Reckless Promise: A Dark Mafia Romance Read online

  “A few things, but one in particular stood out. Did you know that my father left me a trust?”

  I laugh, unable to help it. “Right, yeah, of course he did. You run away from the family for years, build up your own little crime empire, terrorize people, get your hands nice and bloody, but you’re still the spoiled oldest son.”

  His expression darkens and he walks over, sauntering slowly. He sits down in the chair next to mine, getting closer than necessary, his knees touching my thigh.

  “I was never spoiled by that man.”

  I snort once. “Come on, I remember how things were—”

  “They gave me things. They forced me into opportunities. But everything came with a cost.” His voice is low now. He pulls up the sleeve of his black Henley and shows me a mottled mass of scar tissue barely covered by a lotus flower tattoo. I shiver slightly at how achingly familiar those scars are and at the sudden nearness of him. I didn’t expect this level of vulnerability, and now that he’s showing it, I almost wish he’d stop. “Cigarette burns. My father particularly liked this this form of punishment. And the sick part is, he didn’t even smoke, he’d just light them, watch it burn, then put it out on my skin. Over and over again until I screamed. Don’t tell me I’m fucking spoiled.”

  I stare at him, blinking rapidly, heart racing. I knew his father was a bastard, and I knew he was abusive—but I had no clue how far it went. Cait only ever hinted at what her father was capable of. Hitting, punching, pushing. But burning? My god, so much suddenly makes sense.

  I saw the scars on her. She was good at hiding them and I think she was more ashamed than Kellen is, but I still saw them when we went swimming or if the day was really hot and she walked around in a tank top. Scars like what Kellen has, some circular, some long slashes. I never asked how she got them and she never volunteered—we always just pretended like they didn’t exist.

  Now I wish I’d asked. I don’t know what I could’ve done, but maybe things would be different. There were a lot of opportunities for us to turn away from our dark path but we tumbled down it together instead, falling headlong into a hell we both desperately wanted for very different reasons.

  “I didn’t know,” I say quietly, looking away and sipping my wine to cover my sudden, intense shame.

  He sneers. “Yes, you did, but it was easier to pretend like you didn’t.” He yanks his sleeve back down. “I showed you my scars. Why don’t you show me yours?” He reaches out and snatches my arm roughly. Some of the wine spills over the glass as I try to pull back.

  “Get the fuck off me—”

  But he turns my wrist and exposes my inner arm. The scars are still there, faint now, nearly gone from an obsessive anti-scar cream regiment and slowly getting fainter every day, but still visible at the crook of my elbow. Those scars bring back so many dark memories, so many horrible nights spent nodding off, so high I couldn’t think, with Cait completely fucked up beside me. So many of my teenage years, wasted to addiction.

  I try to yank my arm away, but he doesn’t let me go.

  “You’re even more ashamed if it than I am, aren’t you? And you should be. But don’t pretend like they aren’t there. Those scars are who you are.”

  “They’re who I used to be.” I stare into his eyes, a mixture of rage and self-loathing billowing up through my core. He doesn’t know a damn thing about me. Cait died and he ran away and I was left here in this piece-of-shit cottage trying to pick up the pieces. Seven years later, I’m still here just as broken and scarred and ruined as I was back then.

  “Who we used to be and what we do today make up what we are, princess.” He finally releases me and I yank away from him, nearly knocking over my glass again. I grab it with shaking hands and take a sip to steady myself, but that only makes it worse.

  “What, are you a philosopher now? I thought you were too busy selling drugs to girls like me to think about life.”

  He shakes his head. “No drugs. That’s my only rule. We don’t deal.”

  “Noble. What a great guy.”

  “You know I’m not.”

  “You’re right, I do know who you are.” I glare at him, heart racing, head dizzy with shame and rage. “Why are you back, Kellen? What do you want with me? All I’ve done is keep to myself and now you’re making my life harder.”

  “Just by sharing some wine with you? I didn’t know I had such power.”

