by SR Jones
I say these things about her to try to give her some dignity back in these proceedings, but they’re also true. She is beautiful, she’s also cultured. Maybe she doesn’t wear the uniform of upmarket, designer shift dresses and sensible heels her contemporaries do, but I like her style. It’s sexy and young. Vibrant, like her. And perhaps she doesn’t like attending the opera, or boring charity events, but she likes art, and I know because I’ve trailed her around a few galleries. She goes alone, and she doesn’t tell her parents where she is going, and she can spend ages staring at one painting.
She likes the museums here in Athens, and again, I’ve been on duty when she’s asked me to accompany her as she wanders around, looking at the beautiful ancient sculptures we have in the city.
She also reads a lot, so Maya isn’t stupid, but she simply likes different things to her parents or many of her peers. And she’s been purposefully kept back from further study because her father had her future mapped out for her. I realize with a jolt I don’t even know if she wanted that future or not. I had assumed she was happily going along with it all, but other than running, what choice did she have? Shit. I’ve been guarding a prisoner for all intents and purposes.
If I enter into this fake marriage with her, I’ll encourage her to spread her wings, maybe even start a course in something.
I might want to humiliate her a little, tear her down, but only in the bedroom. If she ever gave me the green light, I’d dominate the fuck out of her in bed because I think she’d love it. We might have to be careful not to fuck, but we could do a lot of other things, and I’d love to introduce her to some kink, because the girl is made for it. Outside the bedroom, though, Maya needs to be built up and encouraged to fly.
I pull out the big guns then and use my somewhat specialized skills to go in my favor. The fact that out of the three of us, I’m most certainly the deadliest should sway Stamatis. “Plus, I can protect her.” I give Stamatis an even look.
Stamatis nods. “Yes, yes you can.”
“So long as she does what I say, I can keep her safe.” I glance at Maya, and I can’t help but imagine her doing what I say in other ways too. Making her kneel for me and take my cock in her mouth. Fuck, she’d be so hot with those cute little lips of hers stretched around my big dick.
I drag my mind from those thoughts, because I cannot get a raging hard-on in front of my boss and the man we now know is her father.
Stamatis nods, and there’s a gleam of satisfaction in his gaze.
“Oh, she’ll do what you say, alright,” he says with great emphasis.
“Good.” I can’t stop the slow smile spreading across my face.
Maya takes a deep breath. “I’ll do what he says, Uncle.”
My smile intensifies.
This is going to be interesting.
I’m in a state of shock. Damen stepped up, and maybe he’s saving me again, but I think it’s more. I saw his reaction to Maya’s show. He was jealous. Truly jealous. He’s teased me all our lives about my looks and the way women react to me. This was different. He didn’t like her having done these shows for me. He didn’t like it one little bit. Oh, he tried to cover it up, but I could tell.
I don’t like his feelings for Maya.
They are a complication. One neither of us needs. I have to tell him the truth about Sophia, and then I need him to get his head on straight about Maya.
We’re about to go into business with Stamatis, and I don’t trust Damen’s motivations for stepping up … at all.
He wants that spoiled girl, but she’s the daughter of the big boss, and Damen has to know he can’t risk touching her.
If he fucks up, though, if he does make a move, I’ll back him if I have to choose. Always have, always will. I’ve got his back, the same way he’s got mine.
He’s cold, though, when it comes to the way he treats his women, so it won’t end well. He likes to think he’s fair because he tells them from the start he isn’t into anything long term, but he doesn’t play fair at all. He wines them, dines them, lets them get to know him and like him, then he ends it. Every damn time. It’s because he’s scared of commitment, and who am I to judge, because so am I.
It’s kind of ironic. Deep down, Damen probably would love to be in love, all happy and settled. It would suit him in many ways. I think it’s why he gets into these quasi-relationships, and then ends them the minute it threatens to get real.
