The Vanity of Roses

by Lily White

  A hand touched my shoulder, and I turned to see my mother standing behind me.

  “Take one of the trays around to collect their empty glasses, and I’ll follow behind to give them new ones. It’s best to keep busy.”

  She knew what I was thinking, and my jaw tensed to realize how obvious my feelings were. But she was right. I had a job to do if we wanted to remain in the good graces of the Rose family.

  I’d almost finished walking the room when Lisbeth called me over, her fingers clutching the stem of a half empty flute of champagne, waving it at me as if I’d forgotten her.

  Around her, admirers laughed at her unabashed disdain for the help. My palm ached to slap her down, to show her I wasn’t a lap dog who would lie on his back and take the abuse.

  “I’d like a fresh glass, please.”

  She practically shoved the flute at my chest, her head turning to her friends.

  “It’s so hard to find decent help.”

  It took everything I had not to toss the remaining champagne in her beautiful face.

  Behind me, Lisbeth’s father could be heard laughing at some joke the room wasn’t privy to. He had a beast of a laugh, fully bellied and as loud as they came. I turned to see what could be so funny but froze in place, the room finally coming into focus around me.

  There I stood in a servant’s uniform, my white shirt pristine and crisp, my black slacks ironed with a crease down the center of each leg. My vest was a deep burgundy in front and a silky black in back, a small catch that ran across that could be used to cinch the cloth in place.

  They were the finest clothes I’d ever worn, yet not as fine as everyone around me. I was suddenly struck by the disparity between the attendees of Lisbeth’s ball and myself, suddenly hyper aware that no matter what I did in life, I would never be up to par.

  A woman walked by, her stride graceful as the skirt of her gown fluttered at her legs, diamonds embedded in the ankle straps of her shoes. She didn’t notice me, her attention stolen by the man at her side, his tuxedo as perfect as his hair, their wealth rolling off them in waves of power that would never be mine.

  I wasn’t sure why that moment hit me the way it did, but I could feel the green tint of jealousy rise inside me, my eyes darting from one person to the next with the dawning realization that I would never be good enough for them.

  Lisbeth was moving on. A girl I’d chased since we were kids. Not because we were friends, but because she’d demanded it of me, and now...

  Now I was left standing in place.

  I was surrounded by extravagance and luxury, by beautiful women and powerful men.

  Yet, even when surrounded, I would never be the same. I would always be a servant. I’d always be ashamed.

  There was an incongruency within myself because I knew somehow that this wasn’t the life I should have lived. I was small on the outside but larger than life inside my skin.

  I was better than them.

  They just didn’t know it.

  Anger coursed through my veins just as fingers snapped at my back, a chorus of laughter rising up to draw my attention around.

  There was one other rule with Lisbeth I hated: never make eye contact unless she was the one to initiate it.

  An entire life spent always glancing at her cheek or a shoulder or her shoes.

  But when I spun to face her this time, I narrowed my eyes on hers, her laughter fading off when our stares locked, and her smile fell.

  She actually flinched before regaining herself enough to scowl.

  “Shouldn’t you be leaving now? You’re a servant here. The help. Nobody invited you to attend the party.”

  A grin stretched my lips, something taking over me that I’d allowed this bitch of a girl to beat down every single day.

  But I’d noticed her falter for just one second, at least. I noticed the moment she’d hesitated.

  I was just as powerful as her, if not more so.

  Lifting her glass of champagne to my mouth, I kept my stare locked to hers while I drank the sparkling liquid down. Her lips parted for just a second before she stepped back to turn away.

  As her entourage stormed off behind her, I knew what just a small amount of power would feel like.

  I wanted more of it.

  In that moment, I’d changed.

  . . .

  A palm slapped my cheek. Once. Twice. The third more urgent as my name was called.

  “Callan. Get up.”

  I moved my head, and a hammer pounded inside my skull. Mouth dry, I forced my eyes apart, the pounding only coming faster and harder.

  “Get up, damn it. Now.”

  Wanting to shake off the disorientation, I didn’t dare move my head too fast in one direction or the other. Above me, a blurry figure stood, his face backlit by the light of one of the three ornate chandeliers that hung in the ballroom.

  “Franklin...”

  Fuck. It hurt to talk.

  “Get up. Now.”

  His voice was a whip crack through the silent room, the warning enough to pull me from my confusion. I placed a hand down on the floor beneath me to push my body up, but stopped when I felt a cold, thick liquid coat my skin.

  Blood.

  So much of it that as I managed to force myself up from where I’d been sleeping, I opened my eyes wider to see I was lying in a pool of it.

  The horror show hit me a second later, my head turning slowly to see the pile of bodies, one after the other, all dressed in their expensive gowns and pressed tuxedos, all dead where they lay.

  “What the fuck happened?”

  There must have been over a hundred, all silent, their eyes open and jaws slack.

  “We need to go,” Franklin insisted, his hand reaching for mine.

  I moved to grab him so he could pull me up.

  My brows tugged together, and I looked up at Franklin only for him to snatch my hand and tug me to my feet, his grip latching onto my shoulder when I stumbled back. I turned in a circle where I stood and took in the extent of death surrounding me.

