Beautiful Trouble: A Dark Mafia Romance (The Oligarchs Book 2) Read online

  Beautiful Trouble

  A Dark Mafia Romance

  BB Hamel

  Contents

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  Trigger Warning

  1. Winter

  2. Winter

  3. Winter

  4. Darren

  5. Darren

  6. Winter

  7. Darren

  8. Winter

  9. Winter

  10. Winter

  11. Chika

  12. Darren

  13. Winter

  14. Darren

  15. Winter

  16. Winter

  17. Darren

  18. Winter

  19. Penny

  20. Darren

  21. Winter

  22. Winter

  23. Winter

  24. Winter

  25. Darren

  26. Winter

  27. Penny

  28. Darren

  29. Winter

  30. Anthony

  31. Darren

  32. Winter

  33. Winter

  Epilogue: Penny

  Also by BB Hamel

  Copyright © 2021 by B. B. Hamel

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Coverluv Book Designs

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  Trigger Warning

  This book contains graphic descriptions of sexual content, explicit violence, and past trauma. These scenes were written to create a more vivid, in-depth experience, but may be triggering for some readers.

  Read at your own risk.

  1

  Winter

  Your past always claws you back, baby.

  Mom said that right before they shoved her in a van and took her away. I was ten years old, and Father looked happier than I’d ever seen him.

  I didn’t understand why he smiled as Mom disappeared. I understand now.

  I still remembered the touch of her lips against my cheek. Wet with tears. She said she’d be home soon.

  That wasn’t true.

  I thought about that moment a lot. What I should’ve said, if it would’ve made a difference.

  Probably not. I was just a stupid little girl.

  And Father was what he was.

  In the end, he got what he wanted, and Mom was gone for a long, long time.

  Your past always claws you back. Those words floated through my head as I woke up in a strange bed in a room that looked so familiar, but all the details were wrong. I’d never seen it before, but I’d been in rooms just like it all my life.

  Stuffy, expensive. Understated. Filled with simple antiques—early American, mostly—that cost a fortune.

  Old money. The sort of family comfortable in their wealth.

  Not like Father. He wished he had a good name, and he tried to fit in with the quiet wood-paneled hallways and the easy country club money, but that was what turned him into the bitter, twisted little rat I’d grown up with.

  The woman sitting in the corner on a rocking chair looked like the room. Blonde hair pulled back in a deceptively simple bun. Exercise clothes in earth tones from Lululemon. Needlepoint flicking in and out like a snake’s tongue.

  Familiar but strange.

  The particulars matter, but they don’t change the nature of a thing, like how the casinos in Vegas look different, but they’re all the same kind of hell. At least that’s what my mom said during one of our many phone calls. That stuck with me, the sameness of hell.

  I thought she was right about that. Dress up evil however you want, but it’s still bad all the way through.

  The woman didn’t know I was awake. That was good. I snuck a peek at myself: still in the same clothes, which was a relief. They hadn’t stripped me.

  I’d thought for sure that smiling bastard Darren would strip me.

  There were two doors. One led to a bathroom—I caught a glimpse of a vanity, shining chrome, the edge of a mirror—and the other must’ve led out to the hall.

  There was a fireplace with chairs around it.

  No TV.

  Old money, like I said. Tasteful.

  “You can stop pretending, dear.” The woman’s voice was kind and surprisingly soft. I stiffened when she spoke and tried not to scream.

  “How long have you known?”

  “You made a noise.” Her nose scrunched up. “When you woke up. It was an ugly little grunt.”

  I sighed and stretched. I tried to sit up on an elbow and my head swam. A million questions swirled through my brain, and most of them were worthless. Like: Where am I? What the hell do you want from me?

  What I remembered from the kidnapping was hazy, like a half-remembered dream. That afternoon, I’d left Roman and Cassie’s house in Avalon and decided to walk back to my apartment. That was a mistake, in retrospect. She had tried to warn me. I hadn’t listened. I’d thought I knew better.

  I could be like that.

  Then the car pulled up. One of Roman’s guards. He tried to help me. Another opportunity, but I hadn’t listened.

  This whole not listening thing was becoming a pattern.

  They shot him. Blood all over. Then Darren walked toward me with that easy, horrible smile. Like the world bowed at his feet and he expected it.

  I knew that smile. I’d seen it on other men.

  But on Darren, it held another dimension.

  He was handsome. Beautiful, really. Chiseled and fine. Green eyes the color of electric moss. They were liquid and strange, those eyes. I could get lost in them.

  He exuded confidence like heat rolling off a desert highway.

