Dangerously Mine

Chapter 2

The scent of roasted chicken and rosemary should have been comforting for tonights dinner, but in this room, under the weight of the silence, it felt like the smell of a final meal. I am the one who cook dinner for tonight, the maids here insisted that it is their job to cook dinner, but it is also my responsibility as their adopted daughter to serve them.

Sometimes, I don’t have to cook dinner, it’s just tonight, I am not busy. I’m already done with my homeworks and projects and I have no classes tomorrow because it is our school’s founders birthday and it is serves as holiday for our school. And I don’t know how to kill my boredom than to cook.

I sat at the very edge of my seat and my hands were tucked beneath the table as we wait for Shaina to come here in the dining table. I am nervous because the tension is high. Dad, Theodore is not saying anything, he is just staring at his plates, indicating that he is lost in his thoughts while Tina is screaming for Shaina’s name.

After hearing that they have a problem, and it is about the business, I just know that tonights dinner will have a full tension between them, between us. The only thing that is running through my head is to just eat. Don’t look up. Don’t breathe too loud. If I am invisible, I am safe.

Theodore sat at the head of the table still focus on his thoughts and beside him, is Tina. “Shaina! The food is getting cold you brat!”

“I am sorry! I just got out of shower.” Shaina run towards the dining table and sat down. Her hair is still damp from the shower. “Finally. Now we can eat.” We started to served ourself food, and from silence, the echo and sound of metalic spoon and fork touching the plate is the only thing we can hear. No one dared to talk. Just a quiet dinner.

Until he interrupted the silence of our voice that this dining room have.

"We’re bankrupt."

I froze. I look at him but Theodore didn't look up from his plate when he said it. He spoke the words into his wine glass, the red liquid swirling like a dark secret. The clinking stopped. The air in the room seemed to vanish, leaving us in a vacuum. I felt the oxygen leave my lungs, my chest tightening until it hurt.

It’s real. It’s actually happening. What I heared is actually right.

"Bankrupt?" Shaina’s voice broke the silence, thin and sharp. She dropped her phone onto the table with a loud thwack. "Dad, what are you talking about? My debut is next week! The venue is booked. My dress, the custom silk from Italy is supposed to arrive tomorrow. You can’t be bankrupt."

"The debut is the least of our concerns, Shaina," Theodore growled, his voice vibrating through the table.

"Least of our concerns?" Shaina’s face flushed a deep, angry crimson. She stood up, her chair screeching against the marble floor, a sound that made me flinch so hard I nearly dropped my fork. "Everyone is coming! All my friends, the press! If I don’t have that party, I’ll be the laughingstock of the entire city! You can’t do this to me!"

She slammed her palms onto the table, the wine glasses rattling. A tantrum. A classic, Shaina-patented explosion. I kept my eyes glued to a small knot in the wood of the table, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

"SIT DOWN!"

Theodore’s voice exploded, a thunderclap that echoed off the high ceilings. I jumped, my fork clattering onto my plate. Shaina froze, her mouth still open, her eyes wide with shock. She had never been yelled at like that. She was the golden child. The real daughter. I mean, it was the first time again for a long time Shaina got yelled by her father.

"Your debut is not the problem, Shaina!" Theodore leaned forward, his veins bulging in his neck. "The problem is that you are turning eighteen years old and you are acting like a spoiled brat while the roof is falling in on our heads! You will be quiet, or you will leave this table and never come back. Do you understand me?"

Shaina slowly sank back into her chair, her bottom lip trembling. Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. She just stared at her plate, her hands shaking.

"Theodore, really," Tina interjected, her voice smooth but laced with a cold edge. She reached out and patted Shaina’s hand, though her eyes remained fixed on her husband. "There’s no need to be so cruel to your own daughter. She’s just a child. She doesn't understand the complexities of the business."

"She’s old enough to know when to shut up," Theodore snapped.

The silence returned, heavier than before. I felt like I was drowning in it. I picked up a small piece of chicken, my hand trembling so much I had to steady it with my other hand. I chewed slowly, the meat feeling like sand in my mouth.

Thedore sometimes explodes when there is a problem in front of him, especially when he does not know how to solve it.

If Shaina is thinking about her debut as the problem, I have my own problem I am thinking about. What if they lose everything? What if I’m back on the street? The memories I didn't have. the salt water, the red lights seemed to press against the back of my skull. The fear of the unknown was a cold, oily slick in my stomach.

Please, let them find a way. Even if it means I stay a slave, just let me have a roof.

Theodore took a bite of his chicken. His jaw moved once. Twice. Then he stopped.

He spat the meat back onto his plate with a look of pure disgust.

"Who prepared this?"

His voice was a low, dangerous hiss. I felt a cold jolt of electricity shoot down my spine. I looked at the chicken on my own plate. I hadn't noticed. I had been too busy trying to survive the conversation to notice the taste.

"I asked a question," Theodore roared, slamming his fist onto the table. "Who cooked this bird? It’s raw! It’s pink at the bone! Are you trying to poison me in my own home?"

The other maids in the room, women who had worked here for years but always kept their distance from me all looked at the floor. They knew.

I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat feeling like a jagged stone. I had to speak. If I didn't, he’d punish everyone, and they already hated me enough. "It... it was me, Dad," I whispered. The word 'Dad' felt like ash on my tongue, a lie I was forced to tell every single day.

Theodore turned his head toward me. His eyes were cold, dark pits of resentment. He picked up a bone from his plate, and a sharp, jagged piece of wing and threw it at me.

