Reckless Promise: A Dark Mafia Romance Read online

  I shouldn’t have done that. Tara was just as fucked up as Cait when all that nasty shit happened and she didn’t exactly walk away from the experience without her own scars. The girl’s as broken as I am, maybe worse, and hurting her won’t bring back my sister.

  But god damn, do I want to hurt her anyway.

  I head down the hall and leave Tara at the stairs. Ahead, the manor turns into a maze of corridors, junctions, hallways, dead ends, and so many doors. It was like growing up in a labyrinth, and I remember how there was constant construction to this place for the first ten years of my life as my father added more and more space onto the main structure. It sprawled over the years and became this unruly, tangled mess, like an overgrown hedge. Back then, the place crawled with staff, and despite the massive sprawl, it never felt empty.

  Now though, the halls are quiet. I reach my mother’s wing and slow as I approach her door. My parents had separate bedrooms growing up. I never thought it was strange until I met other kids and let slip that my parents didn’t share a sleeping space. They mocked me mercilessly and I learned to keep that bit of trivia to myself.

  I can’t blame my mother for being unable to stay in the same room as my father for long.

  I pause outside of her door. Nerves wrack me. I haven’t been back in a while, but I’ve called over the years and I’ve heard the rumors. I take a deep breath and knock before reaching for the knob.

  But it twists and opens on its own, forcing me to step back.

  I expect a nurse. Maybe someone from the staff. Instead, my cousin Hugh stands there, looking surprised.

  “Cousin,” I say, head tilted. “I’m home.”

  His mouth opens and works, but nothing comes out. Hugh’s five years older than me with dark hair turning gray, a pale, waxy face, a strong jaw, and good height. He’s decent looking but bland like everyone in his wing of the Hayle family. His father, Cormac, and his mother, Irene, both live on the premises somewhere, though Cormac is a bit eccentric and Irene is generally unpleasant, and it won’t bother me if they remain hidden in their lair.

  “What are you doing here, Kellen?”

  I show my cousin my teeth. “I wanted to say hello to my mother.”

  “She’s resting. You should’ve called first, I would’ve—”

  “What, fluffed her pillows? Whispered sweet nothings in her ear? Spent the day telling her how I’m a piece of shit that can’t be trusted?”

  Hugh turns red. “Nothing like that.”

  “Sure. Move, please.”

  He doesn’t move. I’m not used to that. In my life outside of the manor, I’ve worked very hard to cultivate a certain reputation, one that doesn’t allow for disobedience, and certainly doesn’t accept push back from sniveling little weasels like my cousin here.

  But in this house, I have to play by different rules.

  Even if right now I want to punch him in the throat and watch him choke.

  “I told you, she’s resting, which you’d know if you ever bothered visiting. But since I’m the only person that gives a shit about this family, I’m the one in charge, and—”

  I shove past him. Little shitweasel Hugh isn’t going to keep me from seeing my own damn mother, even if he’s right and I haven’t visited in a long time. Mom knows why I’ve kept away—she understands it better than anyone—and I only hope she still remembers.

  My mother’s chambers are large and airy. It used to be three rooms, but she knocked down all the walls a long time ago and made it into one massive space. There’s a sitting and receiving area, now covered in what looks like a bevy of medical equipment, and an art station with an easel and canvas lined up against the wall, all of them covered by my mother’s work, though I suspect it hasn’t been used in a long time, and at the far side is a massive four-poster bed.

  I approach slowly. My mother looks shrunken and gray lying in the middle of blankets and pillows. In my memory, she’s enormous, always smiling, always laughing. My mother has an amazing sense of humor. She made the house light with her jokes, especially when my father’s rage threatened to drown us all in darkness. She was the only thing that kept me from leaving sooner than I did, her and Cait. Mom brought light into my life, the kind of warmth I never thought could exist.

  But with Cait gone, I had to walk away from the family.

  Mom understood. Even if we never talked about it, she understood.