One thing is for sure, if he gets into it with Maya, reality will hit him, fast and hard. So he better damn well know what he’s doing.
Life can change in a moment.
Two years ago, I lived in ignorant bliss of the true dangers of my world. I was promised in marriage to a powerful man, and while I didn’t enjoy being treated as a bargaining chip by my family, it was all I had known. My life was materially rich, and I found a purpose through the work I carried out at a homeless shelter.
Two months ago, the planning for my wedding kicked up a gear, and reality began to hit. Then the notes began. Threatening notes, to my mother and to me. They threatened to derail all my family’s plans and put an end to the mob marriage of the decade. Eventually help was called in, in the shape of my uncle’s deadly, but strangely hot, close protection detail. Three men, trained to kill by the state, hired to kill by my Uncle Stamatis, borrowed as a weapon to protect by my father, Spiros. Alesso, Damen, and Markos.
The three musketeers as far as my terrified mother was concerned, but to me, more evidence of the prison my life has become.
Two weeks ago, I was still promised in marriage to a man I barely knew, as a way to unite two powerful crime families. My father wouldn’t hear of any other outcome. I had no right to any dreams of my own future; it was all mapped out for me.
Two days ago, I discovered the man I am supposed to marry is a cruel weirdo who likes to torture women, and that I needed to get out of this marriage no matter what my father might say.
Two hours ago, I begged my mother to stop the marriage.
Two minutes ago, I found myself promised to another man. To one of the hot-but-deadly-bodyguards. A big, cold, scary man called Damen. My new husband-to-be as part of a fake wedding package to derail my real arranged marriage. You couldn’t make it up.
From one kind of prisoner to another.
At least this time my sentence is only short. Once this fake marriage is over, I’ll be free. Something I’ve never had before, something so new to me, I don’t know how to feel about it.
What will I do with my life? Go to college? Get a job? What?
It’s amazing, but also a bit frightening to find myself suddenly free of a future I had believed was set in stone.
Mother hurries me out of the room, leaving the men to decide my fate, as usual in our world.
I’m compliant and in total shock. Stamatis is my father.
My father, Spiros … isn’t my father.
I’m weirdly relieved, which probably makes me a terrible daughter, but frankly, my father is a dick at times. He’s cruel, but weak.
At least Stamatis is strong. He might also be cruel, but he’s not a weak man using his cruelty as a weapon to try to make himself bigger. No, Stamatis’ cruelty is more casual and almost unintentional. He wants what he wants, and if it hurts other people, so be it. My father is cruel simply to try and feel better about his myriad inadequacies.
Markos comes out of the room moments later and heads to the door. He glances at me once, and his expression is a picture. I think he’s as shocked as me. He doesn’t say anything, simply goes to the car and unlocks it, holding the back doors open for Mother and me.
We clamber into the back, and when the door slams shut, I launch myself at Mom and pull her into a big hug. She gives a gasp of surprise, and who can blame her? I can’t remember the last time I showed her much affection.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I can’t put into words how relieved I am not to be marrying Yannis. Not only is he weird and cruel, but the rumors circul
ating about him in the media are damning. This marriage getting called off is my chance to escape this life.
I pull away and am shocked at the tears glistening in her eyes.
“I thought you’d hate me,” she says, sotto voce. “For lying to you all these years.”
“No. I don’t think it’s real for me yet,” I answer truthfully. “I don’t hate you, though. You risked everything tonight to save me from marrying Yannis.”
Markos climbs into the driver’s seat, and we both shut up.
Yannis, the son of a powerful crime family. Not as powerful as my uncle, but still powerful. A man I’ve been promised to for years. I have no plans for my future, because I always thought I wouldn’t get to have one. I had contemplated running away on occasion, but the thought of losing my whole family, all my friends, scared me too much. And I had convinced myself I could bear it. Being the wife of Yannis would mean I could ignore all the underhand mob boss stuff and simply focus on trying to be a good wife and producing heirs. I’ve always wanted kids, so I tried to tell myself it wouldn’t be so bad, but then I read about how Yannis likes to hurt women, and I realized it would most likely be bad indeed.
