Constant (The Confidence Game Book 1)

by Rachel Higginson

  “Behind Francesca,” I explained. “We’re basically a Spice Girls song.”

  That didn’t clear things up for him. “Spice Girls?”

  I smiled and this time it was real and not forced, genuine and not covering other emotions that I was too chicken shit to share with him. “Friendship was super important to them.”

  His shoulders shook with laughter. “Obviously I invited you to the wrong concert.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

  “No, I need a lot more than that,” he admitted. “My ego’s taken a serious blow over the last couple months.”

  I patted his hand and then pulled back. There was no reason for us to keep holding hands. “Aw, poor baby. Like I said, the offer for by-the-hour hot tub services are open any time. We’ll call it the friends and family discount.”

  His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “You’re offering your services?”

  My face heated with embarrassment. “Oh, not, er, not mine. We’d call in a professional for that.”

  We realized what I’d said at the same time and both burst into more laughter.

  “What’s going on out here?” Maggie asked from the doorway. “It sounds like a party.”

  Finally! My rescue. What had she been doing back there?

  Eavesdropping probably.

  “Oh, hi there, Jesse.” Maggie pretended to be surprised. “What brings you up here?”

  His cheeks reddened again. “Oh, nothing. I was just in the area. Thought I would say hi to Caroline.”

  “That was sweet of you.” She turned to me, her eyes casting laser beams of accusation at me. “Wasn’t that so nice of him, Caroline? He’s such a thoughtful man.” She turned back to Jesse, making all of this ridiculously awkward. “You’re a thoughtful man, Jesse. We could use some more of you in this day and age.”

  “Well, uh, thank you, ma’am,” he mumbled, taking a step to the side. Away from Maggie.

  She continued to smile at him and bat her eyelashes. “You’re welcome.” She dropped a perfectly square brown cardboard cube in front of me. “Thought I’d bring this out to you, Caroline, since you’re so determined to ignore it.”

  My polite expression strained as I wrestled my hands to the side to keep from snatching it out of sight. I wanted to knock it off the counter and kick it across the room. I had no idea where it came from or whose name was on the return address. I didn’t want to know.

  The funny feelings from last week returned with a biting edge, coiling in my stomach, a snake ready to strike.

  My smile wobbled, but I managed to say, “Oh, thanks. I was just coming to grab it when Jesse stopped by.”

  “Mmm-hmmm.”

  I ignored Maggie and turned to Jesse. “I got a package.” It was such a dumb thing to say, but the curious look on his face prompted me to explain.

  Only now he didn’t know how to respond. “Cool,” he said.

  I wanted to bang my head on the counter. Or grab the package, race out the front door and chuck it off the mountain.

  It was in moments like these that I questioned Jesse’s sanity. Had he really just asked me out? The most awkward human on the planet?

  “Who’s it from?” Maggie pressed.

  Stealing courage from some deep, buried place inside me, I glanced at the label. There wasn’t a name attached to it, just an address from somewhere in Ohio—a state that meant absolutely nothing to me.

  No offense, Ohio.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, aren’t you going to open it?” Maggie pressed, clearly obsessed with the whole ordeal.

  Reaching for scissors from the pen canister, I sliced the seam with shaky fingers. This was one of the most surreal moments of my life. Who knew what was in this box?

  Secrets from my past?

  A bomb?

  A severed head?

  Okay, the severed head probability was a bit of a stretch. But a mysterious package showing up out of the blue just screamed trouble.

  “Good Lord, darlin’, the suspense is killing me,” Maggie groaned.

  I glanced at Jesse nervously, before committing to my future. Normal people weren’t afraid of mysterious packages. Well-adjusted, nightmare-free people just opened them, excited to find out what was inside.

  Reminding myself that I was a normal person or at least supposed to be pretending to be one, I peeled back the flaps and braved a look.

  Was I relieved? It wasn’t a head.

  It was worse.