  Now though, my mother’s asleep. She looks ten years older than she is. Hair gray and tangled. Skin pale and wrinkled. She takes deep, slow, wheezing breaths. I linger at her side, staring down at her thin, bony fingers. How did she get so tiny? When did all this happen?

  “I told you,” Hugh says quietly from behind. “She’s sleeping, which is a mercy right now. Please, Kellen, don’t wake her up. She’s having a bad day.”

  My jaw tightens. A bad day means she doesn’t remember much about who she is or where she’s at. There’s no official diagnosis, but my understanding is dementia or early stages of Alzheimer’s. My father kept doctors away from this place and my mother’s been seen to by a series of privately funded nurses for years.

  But whatever she has, it’s taking my mother away, piece by piece.

  I turn away and nod at Hugh. He looks relieved as we leave the room. Out in the hallway, he watches me carefully, head tilted to the side.

  “It’s nice of you to visit, Kellen, but maybe it’s better if you come back some other time. We can schedule—”

  “How long have you been running this house, Hugh?” I turn to look at him, frowning. “I assume it’s been a while.”

  “Your father retired. I took over most of his duties.”

  “CEO of Hayle Construction. Head of the manor. Must be nice.”

  Hugh’s eyes grow sharper and he steps forward. I’ve got a couple inches and years of struggling for my life on him, but he doesn’t back down. I’ll give him that much, he’s stupid but brave. “We couldn’t all run away and become street thugs like you.”

  “No, you didn’t need to run to become a thug. You got that promotion all on your own.” I show him a snarling grin. “Let’s not pretend the Hayle family is anything but a bunch of fancy fucking gangsters. And as the CEO, you’re the big boss, aren’t you? The head gangster running the whole twisted show.”

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Kellen? Why don’t you go back to your petty little crew and keep robbing old ladies for their pension money?”

  I stare at him for several beats of my heart. I’m losing control already and I’ve only been home for an hour.

  “My father’s dead, Hugh, which means you don’t have his protection anymore. I don’t know how you managed to insert yourself into this family but I’m home now.” I step forward, staring into my cousin’s eyes. “And I’m here to take what’s rightfully mine.”

  Hugh laughs once and shakes his head. “Good luck with that. You’re nothing but the disgraced son. You’re a petty criminal and a minor mafia lord. Nobody at Hayle Construction’s going to give a damn about you, not a single employee, much less the damn board. You have no legal standing and no support. You’re as dead as your old man as far as they’re concerned, which means you’re wrong, Kellen. This family is mine and I’m going to steer it the way I see fit.”

  While Hugh is in a good position to take full control of the Hayle Construction Company and the real power behind the behind the power, the Hayle mafia family with its sticky fingers in a thousand pots of honey, he’s wrong about me. So fucking wrong it’s almost comical.

  I smile at him tightly, struggling to maintain my composure. “I’ll have the staff make up a room.”

  “You can’t stay here forever,” he says as I turn and walk away. “At some point, you’ll have to accept it. I’m the one in charge, Kellen, and that’s not going to change.”

  Chapter 3

  Tara

  The cottage at the edge of the Hayle property is a tiny one-bedroom shack with a red door, a brick facade, and creeping vines growi
ng up into the gutters. A rain barrel sits out front collecting whatever water falls in the desert, which isn’t much, and dozens of gardening implements are scattered around in the shade of the nearby shed’s overhang, with more tools inside.

  At least it’s cool in my little house. It’s been mine for years, ever since I begged Cait’s Dad for a job and he allowed me to stay here while I got clean. I drifted into the gardening position, and that’s been my life ever since—though the old man’s tolerance and leniency didn’t last for long.

  Still, this place is my home, or at least the closest thing I have to a home right now. My plants are in little pots along the deep kitchen windowsill. My cups and plates and utensils are nestled in their little drawers and cupboards and my tiny living room is cluttered but cozy with lots of pillows, throw blankets, and a constantly humming ductless AC system. My bedroom isn’t much bigger, but it’s got a decent closet, enough room for a queen bed, and the bathroom was updated in the last century.

