepped into the room.
Agnes, however, stayed by her side as the crowd cut both of them off from Nate. People greeted her easily enough, but they always seemed to spot someone across the room they absolutely had to talk to. Agnes’s expression of long-suffering patience told Nadia she was used to such behavior, and she was making no effort to change things. Her body language and facial expression were both just this side of forbidding, and once she’d shared basic pleasantries with someone, she seemed to have nothing else to say. She’d seemed much more friendly, and less … sullen when they’d been in the parlor.
“Maybe the crowd is thinner out on the porch,” Nadia suggested. If there were fewer people, maybe the two of them could hang out together and avoid the stilted and uncomfortable conversations Agnes’s shyness and Nadia’s disgrace brought on.
“My father will get mad at me for being ‘antisocial,’” Agnes said, making air quotes. “I’m already in for a lecture if he saw me standing in the corner earlier. I’m supposed to mingle.” She sighed heavily. “I’m not any good at mingling, but I need to at least pretend I’m making an effort.”
Nadia decided then and there that she didn’t much care for Chairman Belinski. There were ways to help draw Agnes out of her shell, but calling her antisocial and then ordering her to mingle wasn’t one of them.
“Well, stick with me,” Nadia said. “We can pretend to mingle together. And if we see your father, we can bend our heads together and pretend to be having an earnest, important conversation.”
That won her another of Agnes’s rare smiles. “You’re pretty cool.”
Nadia grinned back. “I’m glad someone thinks so.”
Nadia’s grin faded when she spotted her parents threading their way through the crowd, headed in her direction. She met her mother’s eyes across the distance and cringed internally. Esmeralda Lake was not happy with her, and Nadia suspected the two of them were about to have a pitched battle in the middle of a crowded room as they both smiled pleasantly so that no one would notice.
She was wrong.
* * *
Nadia hated to leave Agnes alone in the midst of the crowd that so clearly made her uncomfortable. However, her mother wasn’t about to give her a choice in the matter. Ignoring Agnes as if the girl didn’t exist, she marched up to Nadia and said, “We need to talk. In private.”
No hug, no kiss. Hell, no greeting of any kind. Nadia glanced at her father, who was trailing in her mother’s wake. He met her eyes only briefly before looking away.
This didn’t bode well.
Nadia was tempted to insist they have their private conversation right here and now. She was tired of being ordered around, and maybe if they talked in public, the conversation—or lecture, because Nadia knew that her mother would be the only one doing the talking—would be over sooner. The only thing that kept her from protesting was that she didn’t want to subject Agnes to the unpleasantness.
“Fine,” Nadia said, her voice no warmer than her mother’s. “If you’ll excuse me, Agnes?”
“Of course,” Agnes said with a resigned slump of her shoulders.
“There’s a place we can talk down this way,” her mother said, turning toward a hallway off to the side.
“What’s going on?” Nadia asked her father in a voice just barely loud enough to be heard over the chattering of the crowd.
This time, he wouldn’t even make brief eye contact. “We’ll talk when we have some privacy.”
There was a flutter of panic in Nadia’s stomach. Her father looked positively guilty, and she was struck by the premonition that he had lost his battle with her mother and she was to be sent away for good. Her chest tightened, and it was suddenly hard to draw a full breath.
Her mother led the way into a small sitting room, just big enough for a sofa, a couple of chairs, and a coffee table. There were a handful of retreat brochures on the coffee table, along with a box of tissues.
The sitting room door closed with a solid thunk, and Nadia noticed there was a second door located on the opposite side of the room. A door that had a discreet electronic card reader set into the frame.
“Sit down, Nadia,” her mother said, putting her arm around Nadia’s shoulders and trying to guide her to the sofa.
Nadia refused to budge. Her father was fidgety, his gaze darting nervously around the room, and her mother was stiffly dignified. The kind of dignity that felt forced and artificial.
“Tell me you’re not sending me away,” Nadia begged. Her voice was shaking, and there was nothing she could do to control it.
Her mother sighed heavily, and she lowered herself onto the sofa as if she were afraid the impact would break her. She blinked a couple of times, as if holding off tears. The only time Nadia had seen her mother show more emotion was when Mosely and his men had burst into their home to arrest her.
“We have to, sweetheart,” her mother said, confirming Nadia’s worst fear.
“No!” Nadia held back a scream of frustration and anger. “I’ve only been in Tranquility a little over a week, and I already feel like I’ve been buried alive. I need to come home. I can’t live like this!”
Esmeralda firmed up her dignified veneer. “When the Chairman announces Nathaniel’s new marriage agreement, you’ll be ruined. Completely ruined.”
