Vicious Proposal: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 2

  “You fucker. Let me go.”

  “Ask me two questions and I will.”

  I bit back a retort. I should’ve slammed my knee into his balls, but something stopped me. Maybe the way he stared at my lips or the feeling of him crushing me against the wall, but I decided to play along.

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  “So that you’d understand the situation.” He tilted his head. “One more. Think of something better.”

  I clenched my jaw. The arrogant monster. I understood why people disliked this man.

  “Is Silvano going to start a war with my brother?”

  He released my wrists. “He will if we let him.” He turned and began to walk.

  I let out a gasp and rubbed my arms. I had to hurry to catch up or else risk getting stranded in this strange house. I didn’t even know who lived here, though I guessed it was Griffin’s place.

  “Is that what you wanted? You need me to warn Redmond?”

  “If you think that’s best.”

  “Silvano Tense is going to ship a bunch of drugs onto my brother’s territory. I have to tell him.”

  Nervosa shrugged as if he didn’t care. We reached the entryway and found it empty. He paused at the door and turned to me again, leaning in close.

  “Understand something,” he said, his voice throaty and low. “I don’t give a damn about your brother or any of the others. I brought you here because I hoped you’d be smart enough to understand the stakes. Don’t prove me wrong.” He shoved open the door and walked outside.

  I stood, too stunned and angry to move.

  Nervosa brushed past Palmira. “She’s all yours,” he muttered as he walked down the steps.

  Palmira came into view. She was frowning after Nervosa like she tasted something awful. “You okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I said, shaking my head. “What the hell is with that guy?”

  “Oligarch,” she said, as if that explained it. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  I let Palmira lead me away from the house.

  As we got into the car, I caught a glimpse of Nervosa sitting astride a black motorcycle, a helmet tucked under his arm, staring at me like he wanted to smash through the window, drag me outside, and ravish me on the pavement.

  Chapter 2

  Melanie

  The first day of class arrived. The air had an electric chill and campus swarmed with students. I’d never been around so many people all at once in my life. I grew up on a compound, in a lovely box, surrounded by my family, by staff, by sycophants and liars. I had private tutors and was given whatever I wanted.

  Except the chance to be normal.

  Palmira ghosted after me like a wraith. I tried to get her to stay home, but she refused. “Nervosa,” was all she’d said. I resented her but was happy she was there. I’d never admit it, though.

  Campus was overwhelming. I sat in my first class toward the back and listened to an old man in tweed talk about economics. I realized I could do anything I wanted or go anywhere at all. I had money and time. I was young.

  I went to the library and shuffled around in the gloom.

  The windows were high and airy. Students clustered at tables and talked in low voices. I spotted friend groups and study groups, and wondered if I’d ever have that.

  “Don’t look so glum,” Palmira said, scaring the crap out of me.

  “I’m not glum,” I said, glaring. “And why are you sneaking around scaring me?”

  “Bored,” she said, shrugging.

  I slipped into the stacks and found the computers lined up along the far wall. I sat down, logged in, and began my search.

  It was slow at first. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Palmira drifted around like she was hunting for prey. I didn’t care what she did, so long as I wasn’t bothered.

  I started by searching my mother’s name. Not much came up. When she married my father and took on the Orchard title, her life drifted into obscurity. As far as I knew, my mother barely ever left the house, and rarely did much more than make art and complain. She was very good at both.

  I searched her maiden name. There was a lot more. The family she’d come from struck oil in the early nineteen century, back when land was still affordable. They grew fabulously rich and for the next hundred years established themselves as leading California oil barons.

  Her parents were dead. She had a brother, still living, and cousins. I didn’t know much about them. Mom never talked about her family, not even when I asked. I chewed on the end of a pencil and took out an old, faded composition book, and turned to a page midway through.

  Dear Diary, why do I keep talking to you as if you’re a person? I’m writing to myself. I’m writing to nobody. Daddy came home stumbling again. He punched Ceddy in the mouth and left him bloodied. He kicked me in the guts and said he’d rather die than let his whining, shameful children take the business over from him. Father can be a real bastard. Ceddy said it doesn’t matter what he says. He’ll be dead soon enough. Think he’ll follow through? I hope so. Love, Connie.

  I stared at the passage and read it over and over before finding an article about the murder of Maurice Yardley, my mother’s father.

  It was brief and sparse on details. The local paper didn’t have much to say. Oil baron stabbed to death in his own home. Local vagrants were suspected. I sighed and closed the article before I leaned back in my chair.

  The front cover of the composition book had a single name written in black marker: Connie Yardley.

  My mother, now Constance Orchard.

  I turned back to the computer and did one more search. The public records were sparse, but I found an address for a man named Cedric Yardley, still alive, and living in nearby Palo Alto. I wrote it down and pushed back my chair.

  A shadow appeared at my side as I stood. I expected Palmira, and was prepared to give her a lecture on boundaries, but the words died on my lips.