  “Stop it. What do you want?”

  “You,” he says quietly, leaning closer. “I want you, Tara.”

  “I’m not for sale.” I shove back from the table and stand up, but he yanks me back down. I let out a gasp as he pins me to the chair, staring at me with a vicious smile the whole time.

  “I forgot to mention something,” he says, his grip tightening. “My new trust fund comes with a string attached. It’s an annoying string, but one I think we can untangle together.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I need to get married to access the money.”

  I stare at him for three fast beats of my heart before I laugh in his face.

  He sits there and takes it. I know what he’s going to say—I can see where this conversation is going from a mile away—and no, absolutely no, there no way in hell I’ll ever, in a million years, willingly get closer to this psychotic asshole.

  The idea is so absurd, so sick and twisted, that it makes me want to vomit but instead I just laugh and laugh.

  I twist away from him and finally get to my feet. He lets me walk across the room, catching my breath, wiping tears from my eyes.

  “It’s not happening,” I say finally once I’m somewhat under control. “If you’re about to say we should get married, it’s just not happening.”

  He looks at me, face utterly calm, and says, “I’ll give you the manor.”

  I stop short and stare at him, my mouth hanging open.

  Hayle Manor is a gorgeous, massive house on ten acres of land. I know every rock, every bush, every blade of grass in this place. I’ve been working it for seven years, and in that time, I’ve dumped my heart and soul into making this garden the most gorgeous place I can given the desert conditions. This is my land as much as anyone else’s and I feel closer to the outdoors in this place than I do to anything else in the world.

  When I’m out there, it’s like I can be a real person for once.

  The idea of actually owning it, really, truly owning it, makes my soul ache to the very core.

  “You’re fucking with me,” I say quietly.

  “I’m not joking. The trust will give me fifty million dollars which will be plenty to fund whatever fight I have to go through to wrestle control away from Hugh. But more than that, marrying you will give me access to what you know. It’ll also have the added benefit of making me respectable.” He says that last word with a sneer.

  “You’ll never be respectable,” I say, though I’m barely paying attention now. I’m imagining bulldozing that monstrosity of a house and ripping out all the unnatural and invasive species I’ve been forced to plant over the years because the Hayles think they’re pretty and turning this place into an oasis of local shrubs and flowers and whatever else is natural to this ecosystem. I could make it public, run tours through the gardens, teach people about native plants—

  All I’d have to do is marry a man I hate.

  “There’s money too, if you want it,” he says, sipping his wine. “A few million plus the manor, which is worth even more. Live in the place, burn it down, I don’t care. So long as I’m in control of the Hayle family, you can do whatever you want.”

  “Is this forever?” I meet his gaze and my hands are shaking and I’m practically salivating at the idea of owning this place myself. I’ve stayed working the gardens here for a bunch of reasons, but mainly I’ve fallen in love with this landscape. This place is magical somehow, the rocks and the dirt, the trees and the bushes, the gnarled wind-swept shrubs and the scrubby patches of grass and the tall cacti. It’s in me somehow, like working the ground with my own hands knitted me to this place so tightly that I can’t seem to unwind my connection anymore.

  It’s calming, being out there in the heat with the wind blowing down my bare skin, the sun beating down like a hammer. It’s clean, like it can tear away the demons that still plague me from all those years ago. This landscape is everything to me, it’s my salvation and my retreat, and I feel like I can taste it now, right on my tongue, sliding down into my core.

  “It doesn’t have to be forever,” he says quietly. “Nothing about the trust suggests our marriage needs to be permanent.”

  “And you’ll really give me the manor? And all the land around it?”

  “Whatever you want.” He’s smiling now, the bastard. He knows I’m tempted. I walk over, snatch my wine, and throw it back, drinking it down. My heart’s racing and my cheeks are still flushed and I glare at him, trying to push away the memories of Cait he resurrected, the memories of shooting up and lying around strung out and fucked up out of my mind, the horrible memories of a life I thought I escaped. I want to replace them with better memories of taking care of this land.

