Soulless: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy Book 2)

by Jade West

  I finished my coffee and put the mug down.

  “When did you get involved with the Power Brothers?”

  She sipped her coffee. “Years ago. I needed coke.”

  “When did you get into debt with them?”

  “When I ran into them and there was a kid like Tristan there, begging them to give him more time for his debts. I didn’t hold off for a second, just said I would pay them for him and got them to let him leave.”

  I smirked coldly at the thought. Elaine really was a naive little girl. I knew exactly what the Powers would have been doing after that point. They’d have made sure she knew about every fuck-up coming to them, knowing full well she’d bail them out with Constantine cash – even when that Constantine cash stopped coming. Her bitch of a mother would have dried it up like a fucking desert when she’d seen what was happening.

  “You kept on doing it, didn’t you? Giving cash for the addicts, even when you didn’t have any. You racked up debt.”

  “Yeah, plenty of debt.” She shrugged. “Not that it matters now. I hope my family finishes them off. At least then a whole load of people go free.”

  It made me feel annoyingly bitter that her letter likely really was about saving the Power Brothers’ clients as much as it was about lying about who’d taken her. It likely had much less to do with me than I figured.

  Why the fuck would I even care? Who gave a fuck about how much Elaine Constantine fucking cared about me?

  “They’re going to war, you know,” I told her. “Your family and the Power Brothers are edging up closer on the battlefield.”

  She scowled at me. “Yeah, well more fool me for giving your family a shot at coming out on top of the whole thing. Not that they will. Your family has nothing on mine.”

  “Fuck off,” I hissed. “My family has everything on yours. Yours are a joke, parading around in the spotlight like it means anything.”

  “Better than being a load of seedy pricks in the shadows, lording it around in the back alleys.”

  I laughed a vicious laugh. “Like fuck you can tell me that my family are a load of seedy pricks in the shadows. You’ve been fucked up by the fucking fellowship. Your own fucking uncle sold you out to the sickos.”

  That shut her up, and she wasn’t happy about it. She put her drink down on the counter and tore her gaze away from me, finding the impudence in her gritted jaw all over again.

  Even after the secret sharing we still hated each other. You could never deny it, just how ingrained our loathing for each other really was. My family hated hers and hers hated mine. There was so much crossfire and so much instinct brewing over such a long time that it wasn’t even obvious anymore just why or how I hated the bitch in front of me as much as I did. I just did. I hated her.

  She hated me just as much. I could see it in her folded arms and her bitchy scowl.

  Still, I was done with fanning the flames for the night. I couldn’t be fucked with it. I was already done in from Morelli Holdings and the pricks there, and my father’s digs and a whole ocean of secrets that should never have been shared with an arch enemy.

  Fuck it. She could have a fucking night of peace for once in her pathetic excuse for a life.

  “You can put the pasta on tonight,” I told her. “Let’s see just how competent you Constantine cunts are at the basics, shall we?”

  23

  Elaine

  I didn’t think he could possibly be serious, but he was. Even with that raging scowl on his face, he grabbed the packet of pasta from the cupboard and threw it over at me. I managed to catch it, staring over at him like some kind of saucer-eyed weirdo.

  “You want me to make dinner?”

  He pulled a face at me like I was a moron. “No, I thought I’d throw you a packet of pasta for the hell of it.”

  I couldn’t help but smirk. “You told me I was like an immature kindergarten baby, now there’s you being a sarcastic schoolkid to match. No, I thought I’d throw you a packet of pasta for the hell of it.”

  I almost poked my tongue out, almost. I’m sure he almost gave me some punishment for my cheek, almost. He didn’t though. He pulled out a load of cheese and other stuff from the fridge and dropped it on the counter.

  “Show me what you can do then, chef girl,” he said, and his tone was still sarcastic.

  I had an undeniable urge to show him just how capable I really was. I could make damn pasta.

  “Do you like spices?” I asked him.

  “Is that what you do, is it? Spicy pasta?”

  I grabbed the pan from the drawer. “Yeah, I like spices.”

  “So do I,” he said.

  I chalked it up as one other crazy little thing I had in common with the monster. I only hoped I remembered just what spices to use. I hadn’t cooked pasta in a long time.

  He opened one of the cupboard doors up high and pointed the spice rack out to me. I acted surprised, like I hadn’t already scoped out everything in this place ten times over. I pulled out the paprika and the oregano and the chili pepper. And then I chanced the cayenne powder. The hot one.

  He didn’t say a word as I boiled the water for the pasta.

  “The Power Brothers want my family to team up with theirs,” he said to me, and it hardly surprised me, even though it gave me a fresh surge of resentment.

  “Yeah, well. Two sets of assholes together.”

  His gaze was piercing from across the kitchen, his stance more casual than normal as he slouched back against the counter with folded arms.

  “Why do you hold on so tightly to the fact that your family are somehow the good guys? You must know full well you are seedy cunts too.”

  I did know that, but I hadn’t seen it. Not really. I still held my dad up as some kind of idol in both the media spotlight and our personal life. He was always so steadfast and so strong and managed our empire so perfectly. Or so I believed.