  I wanted to reach out and run my fingers through his thick hair before I plunged a knife into his chest.

  I couldn’t remember anything after that. There was Darren, walking toward me, looking like he was about to feast on his favorite meal and could barely contain his excitement, then a blank.

  Drugged, probably.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  The woman stilled. She stopped her needlepoint. I caught a glimpse of what she was making.

  Rainbow over a mountain range. A bit precious, but I wasn’t an art critic.

  “Where is who, dear?” The woman tilted her head and stared intently.

  Studying me.

  She was probably in her fifties but looked younger. Fillers and some small work here and there. Her surgeon was good, really good. She looked like she had money, like all the ladies I’d grown up with. They had a certain face, like they were well-preserved. Dried out. Pickled.

  They could run from time, but it always caught up.

  “Darren.” I managed to sit up. My head didn’t spin too much. I tried to think, but it was like wading through molasses. “He brought me here.”

  She put her needlepoint down in her lap. “Of all the things you could ask right now, you want to know about Darren?”

  I stared at her. I didn’t have time for this shit. “Where is he?”

  “In his office, I expect. That boy doesn’t let me keep tabs on him anymore, though the Lord knows I try. Takes after his father that way.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Charleigh Servant. My parents wanted a boy and were dead set on naming him C
harles, but they got me instead, so here we are.”

  Darren’s mother. I saw the resemblance. They had the same eyes and jawline. Might’ve shared more, except her particulars had been shaved away and altered.

  Didn’t change what she was, though.

  “Should I call you Mrs. Servant?”

  “Charleigh’s fine.” She smiled. It was almost warm. “I know you’re a little out of sorts right now. I told Darren to be gentle, but he stopped listening to me a long time ago. Would you like anything? Food? Water? I can send for whatever you like.”

  “How about a car?”

  She laughed lightly and touched her hair. “That’s out of the question, but you know that.”

  “Worth a try.”

  “This must be hard, but it will be better if you play along.”

  “Better for who?”

  “For everyone.”

  I leaned toward her. “I’m not interested in going easy. Your psychopath son kidnapped me.”

  She didn’t even flinch. Her smile only intensified, like showing teeth was her way of putting on armor against the world.

  “I wish you wouldn’t use such an ugly word. He invited you here as our guest—”

  “Can I leave?” I asked, interrupting.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then kidnapping it is.”

  The smile faltered. I felt good in a petty sort of way. “Whatever you wish to call it, that doesn’t change anything. If you make trouble, things will be hard. But if you go along, Darren will let you leave sooner or later.”

  “Does your son kidnap a lot of girls?”

  She hesitated and seemed to genuinely consider that. “No. You’re the first.”

  “And you’re okay with it?”

  “If he brought you here, that means you’re important.”

  “You put a lot of trust in your son.”

  She gathered her needlepoint and stood. “You’ll find that one day you don’t have much choice in how things play out around you. Then you’ll understand that trust doesn’t much matter when you’re a leaf in a drain.” She walked to the door and paused before leaving. “I wanted to wait for you to wake, just to make sure you were okay. If you need something, there’s a phone on the bedside.”

  “Not an outside line, I’m guessing.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Send Darren in here.” I leaned toward her and tried to put every ounce of intensity and command I could muster into my voice. “I need to talk to him right now.”

  My plea washed off her like rain. “Get some rest, dear. You look awful.”

  She left and shut the door behind her with a soft click.

  I collapsed back onto the pillows.

  I knew what she meant about being out of control.

  Except right now, I was a paper boat in the middle of a tidal wave about to get crushed against the rocks.

  Darren, that bastard.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to come up with a plan of escape. There were windows. I could open them, scream outside for help, or maybe try to climb down.

  But no, he wouldn’t let me get away that easily.

  I climbed out of bed and wandered into the bathroom. It took me a few minutes to pull myself together, but I managed to splash water on my face and corral my hair into something more manageable.

  Charleigh was right. I looked like trash.

  Back into the main room, then through the door. The hall was quiet—plush carpets, wood paneling, not much light. Left ended in a window. Right ended with a staircase at least twenty yards away.

  This place was enormous.

  I looked outside. Rolling green lawn. Thick forest.

  Isolated. Of course we were in the middle of nowhere.

  So much for screaming.

  I took a few minutes to gather myself. My head was still fuzzy and weird, like I was an old TV on the fritz. I kept squeezing my eyes shut. Then when I opened them, the world hopped forward a bit, like my head was flying through time, but my brain lagged behind.

  I turned, intent on heading toward that staircase and exploring some more, but stopped.

  A girl stood halfway down the hall.

