by Cora Reilly
It was ridiculous. I wasn’t just anyone. And we weren’t just anywhere. He wouldn’t do anything. Even he had rules he was bind to and one of them was that I was off limits, just like all the girls from families like mine. No matter how much nonsense Anastasia talked, that statement of hers held true.
I squared my shoulders and took a few determined steps toward Growl. Closer to the party I reminded myself as my pulse quickened. For some reason this felt like a prowl to me. Growl was the hunter and I was the prey, which didn’t even make sense since he had hardly moved since my arrival in the corridor. Come to think of it, he had never spoken while I was near.
“I’m Cara,” I said in a rushed voice. Maybe if I could get him to talk, he wouldn’t seem so dangerous anymore, but he didn’t react, only watched me with an unreadable expression, and then the door behind him swung open, and my mother appeared.
Her eyes settled on me, then moved on to Growl, and her expression grew rigid.
“Cara, your father and I are looking for you. Come back to the party,” she said, completely ignoring the man in the corridor with us.
I nodded and rushed past Growl. His eyes, amber not dark as they’d seemed from afar, followed me but he remained silent. When I had my back to him, a thrill shot through my body and I had to stop myself from looking over my shoulder.
The moment Mother and I were out of the corridor and in the deserted hall, she grabbed my arm in a crushing grip. “What were you thinking being alone with that…that man,” she practically spat the last word. Her eyes were wide and almost frantic. “I can’t believe they let him in. He belongs in a cage in shackles, far away from anyone decent.”
Her nails dug into my arm.
“Mom, you’re hurting me.”
She released me and I finally recognized the emotion on her face. Not anger, but worry.
“I’m fine,” I said firmly. “I lost my way and came across…” I searched my mind for a name to call him other than Growl, which seemed like too much of a nickname to use around my mother but came up empty-handed.
“Cara, you can’t go running around like that, without thinking about the consequences of your actions.”
“I was on her way to the ladies room. I wasn’t running around,” I said.
“Cosimo is a good match. Don’t go ruin it now.”
I blinked, unable to believe my ears. “That’s what you’re worried about.”
Mother took a deep breath and pressed her hand against my cheek. “I’m worried about you. But that includes your reputation. In this world, a woman is nothing without a good reputation. A man, that’s a different matter. They can do as they please and it’ll even help their reputation, but we are bound to different standards. We need to be everything they’re not. We need to make up for their failures. That’s what we’re meant for. We, you need to be gentle and docile and virtuous. Men want everything they see. We should keep our desires firmly locked away, even if men can’t.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d said something like that to me but the way she accentuated the word ‘desire’ in her speech made me worry that she knew of my body’s reaction to Growl’s closeness.
She needn’t have worried though. My fear of that man, of everything he stood for and of what he was capable of, trumped whatever small thrill of excitement my body might have felt around him.
Growl
Growl watched them leave the corridor. The door fell shut and he was alone again. Her vanilla scent still lingered in the air. Sweet. Girls like that always chose sweet scents. He didn’t understand why they’d try to appear even more harmless by smelling like a delicate flower.
He pulled at his collar. Too tight. The fabric against his scar, he hated it. This suit, this shirt, that wasn’t him.
The look on her mother’s face had reminded him why he hated events like this. People didn’t want him around. They wanted him to do their dirty work, and they enjoyed talking shit about him, but they didn’t want him near.
He didn’t give a fuck.
They were nothing to him.
He knew they watched him like a circus animal. He was the scandal of the evening. The sweet-smelling girl, too, had been watching him. He’d seen her and her friends observe him from across the ballroom.
But the sweet-smelling girl had surprised him. He knew her name. Of course. Falcone had talked about her father and her family too often in the last few weeks. Cara.
She hadn’t run away screaming, even though they’d been alone in the corridor. She hadn’t even looked very scared. Of course there had been fear; there always was, but there had also been curiosity. Because he was a monster that they feared and that fascinated them.
He didn’t care. She was just a girl. A society girl with a pretty dress and an even prettier face. He gave a fuck about pretty. It meant nothing. It was fleeting, could be taken away in a heartbeat. Still his eyes had sought her out several times that evening. He’d imagined ripping that pretty dress off her body, imagined running his not-worthy hands over her curves. Then he’d forced his gaze away and left the ballroom before he could do something very stupid. She was someone he wasn’t meant to have. Someone he shouldn’t even imagine having. She was someone to admire from afar. And it was for the best.
Cara
That day, shortly after we returned home and I lay in bed, my fingers found the sweet spot between my legs, answering to the need that had called to me ever since I’d seen Growl. The cloak of darkness washed away my resistance and my worry of being caught. Even my mother’s words that echoed in my head weren’t able to stop me. ‘Be proper, be virtuous. This is sin.’ The image of that fearsome man had caused a sweet tingle in my core, and I was unable to resist. Wrong, my mind screamed but I banished the thought until finally my body shuddered with release.
But seconds after, a familiar sense of being dirty washed over me. This was sin. Mother hadn’t stopped saying those words to me since the day she’d caught me touching myself two months ago. I’d not given in to my sinful needs since then, until tonight.
