Forced and Loveless

2: The Party

As I left my parents house I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My thick brown hair had been treated by the stylists my mother hired and now my dark brown locks were cascading down my open back dress, this was the prettiest I had looked since before moving away for college.

Light makeup was applied to my face to cover up the dark circles under my hazel eyes. The white dress I was given by my mother was form fitting but flared out at the bottom. It looked and felt expensive, apparently perfect for the party I was going to attend. A masquerade themed party organised by the Vos family, that was doubling as a place for me and my fiancé to meet for the first time.

I was helped into the car by the driver and slumped into the backseat hating that I had to attend. Parties were the worst, especially ones with this particular crowd because everyone had a motive and the chatting was all forced laughs and fake smiles.

I loved not having to attend my parents' parties when I was at college, but my first day back with them and I was already expected to go to one.

"Vos." I murmured the surname.

The city lights passed by me too quickly. I wanted the car to slow down or just stop altogether.

That was the last name I expected to read on the document my father gave to me when I got home, the document containing very limited information about the person I would be marrying. But in reading it I finally understood why my father used such aggressive methods to make sure I complied with his plans.

The Vos family was elusive and mysterious, to the point that they always did business through figureheads. My father had in fact never met the head of the Vos family, let alone his son, the guy I would be marrying.

The one thing I did know about the Vos family was that they were dangerous.

They were not normal business people, they didn't just deal with profit. At parties such as the one I was going to I heard whispers of guns and mumblings about connections to the mafia.

Of course being forced into such a family was a hard thing to stomach.

"Callum Vos." The name of my fiancé.

My parents had never met him, so they had no idea about his personality or his looks. They only thing they knew was that he was 29, making him six years older than me. At this point I knew so little about him that I could only pray I wasn't getting engaged to some psychopath.

I blinked in surprise as the car door next to me was suddenly opened. The driver was outside on the gravel ready to help me out of the car.

I slipped on my white crystal mask, took his arm, stepped out of the vehicle and took a deep breath in before walking up the steps of the stone castle.

We drove outside the city, beyond the suburbs to a remote forestry area, where mansion where reflected in private lakes and hidden in deep groves of green. This particular old American building with its mighty stone columns and carvings screamed a class of people that I thought I had escaped.

At the door I joined a small queue of beautifully dressed guests, each wearing delicate masks that covered the top third of their faces, who were having their invitations checked by a man holding a clipboard of the guest list.

A girl in front with gorgeous red hair was holding up the queue, she clearly didn't have an invitation but was trying every trick in the book to get into the party, it was when she resorted to flirting with the man that two large bodyguards emerged from the darkness and escorted the girl away from the entrance.