  She was shorter than me, almost petite. Dark hair, thick and lustrous, pulled over one shoulder. Curvy body, pretty face. Easily in her twenties. She wore jeans and a simple long-sleeve shirt, modest but expensive.

  Her feet were bare.

  “So you’re the one he brought home.” She smiled and seemed at ease.

  It was the eyes that did it. Deep, mossy green, just like her brother and her mother. “You must be one of them.”

  “One of them?” She frowned, tilted her head, then grinned. “Oh, you mean I’m part of the family. How’d you know?”

  “Your eyes. And you have your mom’s nose.” Assuming her mom still had most of the original.

  “My name’s Penny. I wanted to come and welcome you to Servant Manor. We don’t get a lot of visitors.”

  “That’s the sort of thing people say in a horror movie.” I leaned up against the wall, catching my breath. How was I so tired already? Whatever Darren had given me wasn’t leaving my system fast enough. “You’re not about to throw me into a murder basement, are you?”

  “No, no murder basement on the premises, only a murder hedgerow and a murder barn.” She grinned and I couldn’t help but smile back weakly. “Honestly, though, Darren calls the shots around here. I’m just the boring little sister.” She drifted toward me.

  I wanted to tell her to stop—but something held me back. Maybe the way she smiled, like she was completely at ease, but different from her mother and her brother. There was no malice behind her eyes, no anger, no control.

  She seemed almost normal, at least by the standards of this messed-up situation.

  “My name’s Winter.”

  She extended her hand. “Pleasure.”

  We shook. It was the strangest introduction I’d ever experienced.

  Penny beamed at me. “I guess you met my mom already.”

  “She was the welcoming committee.”

  “She’s not so bad, honestly. I mean, terrifying, yes, definitely, but not so bad. She means well.”

  “I did get some Stepford vibes from her.”

  “That’s just all the breeding.” Penny rolled her eyes. “You know, formal manners and such. She tried to get a tutor in here to teach me and Erin and—” She stopped, just a tiny pause, before barreling forward. “We refused to go. The poor teacher lady’s life was a living hell for a few weeks before my mother called us all a bunch of little animal heathens and swore we’d never be good enough for polite society. Here we are a decade later and she was pretty much spot on.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.

  That story was terrifyingly familiar. Different in the details, but the same as mine.

  “Can I ask you something, Penny?”

  “Sure.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Just don’t ask if I can let you leave. I don’t exactly agree with everything Darren does, but I’m not about to go against him for some stranger.”

  “No, it’s not that, although freedom would be nice.”

  “Maybe some other time.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “No, I mean, your brother. Does he kill the girls he kidnaps and brings back home?”

  Penny’s eyes went wide. “Oh, god, no. If he kills people, he does it far from this house. Mom would have a fit.”

  “That’s good.” I did feel a little bit better, although I wasn’t sure how much his mother’s disapproval mattered when it came to life-and-death power struggles.

  “Can I give you some advice?”

  “If you’re about to tell me to play along, don’t bother. I’m not exactly into being kidnapped.”

  She smiled again. I liked her smile, the way it lit her face up. It reminded me of Cassie, at least a little.

  “Well, you should probably do that, but no. I just wanted to say that Darren’s not such a bad person,
you know, despite kidnapping you and everything. So please don’t give him a reason to do something stupid. You seem okay.”

  “Thanks, I think.” I wanted to say more—to ask her questions about the house and get a sense of what went on in this place—but a door at the end of the hall opened and Darren stepped out.

  It was like moving from shadow to blinding sunlight. He wore a pair of dark slacks and a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing off his muscular forearms. He walked toward us, scowling the whole time, and Penny turned around, her sweet smile not faltering one bit.

  “Speak of the devil,” she said, then laughed and covered her mouth. “Oops, I mean, speak of the kind and loving gentleman.”

  Darren rolled his eyes. “What are you doing, Pen? I told you to leave her alone.”

  “She was in the hall. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

  “Why don’t you go find Mom and see if she needs help?”

  Penny looked back at me and winked. “See ya later.”

  “No, you won’t,” Darren grumbled as Penny jogged past him. He scowled after her, then turned to me.

  I leaned against the windowsill and stared.

  Nothing happened. No alarms, no bells, no thunderbolts, or electric bursts. I’d expected—something.

  Instead, Darren’s mossy eyes drilled down deep into mine and I felt pinned, excavated, and laid bare.

  The silence stretched. I wished Penny would come back.

  “We need to talk,” he said finally, and the tension broke. “You’re going to make me regret bringing you here, aren’t you?”