  Overall, it’s my little escape from the world.

  And it feels like Kellen’s invading it.

  Even though he hasn’t been back here yet. I dig through an old bin I keep tucked away under my bed while the coffee brews and the sun rises on a comfortable morning until I find the old pictures of me and Cait. I smile to myself, amazed all over again at how young we were. The photos range from when we first met at fourteen, all the way up to our last year together at eighteen. Those final pictures aren’t easy to look at—we’re skinny, strung out, eyes half-glazed, probably high. Before that, we were happy teenage girls.

  I still don’t understand how the slide happened.

  My hands shake when I put the pictures back and shove them under my bed again. Kellen’s question keeps ringing in my ears and I rub my wrist where he gripped me. His fingers left dark black and blue marks in my skin, and the asshole looked like he wanted to crack my skull open and tongue my brain, and I almost can’t blame him.

  From his perspective, I’m the source of his family’s suffering, or at least intimately linked with it.

  But from where I’m at, Kellen and his entire psycho family deserves to be dragged through the dirt, beaten, bruised, and left for dead.

  There’s a reason Cait picked me up from my parents’ house one night when we were sixteen, took a baggie of little white pills from her purse, and said, you want to forget for a little while?

  My only regret is laughing and saying, hell, yes.

  I sit down at my kitchen table and try to distract myself. My father moved to Florida after I got clean and now I send them half my paycheck every month to help him make ends meet after a shitty investment nearly wiped out all his savings. I get the pleasure of supporting his new girlfriend, Janet, a girl I dislike with all my power, but I do it anyway because I’m a good daughter. When that’s done, I put the check in a card, put the card in an envelope, and force myself to take it down to the front driveway where I can drop it in the mailbox.

  On the way, I slow and stop when I reach the driveway. A big, white van’s parked out front, and three guys are lounging around. I don’t recognize any of them, but a bunch of stuff is piled up on the ground: furniture, luggage, big paintings. The guys are all in jeans and shirts, talking to each other quietly, laughing about something, and as I stand there staring at them through the bushes, Kellen comes out from the front, picks up a chair, and carries it inside.

  The guys get up and start helping. I watch, transfixed. Kellen’s moving into the manor house and bringing what looks like an entire apartment’s worth of stuff into one of the suites upstairs. The guys helping him must be his friends, because they’re all laughing and joking.

  I shake my head and hurry away. Why the hell is Kellen moving back into the manor now? I know his father’s dead, but he’s been away a long time. Hugh’s taken over in the intervening years and I can’t imagine that snake letting Kellen muscle into his territory, regardless of whether Kellen is the first-born son of Orin or not.

  I drop my letter off and hurry back to my cottage. I should get working soon—some of the bushes need pruning and I have some flowers I want to plant in the side bed—but before I get a chance, I spot two figures coming down the path toward me.

  It’s Kellen and one of the guys from the van. The stranger is tall, muscular, and covered in tattoos just like Kellen. But his hair is a rusty, dark, coppery red, and his eyes are a deep blue. His nose is small and straight and his smile is tense, almost like he’s forcing it. Where Kellen is relaxed and flows, this man seems wound up.

  I look around wildly. My place is cozy by my standards—but it’s also a cluttered wreck according to basically everyone that’s ever seen it, which isn’t very many people to be fair, but still. I learned a while back that my standard of neatness doesn’t exactly jive with the average human, and so I don’t let many people into my house.

  Instead of letting him knock, I grab my hat, shove it over my head, snatch my work gloves from the peg by the door, and step outside into the heat.

  Kellen and his friend stop. I look up, feigning surprise, and based on the smirk Kellen gives me, I don’t think they buy my performance.