  “We’re definitely the good guys compared to you,” I said. “I’ve heard plenty of stories about your family and how bad you are.”

  “Ditto,” he told me. “I’ve heard plenty of stories about yours, too.”

  I put the pasta in the pan and began to stir. I knew we were both churning and festering with a whole mess of stuff between us. Shared secrets, and rage, and hate, and this weird new sense of casual somehow. It was fucked up, just like we were. We were two peas of fucked-up in a very fucked-up pod.

  I was still trying to digest the secrets. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell it must be like in Lucian Morelli’s body without even a vague idea of pain. He must be so curious about it. I would be – little miss curious. I was already curious enough about how curious he must be, let alone be that curious for myself.

  I wondered if he was wondering what my wreck of a past was like. Maybe he was curious too. Maybe he was wondering the things I had wondered, like just why Uncle Lionel was so cruel to his own flesh and blood.

  As it turns out, he was wondering that. His next question was right on the mark.

  “Did your father never suspect your uncle was an utter piece of shit?”

  “No,” I said, pure and simple. “He wasn’t really that involved with Uncle Lionel. Mom and Uncle Lionel had quite a close relationship. I guess she assured Dad that I really did need the lessons and Uncle Lionel really was telling the truth.”

  “Your uncle is a vile piece of fucking shit,” Lucian hissed, and it took me aback. He actually insulted someone for hurting me. I thought he’d be singing their praises.

  “They’re still close, Mom and Lionel,” I told him. “Super close now, in super close ways. It’s not like I could ever have another attempt at telling her what really happened now I’m older. She still wouldn’t believe a word I said. That and the fact that she thinks I’m the biggest loser she could have possibly birthed. She’s ashamed to call me her daughter.”

  I would have usually expected him to laugh and say it’s not surprising she would be ashamed of me, considering I was Elaine the fuck-up, but
it turned out that expectation of mine was instinct and nothing else. He didn’t laugh or say a word like that, just kept on watching me from the other side of the kitchen.

  I sighed before I spoke again.

  “The reason my family are after the Power Brothers likely doesn’t have anything to do with me, you know? It’s probably just from embarrassment and distaste at the Powers thinking they could strike one against them and kidnap one of us.”

  “The Power Brothers would have been total dickheads to think about striking at your family. They aren’t strong enough. That’s why they want us to join up with them and use the combined force to wipe out the Constantine status.”

  I didn’t like the nasty flutter I got at that. I didn’t like the thought of the Morellis and the Powers wiping out the people I loved. I did love a lot of them. I loved some members of my family enough that I’d be absolutely devastated in grief if anything happened to them – even if my emotions were usually too fucked up by hate to register shit about love.

  “Do you think you’ll team up with them?” I asked him.

  His eyes were cold. “None of your business.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I scoffed and moved over to the cutting board. “None of my business, whatever. We’ve shared plenty that’s none of each other’s business this evening, don’t you think?”

  He cursed under his breath at me, and I suspected it would be at my chatter, but no.

  “You’re not slicing that fucking salami right, it’s too thick to cook properly.”

  Even through the hatred and the confusion of what the hell was truly going on between us, I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Alright then, Chef Morelli. Why don’t you show me just how it’s done?”

  He didn’t reply, just took the knife off me and got to work.

  I watched his hands moving so firmly. His fingers so strong.

  I watched him.

  His stance, his height, his power.

  His beauty. Because he was beautiful.

  Lucian Morelli was beautiful enough to take my breath, no matter how many times I truly looked at him like that.

  “Look at the salami and learn your damn lesson,” he told me, and I laughed out loud.

  “That’s one damn lesson I never thought I’d be having,” I said. “I’ll take that over the ones from my backlog any damn day, thanks.”

  24

  Lucian

  Pasta came quickly. We headed to the dining table, looking surprisingly like two regular people enjoying their dinner. It was probably the closest I’d ever been to a regular person enjoying their dinner – especially with a pretty bitch to enjoy it with. I usually cast them away once I’d used them.

  I told myself I didn’t like it. I watched Elaine picking at her food and told myself she was nothing but a stupid bitch that I was going to take pleasure in wrecking, but it was bullshit. My mind was all on the sick fucks who’d messed with her.

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake off the rage in me. I wanted to take them down. I wanted to look Lionel Constantine in his lecherous eyes and tell him I was there for his niece and then stab him in the guts and twist the blade.

  It would be an action that could only be by my own hand. I could never get Alto involved in that, not now he was a snake to my father. There’s no way I could get the clean-up team involved either; it would never stay silent. Which only left me. My plan and my outcome. I’d be a fool for even considering it, so why was I planning on checking out the calendar for Constantine engagements? I had no fucking idea.

  Elaine made the most ridiculous casual conversation with me as we ate. I should have told her to shut her mouth and ignored her completely, but I didn’t. She was filled with dumb questions about my life in Bishop’s Landing and what my life was like as a boy, through to what damn TV shows I liked.

  “None,” I said. “I don’t have time for TV. Never have.”

  “Is that all you do?” she asked me. “Work constantly?”