  He’s offering me a future, something I’ve always dreamed of but only sideways, only carefully, never willing to fully commit to that dream because it was impossible, until now.

  This can be mine. The cottage, the gardens. The land around it. All of it can be mine.

  If I marry this man and help him take over.

  “You know I despise you, right?” I say softly, almost afraid to say it out loud. He’s still smiling. “I despise all of you. Your father, your mother. Your cousins and uncles and aunts. Cait used to talk about them, you know? She hated them too, everyone except for you and your mother, but she didn’t see you like I see you.”
>
  “And how do you see me?”

  “You did nothing to help her.” I blink a few times as tears roll down and drip off my wine glass onto the floor. I didn’t realize I was crying, but now it’s so obvious, of course I’m crying, it’s like I’ve been crying for seven years straight but working out in the desert has sapped all the water from my body and left me a dried husk of the girl I used to be.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “You all knew. Your family forced her into it, bit by bit, and you ignored it until she was too far gone to save.”

  “You went with her. Don’t forget that.” He stands, a big man, a strong man. Beautiful in his way. Terrifying. “You can blame me and my family all you want, but you were there. You held the needle. You cooked the shit. You plunged it into your veins just like she did. Don’t tell me I’m responsible.”

  I release one hard sob and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I try to walk past him but he doesn’t let me. He pushes me back against the wall and glares at me, breathing hard, rage in his eyes. I look back and let the tears roll down my face, because he’s right and he’s wrong, and nothing really matters. Not anymore.

  “Marry me,” he says through his teeth. “Be my wife. Do the right thing for once.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can and you will.” He shakes his head, his hands moving down to grip my hips. God, it feels good, his fingers biting into my skin. Why’s he touching me like that? Like he’s going to kiss me right now? I want him to hold me harder. I want him to make it hurt. “You didn’t stay here for seven years out of the goodness of your heart. You didn’t stay because you love it. You have an agenda.”

  “I love the gardens.”

  “Maybe you do, but you have an agenda.” He’s so close, his hands holding me like we’re intimate. It’s the nearest to a man I’ve been in a long, long time—maybe since ever. “I can help you and you can help me. Cait’s gone and she’s not coming back. We can blame each other all we want, but why don’t we do something to the people that are really responsible?”

  “Your father’s dead.”

  “But the rest of the family’s still here.” He grips me harder and pins me with his body. He’s so warm and muscular and he’s like a crushing wave ready to hold me down against the ocean floor. He’s ready to drown me. “Help me, Tara, and I can help you.”

  With that, he recedes. He backs away and I’m left breathing hard. He throws back his drink and gently places the glass near the sink.

  “Thanks for the drink,” he says and walks out.

  Chapter 6

  Kellen

  I knock softly on Mom’s bedroom door and step back as the nurse answers. She’s an older woman in her fifties named Eunika with a heavy Polish accent and a stern glare. Exactly the kind of woman I’d trust with my mother’s care.

  “How’s she doing today?”

  “Today is a good day,” Eunika says, crossing her strangely muscular arms. “Do you want to see her?”

  “I was hoping I could wheel her out back and talk.”

  She nods slowly and I think there’s the barest hint of a smile on her lips, although maybe I’m imagining things. “Still early enough. Not too hot. Come in and ask, I think she’ll like that.”

  I follow her into my mother’s room. Hugh is away attending to the construction business which means he can’t hover over my shoulder and make sure I’m not fucking him over. Which obviously I want to.

  But right now, I just want to sit with my mom and talk like we used to.

  Some part of me breaks to see my mother this way. Wizened, older than her days, eyes somewhat blurry and blank, but she recognizes me when I approach her bed and she smiles. So many memories come back with that smile, and I feel like a little kid again, looking up as she strolled along the gardens with me, laughing at my nonsense jokes and encouraging me to tell more stories. She was always encouraging me at whatever I did back then and it was like water to a man dying of thirst, just that small bit of approval and love.