I took a deep breath, wishing my heart would stop racing. Wishing my body would stop reminding me of what I’d done.
Ever since Mother had caught me there was a tension between us I could hardly stand. She avoided my eyes as I avoided hers. I was almost glad for my quickly approaching wedding so I’d finally escape Mother’s judgement. I still felt a wave of blatant shame was over me when I remembered that day and the look of shock on my mother’s face. It hadn’t been the first time I’d touched myself but the first time I’d really understood the wrongness of it. I’d sworn to myself back then to never let my body overrule my brain again and now I’d broken that promise. In the protection of the night, I’d dared to let my fingers roam again, all because of a man whom I shouldn’t even think, let alone fantasize about. Wrong.
I was weak and a sinner but in the brief moments of pleasure I’d felt more alive than at any other point in my life.
CHAPTER THREE
Cara
I knew something was horribly wrong as I watched Father during dinner. He had the nervous energy of a trapped animal. Talia’s eyes flitted toward me, her dark eyebrows shooting up in a silent question. She always tried to act like she was all grown up, and yet she still seemed to think I always knew more than her. But there were always more questions than answers in our house.
I gave a small shrug and cast my eyes toward Mother, but her attention was focused on Father, the same inquisitive expression on her face that Talia was giving me. None of us seemed to get answers; Father stared intently down at his iPhone, but the screen remained black. Whatever he was waiting and hoping for, it wasn’t happening. His fingers were tapping an erratic rhythm on the mahogany of our dining room table, a quiet click-click of nails on wood. Father usually wore his nails meticulously short, but whatever was turning him into the nervous wreck before us had made him forget his personal hygiene.
“Brando, you’ve barely touched your dinner. Don’t you lik
e the roastbeef?” Mother asked. She’d spent two hours in the kitchen to prepare our Sunday feast. On every other day of the week our cook was responsible for the cooking.
Father jumped in his chair. His widened bloodshot eyes found Mother, then they registered Talia and me. Unease settled in the pit of my stomach. I’d never seen him like that. Father was calm and analytic. Little could get a rise out of him. But since the party at the Falcone’s, he’d seemed somewhat stressed.
“I’m not hungry,” Father said before his gaze returned to his cell phone.
I glanced at the pouch straining over his belt. Father loved to eat, and he never let Mother’s roastbeef go to waste.
The screen of his phone flashed with a message and Father’s face drained of color. I set down my fork, no longer hungry. But I didn’t get the chance for another questioning look at Mother because Father shot to his feet. His chair toppled over and crashed to the hard-wood floor. Mother rose as well but Talia and I were frozen to our seats. What was going on?
“Brando, what--”
Father rushed off before Mother could finish her sentence. Mother followed after him and after a moment I got to my feet. Talia was still glued to her chair. She blinked up at me. My eyes darted to the door, torn between running after our parents to find out what was going on and following the rules. We weren’t supposed to get up from the dining table without permission. I didn’t like that rule but I’d always followed it. Dinners were the only time our family ever got the chance to really spend quality time together, after all.
The door to the dining room flew open again and Father was back, two guns in his hands. He set one down, only to pull out his phone and press it against his ear. I stared at the weapon on our table. I knew what Father was doing for a living, what he was. I’d known for as long as I could remember, even if Mother, Talia and I lived a fairly normal life. Even if you tried to be blind to the truth, it sometimes smacked you in the face without invitation. But so far Father had tried to keep up the illusion of normalcy around us. It hadn’t exactly been difficult for him because until a few months ago Talia and I had both attended an all-girls boarding school and only been home on the weekends and during the holidays. And soon I’d leave for college and Talia would return to school. I’d never seen him openly display a gun. I’d never seen a gun this close at all. Father was involved in organized crime, but many people who dealt with gambling were in Las Vegas; I wasn’t even sure what exactly he was doing, except that he managed most of the Camorra’s casinos.
Mother came into the dining room, looking completely out of it, but Father didn’t glance her way. “When will you be here?” Father hissed into the phone. He nodded after a moment. “We’ll be ready then. Hurry.”
Finally he turned to us. He was trying to look calm, but failing miserably. “Talia, Cara, please pack a bag. Only things you’ll absolutely need to get by for a few days.”
Mother had become a salt pillar.
“We’re going on vacation?” Talia asked with the hope and naiveté I wished for myself.
Father always humored us if we said something silly. Not today. “Don’t be ridiculous, Talia,” he barked. She jumped in her chair, obviously taken aback by the harsh tone.
“Are we in trouble?” I asked carefully.
“I don’t have time to discuss the details with you. All you need to know right now is that we don’t have much time, so please grab a few things.”
The phone flashed with a message. Father’s shoulders sacked with relief. He rushed out of the dining room. This time all three of us followed him into the entrance hall of the house. Father opened the door and several men I’d never seen before entered. They looked rugged; ill-fitting jeans, leather jackets, sneakers.
They looked like the kind of guys I wouldn’t want to meet in the dark – or at all. Their calculating eyes slid over me. They were the kind of men that made you cross the street to avoid them.
