She groans just enough that I hear it and peels herself up from the chair.

Mark flashes a huge smile at her. “Bruce, I don’t think you’ve been formally introduced yet to my eldest. Bruce, this is Bellamy, my firstborn daughter. She’s twenty-two.”

I don’t know what the fuck her age has to do with anything. Most people stop broadcasting their kids’ ages once they’re past, oh, I don’t know, elementary school.

Bruce’s smile widens. Mark doesn’t notice when his narrow eyes wash over her from head to toe. She squirms and focuses on the floor. I can imagine his gaze must feel disgustingly invasive to her. He’s easily twice her age, and he’s wears the same delusional confidence as Mark.

“All right, Waverly,” Mark says. “We’re ready.”

The sisters perform with stoic faces and tight postures. Waverly knows her way around a piano keyboard and Bellamy doesn’t miss a single note. Mark stands proud, observing Bruce as he watches the girls perform.

“Jensen, you’re not helping!” Gideon nudges my arm.

“Sorry, bud.” I work on my edge pieces until the song is over. No one applauds, which is appropriate. Church hymns aren’t meant to be entertainment, regardless of the fact that Mark seems to think they are tonight.

Waverly shuts the piano lid and stands up from the creaky wooden bench. She stands next to Bellamy as if they’re about to be auctioned off, their gazes submissive and low. It physically pains me to see her that way. I’ve gotten to know her a little more over the past several weeks, and I know she’s got some fight in her. She’s a tiger, caged and subdued, behaving exactly the way she was raised to behave.

“Waverly, you’re a beautiful pianist.” Bruce’s compliment is meant to sound sincere, but his mouth-watering delivery lends creepy undertones. He’s salivating, and I don’t understand how Mark doesn’t pick up on any of this. I’m pretty sure if I checked out his pants—which I’m not going to do—I’d see the early formation of a raging boner.

Bruce steps in closer to Waverly, and as of that moment, Bellamy may as well be chopped liver. He takes her hand in his. “Your father tells me you’re a virtuous, yet spirited girl.”

Waverly nods, like she’s afraid to speak. I get that this jackass is in the priesthood or whatever, and Mark acts like the guy is a damn prophet, but I seem to be the only one noticing the way her hands shake and her eyes dart around. Her full lips part as she swallows, her face void of color. She’s fucking terrified.

I’ve seen a lot of shit in my day, and I’ve done a lot of questionable shit, but this fucking takes the cake. I’m not sure how much longer I can stand here and watch Mark pimp out his daughters to what is clearly a fellow polygamist shopping for a new wife to add to his collection.

I don’t care what anyone says. Waverly and Bellamy are victims, and as far as I can tell, I have a couple different options. I can speak up now, make shit super awkward and risk getting kicked out of Mark’s house, and spend the next two months homeless.

Or…

I can take matters into my own hands, in my own special way.

Either way, I refuse to allow this. From here on out, no one gets to use religion as a weapon to control another human being.

Not while I’m around.

CHAPTER 20

WAVERLY

His touch knots my belly, and the way his gaze crawls all over me makes me feel dirty, inanimate. I feel Jensen watching, taking it all in quietly from the other side of the room, and my cheeks warm. I am an item on an auction block, and for the first time, I am less than human.

Bruce pays extra attention to me, his beady eyes locked on mine. He’s a member of the quorum, which means we are to show him the utmost respect, especially as a guest in our house, but I’m finding it exceptionally challenging to do so when he’s practically undressing me with his eyes.

“Waverly, can you quote Article Thirteen of the Articles of Faith?” Bruce asks.

“Yes,” I say, my voice a forced whisper. My throat is dry and tight, as if I’m being choked. His presence suffocates me. Or maybe it’s fear of the unknown. “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, and in doing good for all men.”

“Good, good.” Bruce’s thin lips coil up at the corners, his voice snakes and slithers into the air between us. “And you, Bellamy?” He addresses her, but he still looks at me. “Are you chaste and true?”

“I am,” she says.

“Excellent.” Bruce comes closer and places his palm on my shoulder, his eyes drifting back and forth between us. “You young ladies are the future of our faith. It’s up to you to set good examples for your younger sisters, to follow out on the path that has been lain before you by your mothers and grandmothers. It’s up to you to remain true to your Heavenly Father and the doctrines by which we are governed.”

I’m not sure what he’s getting at. Sure, we may not go to church regularly since the nearest AUB temple is a two hour drive from here, but my father has always raised us with the teachings of the Holy Bible, Book of Mormon, United Order, and the Articles of Faith.

“Someday soon, you will be married,” Bruce says, releasing my shoulder from his grasp. “These are trying times we live in. Temptation is everywhere.”

I glance up at my dad, hoping for at least a sign of what this might be all about, but I get nothing. My fingers twitch against my sides. Deep down, I know what this is about. I just don’t want to believe it.

Bruce clears his throat. “The priesthood typically does not promote marital arrangements, however, the option to choose your partner is one that must be earned by staying pure and true.”

He smiles as if to soften his message, though his eyes penetrate mine, like he’s trying to invade my soul. The room shrinks around us. I may as well be in a prison from which I can’t escape.

I’m being threatened with an arranged marriage.

Jensen rises from the sofa, plodding across the room and pushing past my father and Bruce without so much as an, “Excuse me.”

Must be nice to be able to walk away.

I turn to my father, who for the first time in my life is a stranger to me. I don’t know this passive aggressive coward. “I’m not feeling well. I think I need to go lie down.”

The expectation to continue on in the tradition of plural marriage has been embedded into my psyche for as far back as I remember. In this moment, here and now, I’m finally realizing that those opinions in my head were never really mine to begin with. They were planted there, sowed and reaped and fertilized over the years.

I’m too young to get married, and I certainly deserve the right to choose whom I marry.

And I don’t want to have a plural marriage. I’ve never told anyone that before, but I know with every fiber of my being it’s not what I want. Not anymore, not since I realized I have a choice.

“Waverly.” My father peers down his nose at me, like he’s disappointed, like I should tough it out. “I think you’ll be fine.”

I blink away hot tears that fill my eyes. The one man who was supposed to love me and take care of me is perfectly fine placing my future in the hands of a church elder, like his job here is done.

My mother stares ahead, blank-faced and refusing to meet my pleading gaze. There’s a powerless kind of sadness in her eyes.

“Excuse me,” I mutter, ambling out of the family room. My legs wobble, barely supporting me, and I’m quite certain I’ll barely make it upstairs before I collapse. I grip the railing and then the walls, desperate for something to hold onto because in this moment, I have nothing.

No one.

I am alone.

Powerless.

The choice of whom and when to marry has been swept out from under me without warning.

I have no control, and right now, it’s the one thing I need more than anything else in the entire world.