As he guns the car and takes us down the long driveway, Mother leans close and whispers to me. “Remember, Maya, this is fake. Stamatis may not want you to call him father, and he may not want to publicly acknowledge you, but you are his daughter. It gives you a certain sway, and it means Damen has to respect you. Don’t let him pressure you into anything; you have no duty to him other than to pretend to be married until a time Stamatis feels fit to call it off.” She tips my chin up. “Do you understand, darling?”
“You’re saying I don’t have to have sex with him.”
She startles a little, but nods. “Yes. Unless you want to.” She giggles then, and it’s such an unusual sound for my mother to make it startles me. “He is kind of attractive.”
“Do you think so?”
I’m surprised Mother would think Damen good looking. Alesso, sure, but Damen?
I have nursed a long-term crush on Alesso, going as far as to act in a quite outrageous manner when he’s around, but Damen frightens me… He might also excite me a little too, if I’m honest, but he scares me more. Too big, too hard … plus, I’ve seen him in action. My big secret, the one I’ve never talked of, is the time I saw the man who is now to be my fake-husband, kill someone with his bare hands.
For a moment, I’m taken back to when I was fifteen-years-old, hiding in a dark room in my uncle’s basement, watching through a vent as in the room next door a man lost his life. My uncle ordered his life ended. Damen did the deed, using his bare hands to dole out death. Ever since that day, I’ve avoided my uncle and have been scared of Damen.
Now, I find out the man I’ve avoided is my true father and the man who terrifies me is my new husband-to-be.
“Perhaps I’ve noticed his … physique once or twice,” Mum says, dragging me out memories of the past.
“Mother!” I act mock shocked. “Are you perving over my husband-to-be?”
“I think I might be,” she says.
At that, we both dissolve into laughter. It must be the tension we’ve been holding, because we laugh harder than we have in years. I know that personally I’m almost on the edge of hysteria.
Markos gives us another inscrutable look in the rearview mirror, but then focuses back on the road.
As we near home, Mother leans over and once more whispers to me. “When we get home, you go straight to your room. Let me handle your father. Okay? And tomorrow, we’ll go shopping. You are going to need a wedding dress.”
I crash down to reality with a bang. A wedding dress for my fake wedding. To a man who thinks I’m pathetic. A man who frankly scares me as much as the psycho I was supposed to be marrying. Maybe Damen doesn’t scare me in the same way Yannis does. I don’t think Damen is a whacko who is going to put pegs on my thighs or something for fun, but he’s brooding, powerful, and he is a killer.
Once more my mind flashes back to the defining moment of my life. Fifteen years of age, hiding in a small room in the basement and witnessing an awful crime.
Damn. He killed a man, and I witnessed it, and it was one of the most terrifying and traumatic moments of my life. Now we have to share a home and play house together. Fake or not.
He can be weirdly calming to be around, though, if you can get past the killer stuff. On a few occasions when I’ve been desperate to get out and escape the confines of the house, it’s been when Damen has been watching me. Two of those occasions, Markos had been with my parents, and Damen had been with me in the house.
I’d gone out to an art gallery, and once a museum, and Damen had trailed me.
If it had been Alesso watching me, of course, things would have been different. I would have performed one of my naughty little shows. Shows that I had started to put on for the security cameras, knowing that Alesso was watching, and hoping he was turned on and all hot and bothered for me. Dangerous and stupid as it was, my little game acted as some sort of release valve, letting the pressure of my situation out a little as I writhed on a sunbed, or stroked myself in the sauna, all the while knowing Alesso would be in the guardroom, a witness to my depravity.
Those shows only ever happened when it was Alesso and I left alone. If Damen were the one watching me, I’d find my release in much purer pursuits. The appreciation of beauty in art and sculpture.
