Page 58 of Hidden Empire
“If you didn’t put in a marriage offer, then your father did,” Armani surmises, ignoring his explanation. “And if your father put in an offer, you told him about Jade.”
“We just got here. I haven’t even spoken to my father yet,” Javi defends. “You teach as many classes as I do, have you spoken to yours?”
“You expect me to believe you didn’t report to him? He wouldn’t put in an offer without confirming she exists and that she’s up to standard.” Armani puts air quotes around up to standard, causing my lips to tip down.
I scrunch my nose up. “What does that even mean?”
“He wouldn’t put in an offer without knowing that you’re pretty enough for his pretty son,” Matteo explains, putting it plainly.
“That’s so—” I don’t even know what I was going to say, but it’s weird.
“Also, that you’re untouched.”
“Don’t call me untouched, it’s creepy,” I demand, turning my nose up at Matteo.
“You asked,” he defends, huffing.
I withhold a frustrated scream. How can you even tell someone is a virgin just from looking at them? Unless people were listening too closely at the party, and everyone just knows now.
Ugh, I’d say nothing good comes from sneaking out, but I can’t. Seeing Dmitri was so worth this if my loud mouth is the reason behind it.
“He has to have seen her,” Javier states, something like a realization behind his expression. “He’d never risk the embarrassment of sending an offer for someone he hasn’t seen—just in case she didn’t truly exist. Did you guys post her at all before coming here?”
“If we did, you would have seen it,” Armani snarks, still angry but much less loud about it. Thank god.
“Which means he’s seen her since she got here,” Matteo concludes, rubbing the back of the neck. “Which means we have a problem.”
Armani looks at our brother. “You think…”
“Someone has a phone on campus.”
Chapter 18
Jade
It’s the first thing I tell Dmitri when I see him next. Two days have passed since our encounter with Javier, and I’ve finally got some time to sneak off and see him. Should I have snuck out of my bedroom in the middle of the night to go to his? Hell no. It was a bit reckless, but less so since I’ve forbidden Matteo from my room for the next couple of days, claiming to be on my period.
It’s not an entire lie, I did get it yesterday morning, but I’m not nearly as uncomfortable as I made it seem. I got my first full period in years a month after moving in with my family, and it was a mess, to say the least. Every emotion hit me like a ton of bricks, and it was as if every cramp I’d missed out on wanted to make up for lost time.
Matteo was the only one home with me when it happened, and I’m pretty sure I’ve scarred him for life. Only ever having light spotting from a lack of nutrition and a balanced diet, I was severely unprepared for how much I’d bleed. With not a feminine product in sight, I had to send Matteo to the store for me. He handled that easily, getting me a variety of things to choose from, including a menstrual cup that still lives unopened underneath my bathroom sink.
What came after, he couldn’t handle. I was a wee bit mean to him, admittedly. I was in excruciating pain, to the point where I considered asking for Doc, or a hospital. All the tampons, pain relievers, and chocolate in the world couldn’t satisfy me, and poor Matteo had to endure it alone. It was five hours of me being snappy, crying, and rolling around on the couch in pain before he put a gummy bear in my mouth, telling me to chew and swallow if I wanted to feel better.
I was tempted to spit it out at him, but he looked so stressed that I obeyed. The little thing tasted funky, but I realized in about forty minutes why. He’d given me drugs. Glorious, sweet relief-inducing drugs. I must have thanked him five hundred times before I fell asleep. My mouth was dry as hell when I woke up, but I felt ten million times better in the morning.
Dad yelled at him for it, of course, but I defended him. It was a little weed gummy, barely enough for someone my size, apparently. Matteo did the right thing, and I stand by that. Sometimes he still offers me one when it’s my time of the month—which he now tracks in order to be prepared—but I don’t always need it. The first one was the worst by far, and I feel proud for learning about my body and how to soothe what it needs.
But since I was tortured by her once, I feel justified using her as an excuse for space this one time. A girl and her period have got to team up once and a while.
Luckily for me, the fact that I hadn’t known Dmitri’s room number before running over here wasn’t an issue. There was a girl with a Morozov tattoo on her wrist in the hall as I came in, and she immediately helped me. There was no introduction involved, just “Are you here for Dmitri?” and my enthusiastic “Yes” was enough for her.
Now I’m sitting on a boy’s bed that isn’t related to me for the first time, chewing on my lip while I wait for Dmitri to come back with Ivan. As soon as I word-vomited everything I knew, he said Ivan would need to be aware as well. I’m not upset about it, but a few kisses first would have been nice. I mean, I ran like eight minutes to get here while my uterus tears itself apart inside of me. I think that’s worthy of a little greeting makeout. Maybe after Ivan leaves.
Though maybe not, because Dmitri is definitely a bit upset at me for coming here all alone at night. The look on his face when he opened his door was somehow filled with relief and also murderous. He checked on me five whole times, making sure no one talked to me or touched me in any way while I was running here before I was able to tell him why I had to come.
The door clicks open, the sound of the latch making me straighten my spine. Ivan comes in first, with Dmitri following behind and shutting it promptly.
“Hey, Jade,” Ivan greets, pulling a chair up to the side of the bed while Dmitri sits right next to me. “You doing okay?”