It was like the life had been slapped out your body. The color drained from your cheeks and the world grew dark. The sky outside was gray and overcast. The clouds rolling by reflected the twisting of your stomach.
"Are you kidding me?" You whispered as the papers were slid to you. The cold marble under your feet–marble you had run over for years–felt foreign and stiff. Foreign, like the words in front of you. Stiff, like your father's face as he stared blankly through you. You stood, slamming your right hand onto the table, "You promised me."
Your voice was filled with nothing but venom and disgust. The words seeped through your lips and into the air like poison as the man in front of you winced. Old, broken, promises.
"This is for the good of everyone. I've made a deal, honey." Your father gave a lame excuse, his words falling off at the end. He knew he was betraying your trust and he knew the consequences.
"And what deal is that, huh? You sign away my ring finger and then I'll be what? A slave to a master? A woman scorned?" You made a fake gasping sound. "Or did you do it knowing you would get power? Is this all I'm worth?" You held up your left hand, free of a wedding ring. "My hand in marriage?"
"Now, now," Chin Seong, the man you called father, held up his hands as if he were being attacked. "I know you are still hung up on a false promise from six years ago, but we have been able to reason with the Min family."
"The Min...family?" Your blood ran impossibly colder. "No." You slammed your other hand on the desk now. You stared into his eyes, long and hard. "You're serious." And now you knew he had doomed you.
The Min family was known for being relentlessly cruel. They killed whenever they could and left no one alive. Men, women, children. No one was safe. Maybe that's why they were so successful.
"No one can 'reason' with the Min family." You seethed, "I'm not in the business, I don't even want to be involved, but even I know that." You turned around and started for the door, your hands clenching and unclenching.
"You will be allowed to continue your studies, fully paid for by the Min family, and in terms of boundaries, I have trusted their son to decide what is best for your safety."
While the part about your studies had made you halt, the whole idea about 'safety' being decided for you certainly made you turn.
"Right, so you mean that he will decide where I'm allowed to go and with who? That doesn't sound controlling at all." You found yourself laughing at this predicament. This was certainly not normal.
And your father finally showed signs of cracking. The corner of his lip began to twitch and his gaze hardened. When he spoke, his voice was low and rumbling.
"The deal has been done, honey." The tone did have you shaking inside. You had only heard this tone when members of the business were in trouble. "And you really think that you wouldn't be a target if you left this house to live your own life? Perhaps it's my fault for dooming you, but you will never be able to escape the family name."
There was a pit in your stomach and it was sinking deeper. Suddenly, the invisible chains on your life had become all too visible. You walked back over and sat down in the plush leather chair. The seat creaked and you wondered how much blood had been spilled in this office.
Now, you considered yourself somewhat reasonable. You could understand every side to a story and perhaps too much so. Maybe it was just in your nature or maybe you had just learned to settle for far too long.