  Dread curdled with terror followed by a painful shot of panic.

  The box was nearly empty save for a single flower that had been beaten and battered in transportation. Petals and pollen littered the box, staining it their crimson color. I felt my own color leech from my face, my hands trembling as I picked up the note taped to the bottom.

  “What is it?” Maggie asked, her voice laced with concern.

  I cleared my throat and licked dry lips. “A Waterlily Dahlia. It’s my favorite flower.”

  Maggie moved to stand next to me, sensing danger. “Who’s it from?”

  Turning the note over, I had to blink a couple times before the words written there made sense. I kept the note close so she couldn’t see the quickly scrawled words.

  Found this for You

  “It doesn’t say.” I shoved the note into my pocket and tried to remember what the handwriting on the first flyer looked like. Was it the same?

  Similar?

  Jesse leaned forward and tipped the box toward him with his long pointer finger. The flower fell with the movement, thudding against the box. “Hmm. That was a goofy way to send it.”

  “They should have had it delivered,” Maggie agreed. “It’s ruined after shipping.”

  “It’s pretty though. What did you say it’s called?” Jesse asked.

  My lips were numb when I said, “Waterlily Dahlia.” The words conjured up all kinds of unbidden memories from my past.

  A bouquet of Waterlily Dahlias on a mahogany table not meant for me.

  A tall, lanky kid reaching for them, spilling a few droplets of water on the expensive finish. “For you.”

  “It doesn’t count if you steal them,” I told him, unable to resist a smile and the way butterflies assaulted my belly.

  His low laugh chased me through the spacious room. “I beg to differ,” he argued. “Danger, uncertainty, potential time in the slammer. These flowers were won at a price. Anybody can buy flowers from a store. They practically give them away. But how many guys have scaled two stories, rewired an alarm system and risked his life just to get you flowers?”

  I rolled my eyes, hating the way my cheeks blushed. At the same time, I couldn’t help but love the attention from Sayer. “It just happened to me last week. Twice actually.”

  He closed the distance between us, handing me a single stem he’d plucked from the crystal vase. “Liar.”

  “Thief.”

  His lips pressed against mine in the next second—hungry, greedy, possessive. I had to stretch up on my tiptoes to reach him. His arms wound around my waist and held me against him. My heart slammed into my rib cage, jumping with anticipation and excitement and too many feelings for this boy.

  He pulled back to whisper in my ear, “Take the flower, Caro.”

  I nodded, letting him close my fist around it. Holding it out under the moonlight from the floor to ceiling windows, I wondered at its beauty. “What kind of flower is it?”

  Sayer shook his head. “It’s yours. That’s what kind it is.”

  Tearing my gaze away from the blossom to Sayer’s blazing blue eyes, I felt myself fall deeper in love with him. Was that even possible? He already had all of my heart. What was I giving him now? My soul? My life essence?

  The next week a bouquet of those same flowers showed up on my doorstep. The note said, Waterlily Dahlias. It took me a week to track them down. But, Six, I would have searched for them for the rest of my life for you.

  The box
containing this flower wasn’t from Sayer. I would have recognized his handwriting. And he wouldn’t have sent me crimson.

  He would have sent white.

  And never like this.

  Who else was looking for me?

  “I don’t know who it’s from,” I told Jesse and Maggie honestly. “The whole thing is weird.”

  “Are you okay?” Jesse asked, getting that I wasn’t acting okay.

  I sucked in a deep breath and willed my frantic nerves to still. Then I met his eyes. It was always important to meet someone’s eye when you wanted to lie to them. Most people with a secret couldn’t handle the shame. Most people wanted to duck their head or focus on something else when they had to stretch the truth. But if you could meet their eyes when you lied to them, they hardly ever suspected that what you were saying was anything but the fact.