  Nervosa stared at me with a slight quirk to his lips. “What’s that?”

  “Excuse me?” I took a step back, away from his presence. He was overwhelming and terrifying all at once.

  “The book. Looks old.”

  I stared down at the composition book before shoving it into my bag. “It’s nothing. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “You always seem to ask the wrong question.” He glanced to the side. Palmira stood in the stacks with her jaw clenched tight.

  I waved her away. “You should be careful. One of these days Palm’s going to knock you out for stalking me.”

  “Doubtful.” But he glanced in her direction before following me toward the exit.

  “Why are you hanging around a college campus? Don’t you have a crime family to run?”

  “I can do both. Besides, I’m enrolled.”

  “You’re enrolled?” I tried not to let him see the fury that sizzled in my guts.

  “I don’t have a degree. I thought it might be fun to get one.”

  “You can do anything you want in the whole world, and you want to play student at Stanford?”

  “You are. Why not?”

  “I’m not playing.” I shoved through the glass doors and outside. Palmira followed, but not too close.

  “You’re the sister of an Oligarch. You should be at Blackwoods or somewhere more appropriate. The fact that you’re going to school in my territory fascinates me.”

  It was the most I’d heard him speak all at once. “I didn’t want to go to Blackwoods. Too many people like you lurking around the shadows.”

  “There aren’t many people like me.”

  I snorted and shook my head. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  His lips quirked again as he studied me. “Why were you looking up your uncle’s address?”

  I grimaced and stared at the ground. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Sounds like it is.”

  “How? You dragged me to your stupid meeting. You gave me your warning. What else do you need?”

  “You’re up to something.” He stopped, grabbing my wrist.

  I stopped with him. Palmira shot me a look and I glared back. I didn’t need her fighting my battles. I sucked in a breath and met Nervosa’s gaze, even if it did send a tingle of strange delight down my fingertips.

  “I spent my entire life cooped up in some stupid house. I want to be a normal person for a little while.” Which was true, if not the full story.

  “And I want to control all of France. Yet here we are.”

  “Stop it, okay? Why don’t you leave me alone?”

  “I told you already. I’m fascinated by you.”

  I pulled my wrist from his grasp and hurried on. He didn’t follow, only stared as I shoved my way through a group of girls talking in loud voices. They shouted after me but I didn’t care.

  Nervosa’s gaze hung like a wreath around my neck.

  Palmira caught up with me halfway across campus. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Looks like he rattled you.”

  “He was spying. But now I know to be more careful.”

  “This have something to do with whatever you saw in the library?”

  I stopped and faced her. “Let’s get something straight. You’re here as my babysitter, not as my best friend.”

  “That’s a given.”

  “Let’s make a deal then. You leave me the hell alone and let me try to be normal, and I won’t make your life more difficult than it needs to be.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “Good. Now stop following me around. I have class.”

  She squinted but sighed. “You’re right. I should go find Nervosa and follow him instead.”

  I groaned, but that was better than the alternativ
e.

  As I left her behind, I kept thinking about Nervosa. His hand on my wrist, his gaze moving down my body.

  And the fact that my uncle was alive and lived nearby.

  These things had to be connected. My uncle was too rich and powerful not to be involved with the Oligarchs somehow. If I was going to make my move, I needed to understand the players involved, and that included Nervosa.

  The bastard wanted to follow me, and maybe I’d let him.

  Chapter 3

  Nervosa

  Playing student was fun.

  I sat alone on a bench and watched the college kids walk past. I wasn’t much older than most of them, but I’d lived more life than all of their petty existences combined. I felt like a stranger in their midst, which only underscored how out of place I must’ve seemed. I caught looks from girls and stares from boys, and none of it mattered.

  I leaned back and thought about Melanie before I paged through her notebook.

  Not the composition book. I wished I’d grabbed that, but it wasn’t in reach. This was a black spiral-bound thing with her cramped, messy handwriting. I wondered who the hell taught her printing. Probably a blind, drunk monkey.

  Her notes were interesting, though partly unintelligible. There were names I recognized—her mother, her grandfather, and her uncle—and names I didn’t. Addresses, phone numbers, and lists of last known locations were scattered haphazardly around sentence fragments that didn’t make sense without context.

  What was she studying?

  I smiled as I ran my fingers over the notebook.

  When I was eight years old, my mother drove me into a busy part of downtown LA and pointed at all the rich, fabulous people walking around like the world would never touch them. My mom squeezed my shoulders and knelt down beside me. “I’m going to teach you how to steal,” she’d said, and at the time it seemed like a fantasy game. She showed me how to pick pockets and how to get away with it, and what to do when shit went wrong. Shit always went wrong for her. We ran a lot.

  Now that memory was tainted. It was fun then, but I could see those sunny afternoons spent stealing from rich people for what they were: a junkie mom taking advantage of her little boy. She was getting me to steal her drug money because if I got caught, I was less likely to get in trouble.