Her father winced and made a calming gesture, as if that would somehow help the situation. “It’s not your fault, and it’s not even remotely fair, but your mother is right.”
Nadia felt like she was holding herself together with little bits of tape and maybe a staple or two. “I know I’m going to be ruined,” she said with as much calm as she could muster. “And I know it’s going to be awful. But I will literally go insane if I have to stay locked up in a retreat much longer.”
“Don’t be melodramatic,” her mother scolded. “A retreat is hardly a prison, and—”
“Yes, it is a prison,” Nadia retorted. “At least for me it is. You know there isn’t a single other teenager at Tranquility? I think the person closest to my age there is some woman who’s about thirty and weighs about three thousand pounds. Her favorite activities are eating and sitting around staring into space, so we have a lot in common.”
“Stop it, Nadia!” her mother said, standing once more. “I’m sorry you’re not
enjoying your time in the retreat, but there’s no place for you in polite society anymore.”
Nadia shivered and hugged herself. “I can live at home even if I don’t have a place in polite society. So I won’t go out to parties or have a social life. At least I’ll be free! I can … I don’t know, go shopping, or go to museums.” Spend time with Dante. “Keep myself busy.”
“And every time you set foot out of the house, the press will be there to capture it on film and dredge up the dirt all over again.”
“I don’t care!”
“Well, I do!” There were twin spots of color high on her mother’s cheeks, and for a moment Nadia thought her mother was going to slap her she was so angry. “It’s not all about you, so stop acting like a spoiled child. Your father and I are going to be put through hell. So will your sister and your niece and your nephew. And the more you show up in public, the more photos the press prints, the more active and fresh they can keep the story, the longer that hell is going to last. Maybe you’d rather go through all that than stay in a retreat, but think about the rest of us.”
Nadia was so angry she was shaking. “I’ve spent my whole life thinking about the rest of you, doing what you think is best. I never would have been in this position in the first place if I hadn’t. So don’t you dare make me into some kind of villain who’s too selfish to live.”
“Your mother isn’t the villain, either,” her father suddenly interjected.
Nadia turned to him, and there were tears burning in her eyes. “How could you?” Her father had always been the kind and nurturing parent, had always comforted her when her mother criticized, had always both told and shown her that he loved her. And yet he was going to allow her mother to lock her away.
Her father tried to give her a hug, but Nadia would have none of it. He lowered his arms, then wiped one hand over his whole face. “We’re trying to do what’s best. For everyone. Including you, whether you believe that or not. If I had it all to do over again, I never would have agreed to the match with Nathaniel in the first place. I knew it was a potential minefield, but I thought we’d be able to navigate it.”
Nadia swallowed hard, forcing a torrent of angry words back down her throat. Her parents had agreed to the match out of unbridled ambition. With her marriage to Nate would come money and power and promotion. Making a match like that was the sole purpose in life of any Executive who was not an heir, as marriage was the only way they could further their family’s interests. And she’d done everything in her power to make that match happen.
“We can’t fix the past,” her father continued. “All we can do is try to make the future as tolerable as possible. And the only way we can do that is to keep you out of the public eye.”
“For how long?” she asked in a frightened whisper.
“As long as it takes,” her mother answered.
“We’ll come up to visit as often as we can,” her father promised, and Nadia felt another trapdoor open up beneath her.
“Come up where?”
“Why here, of course,” her mother said. “If the Preston Sanctuary is good enough for the Chairman Spouse, then it’s good enough for you.”
Oh God. They weren’t sending her away. She already was away.
“Here,” she said numbly. Here, where she’d be hours away from anyone she knew. Here, where she would be too far away for Dante to visit her in the night, even if he could escape the notice of the guards in the watchtowers. Here, where she would be utterly cut off from anything and everything familiar. “I’m not going back to Tranquility tonight.”
“We looked at them all,” her father said, “and this seems to be the best. And unlike Tranquility, there are young people here.”
Any “young people” who were at the Sanctuary would be suspect at best. Nadia might be here for reasons completely outside her own control, but mostly if someone her age ended up in a retreat, it was because of a drug problem, a mental illness, or severe behavioral issues. Just the sort of new friends Nadia was dying to make.
“Don’t do this to me,” she begged.
Her parents looked at each other, then at her. Her father looked miserable, and even her mother had a rim of red around her eyes. But right that moment, Nadia didn’t much care how they felt.
There was a soft knock on the door.
When Nadia’s mother said “Come in,” the door opened, and two smiling women in navy blue uniforms stepped inside.
* * *
Nadia desperately wanted to say good-bye to Nate before she was dragged off to the depths of the retreat, never to be seen again. And she wanted to see Gerri even more desperately. There was no way Gerri would have smiled at her so easily earlier if she’d known their parents weren’t going to let Nadia leave the retreat. And she’d definitely have been up in Nadia’s face trying to find out what was on the recordings.