  “Good morning,” Kellen says. “Heading to work?” His smile gets slightly larger and a jolt of anger runs down my spine. I remember the day before, his fingers digging into my wrist, his rage burning so brightly it almost hurt, and I glance down at the ground. That smile is hiding his real feelings toward me, but I saw the monster lurking inside.

  Typical Hayle. Pretty on the exterior but poisoned beneath the skin.

  “What do you want, Kellen?”

  “Polite as always.” He gestures at his friend. “This is Finn, my business associate.” I look up at that. Finn’s giving me his tense grin.

  “Nice to meet you,” Finn says quietly.

  Business associate probably means fellow gangster but I don’t say that out loud.

  I nod at Finn and cross my arms. “I’m busy,” I say, heading back to the shed. “Don’t have time to chat.”

  Kellen follows and Finn lingers out front, looking in my front windows. I grimace slightly and want to tell him to cut it out, but I doubt he’d listen anyway.

  “Why don’t you make a few minutes?”

  I rummage around the shed, pretending to look for something, but really just trying to make him leave. “There are only so many hours in the morning before it gets too hot, and I have pruning to do.” I find my shears plus a bucket with a few small spades inside. “And I have a bunch of flowers to plant.”

  “I’ll have the boys do that. You can have the morning off.”

  I step out of the shed and glare at him. “Are you paying my salary now?”

  “No, but—”

  “No, you’re not, that would be Hugh. So please, I should go.”

  “Tara, wait.”

  I hesitate, even though I shouldn’t. He’s too close and I’m suddenly very aware of his size and the way he’s looking at me somewhere between desire and hatred, in a strange, liminal space where lust and rage are inexplicably intertwined, and I feel his fingers digging into my wrist again and the palpable wave of violence that rolls off him.

  He could hurt me right now and nobody would stop him.

  “What do you want?” I sound desperate, but I don’t care. I just need Kellen to go away and leave me alone.

  He moves closer instead. “You’ve been living and working here since Cait died,” he says softly, staring at me intently. “Seven long years.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You know more about what’s going on with the family than I do. Hugh’s not the only player here. We both know what the Hayle family’s actually like.”

  “I’m not getting involved.” I shoulder my pruning shears and I’m tempted to use them on him right now. “You’re asking me to be your informant.”

  “I’m asking you to answer a few questions.”

  “No, absolutely not, there’s no way I’m sticking my neck out and getting
in the middle of this mess.” I shake my head and push past him. “No way in hell.”

  “That’s not the Tara I remember,” he says, following. His friend Finn comes along, hands in his pockets, strolling after. “You were one hell of a firecracker back then.”

  “You mean when I was a teenager?”

  “Running around with my sister getting into trouble.”

  “I’m different now.”

  “Yeah, how? You’re still here.”

  I stop and face him. “I’m clean. I’ve been clean for a long time. I’m not the girl you remember.”

  “I bet you’re not,” he says quietly, lips tugging into an infuriating smirk. “Except people don’t change that much.”

  “I did.” I stomp through the bushes and head toward the garden. Kellen keeps pace, shadowing me. It’s hot and I’m sweating already, and I don’t need this asshole making my job any harder.

  Although I knew this would happen the second I spotted him digging shirtless in the dirt in the middle of nowhere, burying some strange box for no apparent reason.

  He grabs my arm and my mind flashes back to that moment in the hallway, his intensity, his anger, and a shiver of terror runs down my spine as Finn watches on impassively like he’s used to his boss manhandling people all the time. Kellen leans forward, lips tugged up, and I hate how handsome he is, and how I know why he despises me like this, and there’s a bleak part of me that despises myself for the same reasons.

  “You’re up to something here,” he says, watching me intently. “Nobody would stick around this place as long as you have without a reason. Not with everything that happened.”

  “Get off of me.”

  “You can do the right thing here. You think Hugh’s going to be better for this family? You think any of my cousins can handle this twisted carnival sideshow of a business? Help me, Tara.”