  “Work and fuck people up for my thrill.”

  “Great stuff. Clearly that relaxes you.”

  It was the sass in her cheeky smile that I found so damn impossible to raise my hackles to. I was becoming used to her impudence, seeing it for the shield it truly was. I couldn’t help but wonder what woman she would have become if it wasn’t for the pieces of shit who’d spent years using her for their sick thrills. If she’d managed to take all that and still made it to this much of a vibrant version of Elaine, then who the fuck would she have been if she’d been allowed to grow in her own sunny garden without the sick fuck gardeners?

  Still, that wasn’t my consideration and should never even enter my brain space. Elaine was my enemy. My ENEMY. She’d always be my enemy.

  I cut through her bullshit small talk with a fresh question.

  “Who else did that shit to you?”

  She was visibly shocked by my outburst.

  “Why does it matter?”

  My scowl was instant. “Who gives a shit about why it matters? Just open your mouth and give me an answer.”

  It seems she was becoming used to my ways too. She didn’t scowl or frown at my tone.

  “You must know who it was, Lucian. You know who’s in the fellowship. You said so.”

  “Tell me then,” I hissed at her. “Just fucking say it.”

  She picked at the last of her pasta then put her fork down.

  “Baron Rawlings,” she said. “He was one of them.”

  I pictured the old cunt, parading his status to everyone looking.

  “Who else?”

  She started picking at her pasta again.

  “Lord Eddington.”

  I knew it. Eddington was a snide piece of shit.

  “Keep going.”

  It took her a minute, and I let her have one, chewing over her answer until she was ready to spit it out.

  “Colonel Hardwick,” she whispered, and I knew why it had taken her a while. Colonel Hardwick was particularly close to her family.

  I knew those socialite pricks were regular attendees at social engagements throughout the year. Lord Eddington and Baron Rawlings were from across the Atlantic, but visited often. I imagined they would use Reverend Lynch’s place as a stop-off point along with their bullshit social stays. Cunts.

  I also knew that Colonel Hardwick lived out on a rural estate past Bishop’s Landing.

  Elaine laughed one of her sassy laughs at me as I pondered.

  “What are you going to do, Lucian?” she asked. “Wipe them out for me?”

  I should have laughed right back at her. I tried. I managed a pathetic smirk and little else. I should in no way be stupid enough to wipe out those fellowship freaks for a Constantine retribution. The very idea was insanity itself.

  Fuck knows why I headed to the bathroom once I’d finished my pasta and called up the Bishop’s Landing social event scene on my cell. Fuck knows why I looked up the charity presence of those cunts over the next few fundraising events. I checked out the attendee list.

  Lord Eddington was at the next one, in just a few days’ time.

  I was still brewing on it as I stepped back into the living room and found Elaine curled up on the sofa like she was right at home. Fuck knows why I hovered without cursing her for her ease, then sat down opposite her in the battered old armchair. I didn’t have the energy to do anything else. For once in my life my legs were tired, and my brain was tired to match. I had a whole load of spinning thoughts and deadlines and sensibilities I should be focused on – not on who started fucking Elaine Constantine in the ass when she was legal enough to technically invite them to. That’s what they’d been doing, of course. Coercing her to the point it would have been consensual, and she’d believe it so.

  “Are you not heading back into the city, then?” she asked me, and her voice was as tired as I felt.

  “I will be.”

  She shrugged. “It’s quite a way, back and forth every day. Aren’t you at least going to take some
thrill out of being here? I’ll bare my ass for you, if you like.”

  I shook my head at her. “Is that some kind of sad little offer?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Of course it’s not an offer. You’re Lucian Morelli. Lucian Morelli doesn’t need offers. Lucian Morelli takes whatever the fuck he wants. And you want my ass again, right?”

  I should’ve taken it and given her a good hard fucking slap for her Constantine name if nothing else, but I didn’t want it. I wanted nothing more than my bed upstairs. Fuck heading back into NYC; it would have to wait until morning. I looked at the clock and it was already far later than I’d imagined. The Elaine effect, no doubt, turning the minutes into hours with her chatter.

  “Get up to bed,” I told her, and gestured to the doorway. “Fuck off and take your snarky mouth with you.”

  She hovered in her seat. I stared at her from across the room.

  “I mean it,” I said. “Don’t hang around until I change my mind. My temper is fucking short.”

  I guess she came to her senses. She was up like a shot and straight on past me, only stopping to turn around in the doorway and fix me with those pretty blue eyes.

  “Thanks,” she said, and walked away.

  I didn’t know quite what the fuck she was thanking me for, but it didn’t matter. The way my stomach did a lurch at her smile was all I needed to know.

  Elaine Constantine was no fucking good for me. I should stay the damn hell away from her and drive back into NYC where I belonged.

  Fuck knows why I climbed the stairs anyway.

  25

  Elaine

  I heard Lucian walk past my room on the way to his. I heard the way he paused outside mine. My heart raced like a train – two conflicting emotions at once. On one hand the instinctive fear of having a man outside my room was enough to make me feel sick and pull the covers up higher, and on the other . . . on the other . . .