  Mom was gone now. Had been for a long time. I barely thought of her anymore, and rarely with anything resembling nostalgia. I’d given that life up and gone elsewhere, moved up in the world, but my roots were still firmly planted in that life. Drugs and violence. Crime and neglect. It was in my bones, no matter how hard my adopted parents tried to give me more.

  It sank into me and stayed there like a cancer or a burr.

  I ran my finger down the spiral spine. Melanie’s uncle appeared in her notes more often than the others, and I’d caught her looking up his address in public records. So dear old Uncle Cedric was part of her mission, whatever that was. I smiled to myself, knee jostling.

  I hadn’t been this fascinated by a person in a long time.

  She walked across the quad with her head down. She looked uncomfortable in the crowds of between-class students. I understood what she was feeling—I’d met people like her before. Sheltered girls and boys that grew up in the Oligarch households but were kept away from the world. This was her first experience with life without guardrails, and she was finding it difficult.

  I liked that she was trying. It meant she cared.

  She headed in my direction and didn’t see me until she was nearly in my lap. She came to a stop, glaring hard, like she wanted to make me disappear with a look. I smiled, tilted my head, and waved the notebook in the air.

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “You bastard,” she said. “You rotten bastard!”

  A couple sitting nearby looked over in alarm. Her cheeks turned pink and I plastered my most charming smile on my lips. I loved the way her jaw clenched and her nostrils flared like she was preparing to attack and savagely tear me to pieces with her teeth.

  “Found this on the floor in the library,” I said casually. “You should be more careful.”

  “I was looking everywhere for that.” She snatched it from my hand.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You stole it. Don’t act like this is charity.” She flipped through the pages before jamming it into her bag.

  “Why do you have such a low opinion of me?” I feigned innocence, even though she was completely right.

  “Because you haven’t given me a reason to think otherwise yet.”

  “Then there’s a chance.”

  I stood and joined her as she stormed away.

  “How much did you read?”

  I shrugged and decided to drop the act. Pushing her was only fun to a point. “All of it, though your handwriting is a mess.”

  “I hope you struggled.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “This doesn’t concern you, okay?” She tugged on her backpack’s shoulder straps for emphasis. “I’m researching my mother’s side of the family, that’s all. I don’t know anything about them.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason for that.”

  She stopped and glared. “What do you know?”

  “Nothing,” I said, smiling. “Though I’ve met your uncle a few times.”

  “Is he tangled up with your dirty web?”

  “Something like that, although I take offense to your characterization.”

  “I almost feel bad.” She glanced to the side as a group of people hustled past and moved closer. “Tell me what you know about him.”

  “Over dinner.”

  She snorted and began walking again. “I’ll pass, but thanks.”

  “How much do you know about your mother’s family?”

  “Less than I’d like.”

  “I can unlock doors for you. I can make introductions.”

  “And what will it cost me?”

  “Does it always have to be about that?”

  “With Oligarchs?” She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, always.”

  It was a fair characterization. In all my time living among the Oligarchs, I’d never seen them do anything unless it profited them. I loved my adopted parents—they saved my life and dragged me from a miserable, worthless existence. They gave me meaning, comfort, safety, and love.

  But even they demanded a return for their investment.

  The others were the same. Silvano, Liam, even Griffin, though he pretended he was above the murk and the mess. Their networks needed to be fed, money and information and power, and the only way to keep the wheel spinning was through growth, constant and impossible growth. I understood why Silvano wanted to expand east, even if he knew it would mean war.

  Only I had to believe there could be a better way.

  “You’re right,” I said softly, forcing her to come closer to hear me over the clatter and conversations happening all around us. Other young students made their way to the various class buildings, and I drifted among them like a wolf. I smiled with teeth and made all the right gestures, but I wasn’t like them, and never would be.

  Same went for her, as much as she wanted to pretend.

  “So what’s the price? Think I’ll be willing to pay?”

  “I hope so. Come find out at dinner.”

  “I already turned you down.”

  “Reconsider. It’s one meal. If my proposal doesn’t interest you then we’ll part ways and never speak again.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “You’ll stop following me around?”

  “I will, yes.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you.”

  “I give you my word, and if there’s one thing I don’t do lightly, it’s make promises.” I gazed at her and stopped, grabbing her wrist. I held it and pressed my fingers into the soft skin at the base of her palm, wanting her to know that I wasn’t joking, that when I swore to something, I’d do it or die trying.

  I rarely made such oaths, but I had to have a limit to my lies.

  “Fine,” she said, tugging herself away. A few upperclassmen nearby stared with deep frowns, like they wanted to come intervene on her behalf. I almost wanted the children to try. “One dinner. I’ll listen, then we’re finished.”

  “Perfect. Which dorm are you in?”

  “Don’t pretend like you haven’t followed me home already.” She stormed off.