  “I’m fine,” I told him confidently, not flinching, not turning away. “It just surprised me.” Adding a smile, I closed the box and turned around to toss the entire thing in the trash can. The box was awkward for the small receptacle, but I didn’t really want to throw it away. I wanted to save it for later so I could examine it in private. “Anyway, I should get back to work. Our next should be here any second.”

  Jesse took the hint graciously. Tipping his head to me, he continued to hold my gaze. “If you change your mind about tomorrow night, you’ll let me know?”

  I refused to let my smile crack. “You’ll be the first.” And then I winked at him. Because why the hell not.

  “Bye, Mags.”

  “Bye, darlin’.”

  The bells on the door jingled on his way out. Maggie and I silently watched him climb into his King Kong of a truck and reverse down the driveway.

  When nothing was left of him but the kicked-up dust from his double row of rear tires, Maggie turned her scowl on me. “You going to explain that flower to me now that he’s gone?”

  I pulled paperwork in front of me and focused on that. “Maggie, there’s nothing to explain. You know just as much as I do.”

  “Mm-hmmm.”

  I dropped my pen and lifted my wide-eyed gaze. “In other, more exciting news, Jesse asked me out again!”

  Her lips twitched with another repressed smile. This woman never smiled unless she absolutely had to. It was maddening. “I’m assuming you turned him down again.”

  A surprise laugh bubbled out of me. “Well… Juliet. Of course I turned him down.”

  “Atta girl. It’s better to play hard to get with a catch like Jesse Hasting. That way when you finally say yes, he’ll already be halfway in love with you.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing!” I called to her back since she’d already headed out the door to do the devil only knew what.

  “I believe you!” she called back, sounding not at all like she believed me.

  I huffed at the paperwork in front of me. The threatening note still burned in my pocket. Found You. But who had found me?

  And why?

  Chapter Five

  Fifteen Years Ago

  I speed walked to Frankie’s side as soon as we stepped into the warehouse. Men moved around stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes. A big shipment of something had come in. I didn’t know what. They didn’t give me those details.

  But my dad had been called in. This was apparently an all hands on deck situation. It was almost midnight on a school night. I should have been home sleeping, but Dad said he couldn’t risk leaving me behind tonight.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I lived with the knowledge that Dad’s job was typically dangerous. But this was something worse than usual.

  Frankie was here too, which meant Roman, Dymetrus and Aleksander were somewhere presiding over the entire operation. I caught sight of a table filled with guns. Big guns. Small guns. Scary guns.

  Frankie sat on the ground, with her back propped against the wall, her knees pulled to her chest. Her hair was at her nape wrapped in a bun, hidden beneath her usual baseball hat. She was wearing a sweat suit top and bottom that matched. I would bet a hundred bucks the pants had Juicy written across the butt.

  “Your old man dragged you out of bed too?” she asked with sleepy eyes.

  I took a seat next to her on the cold ground. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re at war over this shipment,” she explained listlessly.

  “What do you mean, we’re at war?”

  “With the Irish. These are their guns.”

  She sounded so bored that it was hard to take her seriously. “Frankie, be real.”

  Stretching out her legs, she yawned first and then filled me in. “Roman wants more territory. The Irish were unwilling to negotiate. In fact, everyone has been unwilling to negotiate. Anyway, to prove a point, Roman intercepted this shipment of guns. The Irish understandably want them back, but my uncles refuse. So now we’ll kill them with their own weapons, my uncles will expand their territory and the other families will cooperate moving forward.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Frankie looked at me for the first time, pain amplified in her big black eyes. She hated her uncles. She hated that her mom had died and left her to their care. She hated that she didn’t have a dad because of them. She hated what they stood for and the lives they took in the name of power and expansion and just plain arrogance.

  I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t understand this life. It didn’t matter that I had been raised in this world or that it was all I knew. It was obvious to anyone with a soul that what our families did was wrong. I knew that killing people for greed and influence was not right.