  Not one person had made it out of the ballroom. All of them mowed down by bullets to die where they’d fallen.

  I looked for one person among the piles. One white gown. One scowl on a beautiful face that had called to me all my life.

  Franklin grabbed my arm and pulled me forward.

  “She’s not here.”

  I spun to look at him.

  “Lisbeth is gone,” he explained, his tone hurried. “And we need to be gone as well before anybody finds this.”

  My clothes were soaked with blood, white shirt now crimson, my pants sticking to my legs. I allowed Franklin to pull me along, careful to step over outstretched arms and crumpled bodies, over men who’d tried to shield women and servants who never stood a chance.

  Frantic, I searched for another face among the many, tugging my arm from Franklin’s grip to reach for every uniformed body.

  “She’s dead,” he told me while grabbing me again. “They’re all dead. We have to go.”

  Franklin led me through a set of double doors and away from the abattoir.

  I never had the chance to find my mother.

  Callan

  Ten years later

  “Antonio Moritze claims he has three new recruits that he’ll debut within the next few weeks. He says they’ll give us a run for our money.”

  The conference room broke out in muffled laughter, six men around a large table attempting to disguise their mirth with hands over their mouths.

  Everybody knew Moritze enjoyed making claims that were far above his station, none ever having much worth. Not when he led men into the pit whose bodies would later be dragged out on stretchers.

  I relaxed against my seat, bored as fuck, not giving much of a damn about anything Moritze claimed or the other myriad of topics my men wanted to discuss. The only reason I was sitting here today was because Franklin had a meeting he needed to attend, something he claimed to be important, although he wouldn’t expla
in the details.

  He was due to arrive back within the hour and bring me up to speed. In the meantime, I had to sit at this table and pretend that anything these men had to say meant something to me.

  “What do you think, Callan? Are you nervous?”

  Turning my head, I locked eyes with Benny Goodman, a broad shouldered man with a large scar that lined his jaw. He was a fighter, like me, but had taken one too many a beating and had to retire. He was also twenty years older, his body no longer able to move as quick to avoid the sometimes lethal blows dealt in the pit.

  “I’m not worried. Why would I be? None of Mortize’s men have lasted longer than one round. He keeps leading them in like lambs to slaughter.”

  Benny arched a brow while the rest of the men nodded their heads. Still, Benny wasn’t convinced. He’d been prodding at me for years seeking out any weakness.

  “As head of the Rose family, you should be worried. They’re itching to take you down.”

  My mouth quirked at the corner.

  “Then give them flea shampoo, and be done with it. The next fight is in two weeks. He can debut thirty fighters, and I wouldn’t care.”

  Benny scowled, but the expression didn’t bother me. It wasn’t the first time someone had looked at me with contempt, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  I drummed my fingers on the table. “Are we done here?”

  Colton Lawrence opened a folder and turned to me. Sleazy as shit with greased hair and a shady temperament, he was the perfect man to run one of our other enterprises.

  “We have some new girls who want to work at the club. I’ve questioned them about just how much they’re willing to take following the fights. As usual, they were enthusiastic. But they’ll need to be trained.”

  My eyes slid his direction, the corner of my mouth curling.

  “Let me guess? They saw a fight and can’t wait to have one of the men between their legs?”

  Grinning, Colton slid a stack of papers across the table to me. I slapped a palm over it and flipped through the nameless faces. All the girls were dolled up, their eyes hungry and bodies tight. It was getting to a point where they all looked the same. Nothing here was worth more than a passing glance.

  “I suspect they’re all hoping you’ll be the one between their legs. We all know these sluts can’t get enough of you.”

  My brow arched, and I slid the papers back.

  “Break them in yourself. If they can handle your nasty hands then they might be a decent prize for those who walk out of the pit.”

  A laugh shook Colton’s shoulders, his eyes rounding with the thrill of teaching the girls their paces. I wasn’t interested in training them in the beginning. Nothing had been worth breaking down a woman until she was fit to take whatever the fighters would do to them.

  Exhausted, I stared at each of the men before asking, “Anything else?”

  They shook their heads, and I took that as my cue to leave.

  They stood from their seats as I pushed to my feet to round the table and leave. Not one of them dared to call me back. I had a temper that could flip at any second. I hadn’t intended it to be that way, but time and circumstance had shaped me. It wasn’t often that I felt alive. Mainly in the pit, where another’s life was held in my hands. Sometimes in this house with its maze of halls and countless rooms.

  I was bothered as I left the conference room, mostly by Franklin’s behavior when we last spoke. He wasn’t the type to keep secrets, especially not from me.

  But I had to trust him.

  In the ten years since the majority of the Rose family was gunned down during Lisbeth’s ball, Franklin had raised me to lead this family. He adopted me so my last name would be Rose. Why he didn’t take the helm and lead himself, I was never sure.

  Whatever the reason, at twenty-two I was named head of the family, and in the three years since, we’d regained the notoriety and prestige we’d held when Marcus was alive.

  Our businesses weren’t exactly legal. Perhaps what people could see of them, but not in the shadows where the real money was made.