Over time, I had grown quite used to Damen’s competent but quiet presence when outside the home. He made me feel safe. Of course, his job is to watch me and keep me safe, but knowing he was a killer made me feel safer than when I was with either Markos or Alesso.
Damen as an entity is terrifying, but Damen on your side? A little less so. And, I tell myself, he’s probably not evil per se. Yes, he took a life, but he works for my uncle, and I imagine that is out of economic necessity. Whereas the other men in my life—my father, my uncle, Yannis, they all are in this murky world for fun.
When it comes to our marriage, I’ll try to remember the Damen who calmly followed me around art galleries keeping me safe, and not the Damen I saw break a man’s neck.
I also thought he found the art interesting too, because I noticed him looking at it with interest, but I didn’t ask him. I suppose I viewed him as nothing more than the hired muscle and a scary thug, so I didn’t bother to. A bite of shame hits me.
He’s saved me.
Whatever else he is, whatever else he has done, he stepped up for me tonight.
This evening, when everyone in that damn room talked about me as if I was an embarrassing problem, Damen stepped up and offered to marry me, and somehow made it sound as if it would be an honor to do so.
He also, at the same time, made me feel as if he’d delight in having me under his control, which scares me. It also titillates me if I’m brutally honest with myself.
My uncle … father, telling Damen I had to do as he said, made it quite clear that our relationship won’t be the same going forward. Damen will be the one calling the shots now, whatever Mother says. Oh, no doubt he won’t be able to coerce me into anything of a sexual nature, not that I think he would, but it doesn’t mean he can’t boss me around if he wishes.
And he will boss me, I am sure of it. It was only the other day when he gave me a piece of his mind. Shame hits me as I remember what happened. I kind of deserved it. How did I manage to be so stupid I hadn’t checked that Alesso was on duty for sure before I did one of my shameful little shows? What used to be fun, a titillating way to spend some of the time I suffered cooped up, turned in an instant into the worst mortification of my life. It was bad enough that Damen saw what was intended for Alesso, but worse that he made me feel disgusting for doing it.
God, this man is going to be in charge of me now.
I’ll have to do as he says in all matters regarding my safety, which basically means everything other than the times I’m alone in my room.
It hits me then. In one
fell swoop Damen has managed to make himself my protector and my jailer.
It makes his actions hard to decipher. Did he step up to save me, or to have me under his control?
Or, I think with a shiver, is it both? I can still feel the burn of his hand where he had held my jaw as he told me my actions were dangerous. Then the other things he’d said, dirty, filthy things that I cannot get out of my mind, no matter how hard I try.
Sighing, I shift in my seat and try to focus on the here and now, not overthink the future or the past. It’s not easy, but I manage to calm a little as the car glides through the night.
We arrive home, and I do as Mother says and head straight to my room. I’m dying to tell Stella what’s happened, but I daren’t. Stamatis will be pulling strings, putting things in place, and getting the money for the Pappas family sorted. I can’t let anyone know what’s about to happen. I had no idea how much money my father had bartered me for. So now, Uncle Stamatis has to pay a fortune to stop the marriage, and I have to keep my mouth shut so this gets done before the Pappas family finds out and maybe tries to put a stop to our plans.
Why they would, I don’t know. They’ll get their money back, and Yannis won’t have to marry someone he clearly despises if our last few meetings have been any indication of his feelings for me. But this is a big deal in our world. It’s dissolving a promised union between two huge crime families. Idiotic ideas such as honor, the family, and the patriarch’s influence, these are all going to take a hit if Stamatis stops what my father and Lefteris had planned. I’m not stupid enough to do anything to get in the way of letting Stamatis deal with this how he sees fit.
I spend the evening Googling Stamatis. I stare at his face on the few public pictures there are of him, trying to see a resemblance.
He’s my father.
My flesh and blood, the man Mother will be arguing with right now downstairs, is my uncle. God, what a mess.