  Sometimes when Frankie and I were alone, we talked about what it would be like to run away. We dreamed of distant places untouched by mafia and career criminals. We whispered about the Bahamas or somewhere in remote Africa. Or just anywhere that wasn’t here.

  But those were daydreams that meant nothing in real life. Neither of us could escape this life. At least not now. And Frankie had it worse than me. She was stuck here forever. There was nothing her uncles wouldn’t do to find her, to keep her with them. She was the Volkov princess. I at least had a chance at a better life once I graduated high school.

  There were things I didn’t say to Frankie because I knew the words would hurt her feelings. But I planned on college somewhere far away. I wouldn’t even need Leon’s permission. I had money I’d been saving since the first time he ever paid me for a job. All I had to do was keep making money. And then I’d find a college on the other side of the country and just never come home.

  Dad could come visit me if he wanted to or not. But either way, I was never coming back to DC again.

  And maybe someday, Frankie could come join me. Maybe her uncles would let her make her own life away from the carnage of their world.

  Eight more years.

  I could last eight more years.

  We fell silent as the Volkov army moved efficiently around us to unpack boxes and catalog the guns—so many guns. Despite the huge score, the men were tense tonight, keenly aware there would be consequences for their actions.

  War was inevitable. And surely the Irish still had plenty of weapons. These hadn’t been meant simply to outfit their operation. They were going to sell them.

  The syndicate hadn’t just stolen arms, they’d taken away a massive paycheck.

  The Irish were going to be pissed.

  Atticus walked into the building, followed by Gus, who spotted us immediately. A second later Gus’s dad, Ozzie, walked in. He was followed closely by the kid from the alley, who was still wearing Frankie’s hat. A couple guys close by, stopped what they were doing to pat the kid on the head or give him a playful punch. He seemed to be getting congratulations. It appeared he was accepted by this crazy group.

  My mouth dried out and a bad feeling crawled through my chest—like a spider scurrying across a counter in search of a hiding spot. “How did Roman find out about the shipment?”

  Frankie’s eyebrows rose curiously. “Do you really not
know?”

  I tore my eyes off the new kid and looked at my friend. “Tell me.”

  Her big eyes narrowed in an accusatory glare. “It’s all thanks to you, Caro.”

  “What do you mean? Frankie, explain it.”

  Gus started walking toward us, so she dropped her voice. “You told him to prove his worth, remember?”

  My head swiveled back to face the guns. I did this?

  This was my fault?

  I felt sick.

  Worse than sick.

  What’s worse than sick?

  Dead.

  I felt dead.

  “What’s up, m’ladies?”

  Frankie and I made a simultaneously disgusted sound. Gus was two years older than us, but way dumber.

  His smile wobbled, but he still slid down the wall and took a seat next to me. He bumped his shoulder against mine. “Surprise slumber party?”

  “Apparently.”

  He started picking at his shoelaces. “They should have let you guys come over to my house or something. This sucks that we have to hang out here.”

  Gus’s house was a lot like Frankie’s in that they had live-in guards. His dad was the bookkeeper for the Vor, basically third level from the top in command over the entire organization. Oz was insanely smart. I didn’t understand everything about what he did, but from what Frankie said, her uncles couldn’t do anything without him.

  He was also straight up evil.

  It was his second-best life skill. First came the math, then came the sadism. And he’d passed his evil genius onto his children. Atticus got the evil and Gus was the genius.

  Like actual genius. He also got the brunt of his dad’s insanity.

  I dropped my head on Gus’s boney shoulder. “That’s not a bad idea. You should go tell your dad.”

  He blew a heavy breath out, making his lips flap together. “Yeah, right. I’ll just punch myself in the face while I’m at it.”

  We all looked at where Oz stood in a huddle with the three pakhan and one of their second in command, Rocco. My lip curled and my hands clenched into fists at my side. I decided to add Gus to my list of refugees. One day, I would get them both out.

  One day we’d be free of this place.