  When I’d first been introduced to the truth of the pit where the fights were held, I’d changed in that moment. I’d found a place where violence reigned and men could test their strength. The only thing I’d wanted was to be one of those men, to release the beast inside me, to fuck one of the beauties given to them once the fight was over.

  Franklin had objected, at first, but then realized as the years bled on that I needed that arena to work out my problems.

  Five years and I was still undefeated. In that time, I’d killed countless men.

  “Mr. Rose.”

  A maid staggered back as I marched down the hall, her back pressed to the wall as if she couldn’t give me enough room to pass. Beaten down by the demands of their jobs, they always looked at me as if I were something superior, most not knowing that I had once wandered the servant’s quarters myself, a young boy living with his mother.

  I stopped as I approached her and tilted my head. Blue eyes stared up at me, her hands shaking, and I realized she must be new.

  “Do you have somewhere to be?”

  She was a younger woman with her hair pulled into a bun, stray blond strands falling loose at the sides of her face. Barely able to speak, her lips parted and closed again, her shoulders trembling as she swallowed her fear.

  “Yes, sir. I’m needed in the kitchen.”

  I turned my body to let her pass, not that it was needed in hallways that were seven feet across.

  “Don’t let me hold you up. I’d hate for you to be late.”

  Surprise widened her eyes, but she nodded her head.

  “It’s hard in this place. I’ve never worked in a house so big. I get lost.”

  And the person who managed the maids and other workers was a whip crack of a woman. Her attention to detail was unlike anything I’d seen, but she was a stickler for timeliness and work ethic and could be hard on the staff if they failed to meet her demands.

  “If Gretchen gives you a problem, tell her I held you up to ask a question. She’ll leave you alone after that.”

  A hesitant smile stretched her lips.

  “Thank you,” she breathed out before grabbing the handle of her cart to push in front of her.

  She was two steps away when I asked, “What’s your name?”

  The maid stopped and turned my direction. “Holly.”

  Nodding, I offered a polite smile and watched her walk away before setting off on my own path toward my suite of bedrooms. I rounded a corner into the private family quarters to find Franklin sitting on a couch, his expression stern as he read a newspaper and sipped from a black mug.

  “Take a seat. We have something to discuss.”

  It felt like spiders were crawling beneath my skin, an energy I could barely contain after an hour long meeting stuck at a table with men I didn’t much care for. I needed to work it out before I lost my mind.

  “I was heading to the gym-“

  “Sit down, Callan,” he snapped. “You’ll want to hear this, and since changes will be happening in the next few days, it’s best you prepare yourself for them.”

  Changes? I was intrigued to say the least. My gaze caught his across the room.

  Rarely was Franklin frazzled, and I wasn’t sure I’d heard him snap at me in the years since I’d taken over the family. Whatever bothered him now was enough to set his jaw on edge, his knuckles blanching white where they held his mug.

  It wouldn’t kill me to accommodate him.

  I crossed the room and took a seat on the opposite couch, my arms spread out on the backrest and my legs stretched in front of me.

  “Is there a problem?”

  He set the mug on a side table and shook the paper to fold it and set aside. “There’s no dancing around this, so I’ll just spit it out.”

  Eyes meeting mine, he could have pulled out a gun to shoot me and it wouldn’t have been less unexpected. “Lisbeth has been found.” />
  Every muscle in my body tensed, but I wouldn’t let my bored expression shift. Franklin knew good and goddamned well what that name meant to me and the lengths I’d gone to find her in the years she’d been missing.

  Tapping a thumb against the backrest of the couch, I shifted my posture and took a minute to prepare myself for whatever changes her sudden reappearance would entail.

  “Is that so? And here I’d hoped the bitch was dead.”

  He flashed me a grin, the expression anything but friendly.

  “You and I both. But it seems she’s been hidden in some hole somewhere, at least until now. I met with her this morning. She’s in town and has asked to return to the family estate.”

  Interesting.

  “Does she know I’m here? That I’ve taken the place of her father?”

  Franklin laughed. “No. I thought I’d save that information for when she returns. At this point, she believes I’m the person running the family.”

  “And I assume, by that statement, you’ve given her permission to come here.”

  Another grin. “I assumed you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  He was right about that. There was nothing in this world that interested me more than Lisbeth Rebel Rose.

  Franklin took a sip from his mug, his throat working to swallow the liquid down as his eyes held mine from across the room. Our silence meant nothing at that point. We both knew what the other was thinking.

  “I told her she could return tonight. Apparently, she had nowhere else to go and was hopeful I would extend the courtesy of a rushed decision.”

  “It won’t be easy for her here. Did you tell her that?”

  His eyes glimmered. “I’d hate to have burdened her with the truth while she was so very desperate for help. I thought you could be the one to let her know.”

  It was just like Franklin to think ahead. He knew me well enough. Knew exactly what I wanted. Hell, the man had practically raised me to become what I am, so it wasn’t surprising he’d saved that pleasure for me.

  “That’s fine. Let her come here, and for the first few days I’ll remain scarce in order to let her get settled.”