VIVIAN
My sister and brother-in-law lived in Helleje, an idyllic county of beautiful villages, centuries-old manors, and state-preserved heritage sites located three hours north of Eldorra’s capital Athenberg.
Dante and I landed at Helleje’s tiny airport on Friday afternoon. It took us another forty minutes by car to reach Agnes and Gunnar’s thirty-acre countryside estate.
“Vivian!” My sister answered the door, the picture of country chic in her loose white blouse and riding boots. “It’s so good to see you. You too, Dante,” she said graciously.
I assumed my father hadn’t told her what Dante did, either. She wouldn’t have been so calm otherwise.
I wasn’t surprised. My father would never willingly admit someone got the better of him.
Dante and I dropped our luggage in our rooms upstairs before rejoining Agnes in the living room. Gunnar was in session in Parliament, so it really was a Lau family weekend.
I paused when I saw my mother sitting on the couch next to my sister.
At first glance, she looked as put together as ever, but a closer examination revealed the lines of tension bracketing her mouth and the faint purple smudges beneath her eyes.
A pang hit my chest.
Her eyes brightened, and she rose halfway at my entrance before sitting back down. It was an unusually awkward move for Cecelia Lau, one that made my heart squeeze.
Agnes’s gaze ping ponged between us.
“Dante, why don’t I give you a tour of the house?” she said. “The layout can be confusing…”
He glanced at me. I gave him a small nod.
“I’d love a tour,” he said.
My mother stood fully when they left the room. “Vivian. It’s good to see you.”
“You too, Mother.”
And then I was engulfed in her arms, my eyes stinging when I breathed in the familiar scent of her perfume.
We weren’t big on physical affection in our household. The last time we’d hugged had been when I was nine, but this felt like a much-needed embrace for both of us.
“I wasn’t sure you would show,” she said when she released me. We took our seats on the couch. “Have you lost weight? You look skinnier. You need to eat more.”
I was either eating too much or too little. There was no in between.
“I haven’t had much of an appetite,” I said. “Stress. Things have been…
chaotic.”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath and ran a hand over her pearls. “What a huge mess this is. I’ve never been so angry with your father. Imagine, doing that to Dante Russo, of all people…”
I cut her off with the question that’d been plaguing me since I overheard Dante’s conversation with my father. “Did you know about the blackmail?”
Her mouth parted. “Of course not.” She sounded appalled. “How could you think that? Blackmail is beneath us, Vivian.”
“You’ve always gone along with what Father does. I just assumed…”
“Not always.” My mother’s face darkened. “I don’t agree with him trying to disown you. You’re our daughter. He doesn’t get to decide whether or not I can see you or single-handedly kick you out of the family. I told him as such.”
A ball of emotion tangled in my throat at the unexpected development.
My mother had never stood up for me before.
“Is he here?”
“He’s upstairs, sulking.” A frown pinched her brow. “Speaking of which, you should go to your room and change before dinner. A T-shirt and yoga pants? In public? I hope no one important saw you at the airport.”
Just like that, the warmth from her earlier words disappeared. “You always do that.”
“Do what?” She looked bewildered.
“Criticize everything I do or wear.”
“I wasn’t criticizing, Vivian, merely making a suggestion. Do you think it’s appropriate to wear yoga pants to dinner?”
It was amazing how fast she switched from indignant and concerned to critical.
My father was responsible for most of my family problems, but a different type of frustration had simmered toward my mother for years.
“Even if I wasn’t wearing yoga pants, you’d criticize my hair, skin, or makeup. Or the way I sit or eat. It makes me feel like…” I swallowed. “It makes me feel like I’m never good enough. Like you’re always disappointed in me.”
If we were discussing our issues, I might as well lay it all out there. The blackmail issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but trouble in the Lau household had been brewing for years, if not decades.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother said. “I say those things because I care. If you were a stranger on the street, I wouldn’t bother trying to help you improve. You’re my child, Vivian. I want you to be the best you can be.”
“Maybe,” I said, my throat tight. “But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like you’re stuck with me as your daughter and you’re making do.”
My mother stared at me, genuine surprise shining in her eyes.
I knew she meant well. She wasn’t deliberately malicious, but the tiny cuts and barbs added up over time.
“Do you want to know why I’m so hard on you?” she finally said. “It’s because we are Laus, not Logans or Lauders.” She emphasized those names. “We’re not the only new money family in Boston, but we’re the ones who are looked down on the most by the blue-blood snobs. Why do you think that is?”
It was a rhetorical question. We both knew why.