I had to stop myself from wrapping my arms protectively around my chest. If Father had invited them in, they couldn’t be dangerous.
Father pulled out an envelope from the pocket in his jacket and held it out to one of the men. Talia’s arm brushed mine as she moved a bit closer. I wished I could give her the comfort she was obviously looking for but my own nerves were wrecked.
The man looked inside. “Where’s the rest?” he said in a heavy accent. Were those Russians? They’d looked slightly Slavic to me but I hadn’t considered the option of them actually being Russians. Father worked for the Camorra, and it was no secret that the Russians were the enemy. Weren’t we all committing treason by having those men inside our house? My head was spinning but I kept the questions to myself, from fear of making things worse.
“You’ll get it once my family and I are safe in New York. That was the deal, Wladimir,” Father said.
Talia slanted me a confused look but I didn’t dare take my eyes off what was going on. Why were we going to New York? And what had Father done that he needed Russians to protect him? He’d rarely spoken about business in our presence but whenever I’d overheard the occasional snippet about New York or Russians it hadn’t been positive.
Wladimir exchanged a look with his companions, then gave a quick nod. “That won’t be a problem. Tomorrow you’ll be in New York.”
Father turned to us. “What are you still doing here? I told you to pack your bags. Hurry.”
I hesitated but Mother grabbed Talia’s hand and led her toward the staircase. After a moment, I followed, but not without glancing over my shoulder again. The Russians were talking amongst each other. Father seemed to trust them, or at least trusted that they wanted the rest of the money badly enough to get us to New York. That reminded me. I caught up with Mother and Talia, then whispered. “Why New York? I thought we can’t go there because the ruling family there doesn’t get along with Father’s boss.”
Mother halted. “Where did you hear that?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I overhear things. It’s the truth, though, right?”
“New York is a difficult topic. I haven’t been there in a very long time.”
There was longing in her voice. I opened my mouth to ask her about it when a bang sounded downstairs, then men were screaming.
“We need to hide,” Mother whispered as she dragged Talia toward the master bedroom. I was about to follow them when steps thundered up the staircase. I quickly pushed into the closest room, Talia’s, and hid in her overcrowded closet. There was a pile of discarded clothes on the floor and I used it to conceal myself even more. I could still see most of the room through the slits in the door, but with only the dim light from the corridor spilling in, it was difficult to make out much. I’d barely had time to crouch down and become still before the door was flung open. Someone staggered in. For a moment light hit the man’s face and I recognized him as one of the Russians. He was bleeding from a wound in his arm. He moved toward the window. Was he going to jump? He tried to push the window up but it got stuck because of his frantic movements.
I held my breath and buried myself deeper into the heap of clothes. Another man, much taller and more muscled than the first, stalked in and grabbed the Russian. Everything happened too fast to see much, but something seemed familiar about the second man. There was a short struggle. The Russian pulled a knife but he never got to use it. The other man grabbed him by the neck and twisted. I stifled a gasp as the Russian toppled over, collided with the door so it was pushed open all the way, and eventually dropped to the ground in a lifeless heap. Light now filled the entire center of the room. My eyes moved back up to the murderer. His back was turned to me. But I knew him. I had dreamt about him several times in the last couple of weeks since the party.
Growl, of course.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cara
His black t-shirt stuck to his skin from sweat, and his arms were covered in tattoos. Without the suit and cool demeanor, this man was pure danger. Nothing controlled about him now. Everything about hi
m screamed death. My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for him to turn around and discover me. Would he kill me as well?
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. My family’s status still had to count for something, right?
But he walked out of the room without another glance at the man he killed – or at the wardrobe I was hiding in.
Only when he was gone and I didn’t hear his steps anymore did I dare to breathe. And then a new fear set in. Where was Father and what was happening to him? And what about Mother and Talia? I had to go looking for them, even if every fiber of my body screamed at me to stay where I was. We needed to stay together, but leaving my hiding place was a huge risk. I glanced toward the dead body in the middle of the room again. Was that our fate too?
Then a more hopeful thought crossed my mind. Maybe we’d be spared. It wasn’t a surprise that soldiers of the Camorra, like Growl was, killed members of the Bratva, their archenemies. Maybe there was a way we could convince everyone that the Russians hadn’t been here for our protection but instead to kill us. Screams and shots rang out below. I listened for a familiar voice, Father’s voice, but it wasn’t among the screams, neither were Talia’s or Mother’s. They were probably still hiding in the master bedroom.
I closed my eyes. I wasn’t accustomed to this world, even though I’d grown up around people who were part of it. But I’d always only brushed the edges of the nastiness my father was involved in. Now that I was thrown in headfirst, I wasn’t sure how to act. Waiting like a mouse in a trap wasn’t the solution though. At some point they’d search the rooms properly, and then I didn’t want to make it easy for them. I pushed to my feet and slowly opened the door, then stepped outside. Although I knew better, I crouched beside the Russian and pressed my fingers against his throat. He was still warm but there was no pulse. I considered doing CPR but then I noticed the way his neck was twisted and shoved away.