  “Mom,” I say, kissing her cheek.

  “Kellen. Where have you been? I feel like we haven’t talked in a long time.” I don’t have the heart to tell her that we spoke just yesterday.

  “I’m home for a visit. Do you want to sit out back with me? It might be good to get some fresh air.”

  She smiles, brightening just a touch. “I love the way the gardens look right now. Have you seen them? They’re so lovely, even better than when you were young.”

  “I have.”

  “Aren’t they beautiful? It’s all thanks to that new girl. What’s her name again? I have it on my tongue but I can’t quite get it out.” She laughs, covering the fact that it obviously bothers her that she can’t remember.

  “Tara,” I say, feeling a pulse in my guts. Mom knows Tara very well—Tara was around constantly back when Cait was alive, and it’s just one of many signs pointing toward my mother’s illness that she can’t remember.

  “That’s right, Tara.” She frowns slightly as if trying to recall something, but shrugs it off. “Let’s go sit out back then.”

  Eunika helps me get Mom into her chair. Together, we wheel her into the elevator, ride it down, and head out onto the porch. The morning is warm, but not overbearing and we sit in the shade of an awning, Mom’s chair placed at the balcony so she can see the cacti and bushes artfully arranged in geometric shapes down below. Some of the cacti are in bloom and little yellow blossoms burst out here and there, contrasting with the reddish-brown soil and the deep green flesh.

  “Lovely,” Mom says once Eunika gets her settled and heads inside, though still within shouting distance. “You know, before that girl got here, this place was a mess and we barely had any cactuses. Can you imagine, a garden out here without cactuses?”

  “Tara,” I remind her. “And she’s good. I think she really cares about the plants.”

  “She must.” Mom shades her eyes, squinting, and smiles brightly again. “Speak of the devil, look at that.”

  I follow Mom’s pointed finger and spot Tara standing down at one of the far beds meticulously pruning back some bushes that got a little too aggressive. She carefully picks up the clippings, places it all into a big bag, and probably plans on composting everything later. She moves with a surprising grace and beauty, and I’m struck by her all over again, how she seems to flit through the gardens like she was born in them. Mom lets out a happy sigh.

  “She’s been here a while, hasn’t she?” Mom asks suddenly like she realizes that she’s having a hard time remembering and she’s just trying to grasp at whatever she can. “I feel like it’s been a long time, but I’m not sure. That’s strange, isn’t it?”

  “Seven years.”

  “That’s right, your father let her live in the cottage.”

  “Why did he do that? I never found out.”

  Mom tilts her head like she’s hearing a far-off conversation. “I think he felt sorry for her.”

  “Doesn’t sound like him.”

  “He was mourning something. Someone. I can’t remember who.” Her frown deepens. “Your father never did anything out of kindness or without some ulterior motive.”

  “No, he really didn’t. It must’ve been hard being married to him.”

  She smiles as if she didn’t hear me and pats the arm of her chair. “I don’t remember the last time I was back here, you know. What month is it? It must be spring, the way things are blooming.”

  “Hugh doesn’t bring you out?”

  “Hugh is busy with the company.” She waves that off as if it’s no big deal.

  I shift closer to her and take her hand in mine. That bastard fucking Hugh. He’s content to leave my mother in her room where she’s out of the way and can’t bother him, but she’s rotting in there and only getting worse. I don’t know how much longer my mother has, how much longer her memory will remain even somewhat intact, and she deserves to come out to sit near the gardens as often as she can if she enjoys it.

  Her hand is soft and leathery, so different from the hand I remember when I was a boy. Back then, Mom was my lifeline, the only person that kept me alive in those years when Dad seemed to delight in hurting me, cutting me, whipping me, burning me. When Dad said he was trying to mold me into something stronger like a knife in a forge. She was the life raft keeping me from drowning. Dad was the anchor trying to drag me under.