Money bought a lot of things, but it couldn’t buy off inherent biases.
“We have to work twice as hard to get an iota of the same respect as our peers. We are criticized for every misstep and examined for every flaw when others get away with much worse. We have to be perfect.” My mother sighed. With her flawless skin and immaculate grooming, she usually passed for someone in her late thirties or early forties, but today, she looked her full age.
“You’re a good daughter, and I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you’re not. I criticize you to protect you, but…” She cleared her throat.
“Perhaps that’s not always the right approach.”
I managed a laugh through the tears crowding my throat. “Perhaps not.”
“I can’t change entirely. I’m old, Vivian, no matter how good my skin looks.” She gave a small smile at my second laugh. “Certain things have become habit. But I can try and tone down my…observations.”
It was the best I could ask for. If she’d offered anything else, it would’ve been unrealistic at best and inauthentic at worst. People couldn’t change entirely, but effort mattered.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For listening to me, and for standing up to Father.”
“You’re welcome.”
An awkward silence descended. Heartfelt conversations weren’t common in the Lau household, and neither of us knew where to go from here.
“Well.” My mother rose first and smoothed a hand over her elegant silk dress. “I have to check on the soup for dinner. I don’t trust Agnes’s chef.
They put too much salt in everything.”
“I’ll shower and change.” I paused. “Is Father…will he be at dinner?”
The trip would be a waste if he locked himself in his room and avoided me the entire time.
“He’ll be there,” my mother said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Two hours later, my father and I sat across from each other at the dining table, him next to my mother, me in between Agnes and Dante.
Tension suffocated the air as we ate in silence.
He hadn’t looked at me or Dante once since he entered. He was furious with us. It was obvious in the set of his jaw and the darkness of his scowl.
But whatever he had to say, he didn’t say it at the table with my mother and sister present.
Dante ate languorously, seemingly unaffected by my father’s silent rage, while my poor sister tried to make conversation.
“You should’ve seen the interior minister’s face when the royal cat ran across the stage,” she said, recounting a story from the palace’s Spring Ball.
“I don’t know how it got into the room. Queen Bridget was a good sport about it, but I thought her communications secretary would have a stroke.”
No one responded.
Meadows, Eldorra’s royal feline, was adorable, but none of us particularly cared about her daily adventures.
Someone coughed. Silverware clinked loudly against china. Deep in the house, one of the dogs barked.
I cut into my chicken so hard the knife scraped the plate with a soft screech.
My mother glanced at me. Normally, she would’ve berated me for it, but tonight, she didn’t say a word.
More silence.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“We were better as a family before we were rich.”
Three forks froze mid-air. Dante was the only one who continued eating, though his eyes were sharp and dark as he watched the other’s reactions.
“We had family dinners every night. We went camping and didn’t care whether our clothes were last season or what type of car we drove. And we would’ve never forced someone into doing something they didn’t want to.”
The insinuation hung heavy over the frozen table. “We were happier, and we were better people.”
I kept my eyes on my father.
I was being more confrontational than I’d planned, but it had to be said.
I was tired of holding back what I thought simply because it was unbecoming or inappropriate. We were family. We were supposed to tell each the truth, no matter how hard it may be to hear.
“Were we?” My father appeared unmoved. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I paid your full college tuition so you could graduate without debt. You weren’t concerned about being happier or better people when I bankrolled your shopping sprees and year abroad.”
Viciousness coated his words.
The metal handle of my fork dug into my palm. “I’m not saying I didn’t benefit from the money. But benefiting from and even enjoying something doesn’t mean I can’t criticize it. You’ve changed, Dad.” I deliberately used my old address for him. It sounded distant and strange, like the echoes of a long-forgotten song. “You’ve strayed so far from—”
“Enough!” Cutlery and china rattled in an eerie déjà vu from my father’s office.
Beside me, Dante finally set down his fork, his muscles tensing and coiling like a panther ready to pounce.
“I won’t sit here and have you insult me in front of my own family.” My father glared at me. “It’s bad enough you chose him”—he didn’t look at Dante, but everyone knew which him he was talking about—“over us. We raised you, fed you, and made sure you wanted for nothing, and you thank us by walking away when the family needs you most. You do not get to sit here and lecture me. I am your father.”
That was always his excuse. I am your father. As if that absolved him from any wrongdoing and gave him the right to manipulate me like a chess piece in a game I never consented to.
My mouth tasted like copper. “No, you’re not. You disowned me, remember?”
The silence was loud enough to make my ears ring.