Nadia ignored the two staff members who were trying to introduce themselves to her and faced her mother, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
“I have to speak with Gerri before she leaves,” she said.
Her mother frowned almost imperceptibly. “That wouldn’t—”
“Please, Mother. It’s very, very important.” She wished there were some way she could avoid telling Gerri about Thea, wished she could protect her sister from that very dangerous secret. But Gerri had promised to leave the recordings alone if and only if Nate didn’t end up formally engaged to Agnes and Nadia didn’t get sent upstate. The promise was now null and void, and Nadia knew her sister. Even though Nadia had told her there was nothing incriminating on the recordings, Gerri would want to listen to them, if for no other reason than that she hoped to read between the lines and figure out what Nadia was hiding.
“This isn’t the time or place for a scene,” her mother said. “I’ll tell Gerri you want to see her, and she’ll come on the first visiting day.”
“No!” Nadia shouted, then tried to calm herself down. She was more likely to get her way by acting calm and reasonable than by getting hysterical. Even if the latter was awfully tempting under the circumstances. “You don’t understand. This isn’t something that can wait. I have to talk to her today.”
When Gerri found out Nadia was to be confined to the Sanctuary, she would be furious, especially that their parents had made the decision behind her back. Despite all of Nadia’s warnings, she doubted her sister would have the inclination to wait until the first visiting day to try to ferret out Nadia’s secrets and use them against the Chairman. Five minutes after she heard the news, she’d be making a beeline for those recordings, and if the Chairman was watching her as closely as Nadia suspected …
She gave her father an imploring look, but he just shook his head and stayed silent, content to let Esmeralda take charge. As usual.
“I’m sorry, Nadia,” her mother said firmly, “but you’re going to have to settle for seeing her during visiting hours. We need this transition to happen as quietly as possible.”
Nadia wanted to let loose an ear-piercing scream. Let her mother try to hide her away quietly after that! But of course, that wouldn’t get her any closer to Gerri.
“I will be calm,” she said, though her hands were shaking. “I will be quiet. I’ll make no fuss whatsoever. But you have to let me speak to Gerri first. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Her mother gave her a look of exasperated disbelief. “Really, Nadia, there’s no need to be quite so dramatic. It’s better for everyone—”
“Screw what’s better for everyone!” So much for maintaining her calm. Her mother blanched at her language, and her father looked at her like she’d grown a second head. Nadia had been able to remain calm and dignified when Mosely’s men had arrested her, when she’d been convinced her future included imprisonment, torture, and execution, but somehow this was worse. This was being abandoned by the people who were supposed to love and protect her. This was being patronized like a child throwing a tantrum when she had never once given them any reason to
believe she was some kind of drama queen.
“Perhaps it would be best if you and your husband said your good-byes now,” one of the staff workers suggested. “We’ll take good care of Nadia.”
“I have to talk to Gerri,” Nadia tried again. “Please, Mother. There are things that happened that you don’t know about and Gerri does. I swear I’m not being melodramatic when I say it’s a matter of life and death. Please trust me.”
“I won’t have you upsetting Gerri,” her mother said. “Your father and I will sit down and talk with her about what we’ve decided in private.”
For the first time, Nadia realized she wasn’t the only one whose reaction her mother was worried about. She was worried Gerri would “make a scene.” Bad enough for Nadia to do it, but at least she could be quietly dragged off into the depths of the retreat. If Gerri wanted to take it public—which she might, seeing as she wouldn’t appreciate being blindsided—there would be no way to stop her.
“Good-bye, Nadia,” her mother said stiffly. “We’ll visit as often as we can, and I’ll make sure to tell Gerri you want to speak with her when things settle down.”
Her father took a step in her direction, raising his arms as if he planned to hug her, but Nadia wasn’t about to accept any hugs, so she took a step backward and crossed her arms over her chest.
That was when she felt the faint bulge of her forbidden phone, tucked into her bra to keep it safely hidden. Maybe instead of continuing to butt heads with her mother, who had clearly drawn her line in the sand and was not prepared to back down, she should just wait until she had a quiet moment alone and give Gerri a call.
It would be dangerous. Much more dangerous than talking in person would be. Nadia knew the resistance would be listening in on anything she said on the phone, and she couldn’t afford to let them find out about the recordings, or about the damning truth those recordings held. Not when she didn’t know much about them or what their goals were. She wished she’d asked Dante more questions about them, but she’d let her loneliness and longing get the best of her. And she hadn’t realized she’d be cut off from contact with him so soon.