It hit me square in the chest, the greasy skin staining my sweater before falling into my lap. I didn't move. I didn't cry out. I just sat there, the heat of shame rising to my cheeks, turning them a bright, stinging red.

"Incompetent," he spat. "Eight years under this roof, and you can’t even roast a simple chicken? We took you in, we fed you, we gave you a name, and this is how you repay us? By being a useless, brainless burden?"

"I’m sorry," I murmured, my voice cracking. "I... I was distracted. I’ll go re-cook it. I’ll fix it right now."

I started to stand up, my hands gripping the edge of the table so hard my nails dug into the wood.

"Sit down!" Theodore commanded.

I froze, halfway out of my chair. My legs felt like lead.

"Re-cooking it is a waste of electricity we can no longer afford," he said, his voice dripping with malice. "You will sit there and you will eat it. Every bite. Maybe then you’ll learn the value of the food we provide for you."

I looked down at the pale, undercooked meat on my plate. My stomach turned. I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. Tangina. He wants me to get sick. He wants to hurt me just because he’s losing his money.

"Theodore is right, Jhannara," Tina added, her voice airy, almost conversational. She took a sip of her wine, her eyes watching me over the rim of the glass. "Being a great cook is a requirement for a good wife. How do you expect a man to love you if you can't even handle basic household rules? You’re nearly twenty. You should be prepared."

I looked at her, my brow furrowing in confusion. Wife? Prepared for what? "You should be ready for when you get married," Tina continued, a small, chilling smile playing on her lips. "In fact, given our current... situation... we’ve realized that you need to find a better man. A wealthy man. Someone who can provide for you and for this family. You know we are doing this for you, right? So you can have a better future."

My heart stopped. It just stopped. The air in the room became solid ice.

What?

"Luckily," Theodore said, his voice regaining some of its old, oily strength, "we have already chosen the man who will marry you. We’ve made the arrangements. The contracts are being finalized as we speak."

I dropped my fork. It hit the floor with a loud, final clang.

"What... what was that again?" I asked, my voice barely audible. I felt like I was watching myself from a distance, as if this were happening to someone else. What if I heard wrong? What if this is just a cruel joke?

"You are getting married, Jhannara," Theodore said, leaning back in his chair, his eyes fixed on me like a hawk on a mouse. "To the son of a business associate. A very wealthy, very powerful man. His family’s capital will save our business, and in exchange, he gets a bride. It’s a fair trade."

"A trade?" My voice rose, a spark of something anger? terror? flickering in my chest. "I’m not a piece of property, Dad. You can’t just... you can’t sell me!"

"I can and I have," Theodore barked, his eyes flashing. "You owe us your life, girl! We pulled you from the gutter. We paid for your clothes, your food, your medical bills for eight years. You think that was free? You think we did that out of the goodness of our hearts?"

I felt a tear finally escape, hot and stinging as it tracked down my cheek. "But I don't even know him! I don't want to get married! I want to—"

"What you want is irrelevant!" Theodore stood up, the sheer force of his presence filling the room. "The decision is final. You have no right to say anything about it. You have no name, no past, and no future without us. You will do as you are told, or you will find yourself back in the gutter tonight. Is that what you want?"

I couldn't breathe. I felt like the walls were closing in, the mahogany turning into the bars of a cage. My internal dialogue was a screaming, chaotic mess.

Sold? Like a slave? Like a dog? Where is the family they promised? Where is the love? Was it all a lie? Eight years of scrubbing and silent obedience, only for this?

Theodore didn't wait for an answer. He threw his napkin onto the table and walked out of the room, his footsteps heavy and echoing. Tina stood up next, smoothed her skirt, and looked at me with a gaze that was almost pitying. Almost.

"You’ll grow to love him, Jhannara," she said softly. "Wealth has a way of making even the most difficult men tolerable. Be grateful. Most girls in your position would kill for a billionaire husband."

She turned and followed her husband, her perfume lingering in the air like a poisonous cloud.

I was left alone with Shaina.

The silence returned, but this time it was different. It was sharp. Jagged. I sat there, staring at the raw chicken on my plate, my heart feeling like a bruised fruit in my chest. Shaina let out a long, dramatic sigh. She leaned back in her chair, picking at a fingernail.

"Well," she said, her voice devoid of any sympathy. "At least you get to get married and leave. At least you get a fresh start with some rich guy who probably won't beat you as much as Dad does."

I turned my head to look at her. My vision was blurry with tears. "You think this is a good thing?"

Shaina shrugged, a small, bitter smile on her face. "I think it’s a way out. I’m stuck here for another two years until I graduate. I’m stuck with the bankruptcy and the screaming and the smell of floor wax. You? You get to go away. I’ve wanted to go away since I was ten."

She stood up, grabbing her phone.

"Don't act like a martyr, Jana," she whispered as she walked past me. "In this house, we’re all being sold. You’re just the only one with a high enough price tag to actually get the deal done."

She disappeared into the hallway, leaving me in the tomb of the dining room.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking so violently I had to grip the edge of the table to keep from falling out of my chair. Sold. The grandfather clock in the hallway struck the hour. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Each second felt like a nail being driven into my coffin. I didn't know who Silas Vane was. I didn't know what kind of man bought a bride to save a failing wine business. But as I sat there in the dark, the echoes of their voices still ringing in my ears, I knew my life was over.

And the real nightmare was just beginning.