“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.