My mother’s lips parted in a silent inhale; my sister’s eyes turned the size of half quarters.
Dante didn’t move an inch, but his warm reassurance touched my side.
“You didn’t treat me like a daughter,” I said. “You treated me like a pawn. Your willingness to cut me off the minute I refused to do your bidding is proof of that. I’ll always be grateful for the opportunities you provided me growing up, but the past doesn’t excuse the present. And the truth is, present you is not someone I would be proud to call a parent.”
I fixed my stare on my father, whose face had turned a lovely shade of crimson.
“Are you at all sorry about what you did?” I asked quietly. “Knowing how it would affect the people around you?” How it would affect us?
I wished, prayed for a single spark of remorse. Something that told me my old father was still buried under there somewhere.
If he was, I didn’t see him. My father’s eyes remained stony and unyielding. “I did what I had to do for my family.”
Unlike you.
The unspoken words bounced off me, unable to find purchase.
I didn’t bother replying. I’d heard all I needed to hear.
DANTE
I found Francis in the living room after dinner, staring at the fireplace. It was spring, but nights in Helleje were cold enough to warrant extra heat.
“It doesn’t feel good, does it?”
He startled at the sound of my voice. A scowl pinched between his brows when looked up and saw me enter. “What are you talking about?”
“Vivian.” I stopped in front of him, half-empty scotch in hand, blocking his view of the fire. “Losing her.”
My shadow spilled onto the couch, looming large and dark enough to swallow him whole.
He looked smaller without the bluster backing him up. Older too, with craggy lines crisscrossing his face and bags beneath his eyes.
A month ago, I’d hated him with a burning passion, so much so the mere thought of him hazed my vision with red. Now, looking at him, I just felt scorn and yes, a bit of remaining hatred too. But for the most part, my anger had cooled from molten lava into hard, unfeeling rock.
I was ready to put Francis Lau behind me and move the hell on… after we had a little chat.
“She’ll come to her senses.” He sank deeper into the couch. “She’ll never turn her back on family.”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “You’re not her family anymore.”
It’d taken every ounce of willpower to hold my tongue at dinner. This was Vivian’s trip and her time to confront her family; she didn’t need my help. But now that dinner was over and it was just me and her father, I didn’t have to hold back.
“You use your family as an excuse,” I said. “You say you want what’s best for them, but you did what you did for yourself. You wanted the status and influence. You pawned your daughters off to men they barely knew for your own ego. If you truly cared about your family, you would’ve put their happiness over your selfish desires. You didn’t.”
Things had worked out well with the Lau daughters’ arranged matches —though a question mark still hung over my relationship with Vivian—but Francis had no way of knowing how they’d turn out when he made the deals.
Crimson darkened his skin. “You know nothing about us or what I had to do to get to where I am.”
“No, I don’t, because I don’t care,” I said coldly. “I don’t give a shit about you, Francis, but I do love Vivian, so I’ll keep this short and simple for her sake.”
He opened his mouth, but I continued before he could speak.
“You say she walked away from her family when she’s the only reason you’re sitting here right now. If you weren’t her father and she didn’t still care about you despite the shit you put her through, you’d be buried beneath the fucking rubble of your company. But I’m not as nice as Vivian.”
The soft menace of my words curled through the air and settled on the surface of my scotch.
“If she wants to reconcile with you in the future, that’s up to her. But if you talk to her again the way you did at the dinner table tonight—if you hurt her in any way, if you make her shed a single tear or cause her a single fucking second of sadness, I will take everything from you. Your business, your house, your reputation. I will blacklist you so thoroughly you won’t even be able to get past the bouncer at your shitty local bar.”
My gaze burned into Francis’s as his face lost color. “Do you understand?”
My anger may have cooled, but it was still there, one wrong word away from erupting again. I was ready to put Francis in the rearview mirror where he belonged, but if he upset Vivian…
Heat scorched my gut, warmer than the fire at my back.
Francis gripped his knee. He vibrated with resentment, but without Vivian as a buffer or leverage over me, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
“Yes,” he finally ground out.
“Good.” My smile was devoid of warmth. “Remember, this time, I showed you mercy for her. Next time, I won’t be so forgiving.”
I finished my drink in one easy pull and tucked the empty glass in his hand like he was one of the servers he sneered at before walking away.
Six months ago, I would’ve burned the fucking room down with Francis in it. But tonight, I wasn’t interested in a showdown or argument.
My hatred of him had almost cost me the person I loved, and I refused to waste a single second more on him. Not when there was someone else I’d much rather spend my time with.
