by Raven Dark
Call me crazy, but I had the weirdest feeling, unlike some of the times I’d ended up with my father and Kane in the same room, this time they were just trying to rile each other. Since they’d met, sometimes it seemed like they really would kill each other if given the chance, but this time it was different, as if that incident with the hitman had changed something between them. Perhaps knowing that Kane and I had handled the whole thing together made them both realize they were stuck with each other, at least for the next six months. They were stuck with each other, so they might as well deal.
“Look, Davros.” My dad stopped him as we turned to leave. Kane looked at him, and he nodded to me. “If anything happens to my daughter, I’m holding you responsible. Take care of her, you understand me?”
The caustic look in Kane’s eyes cooled over and suddenly he looked different. More resolute. “I will. I promise.”
My dad gave a curt nod. Neither of them were being remotely warm with each other, but I could feel it, something in the air was changing.
From the tarmac, we watched the jet take off, lifting my dad into the air and into the darkness. I hugged Kane, and he wrapped me in his arms until we were back in the limo. I’d never been this far from my dad for very long, and the thought made me nervous, but there was no other choice. This was the only way to protect him. He’d be safe. I had to believe that.
Throughout Thursday, Kane and David were in and out of the suite, taking turns going over my etiquette lessons. It unsettled me to realize where one was while the other was with me. Especially when they switched places, the other returning sweaty and tired, looking worn out, not unlike I thought a cop might look after a long time in a room with a tough suspect.
David was remarkable at keeping my mind on the task at hand, on learning how to behave like the perfect Mafia slave. He made me laugh at times, but he could only keep my mind off what was happening to Agent Hadler for so long, before he and Kane switched places and the worn out look on Kane’s face sent my imagination running wild again.
I didn’t know a ton about Mafia interrogation tactics, but I’d read about how they used pliers to break fingers, and Kane had mentioned something about his father using electrocution once. My head filled with images of the faceless Agent Hadler sitting in something similar to an electric chair, twitching and screaming. My stomach tried to turn itself inside out.
Almost twenty-four hours, and the agent still hadn’t cracked. I was beginning to worry he never would. It was a lot easier to accept whatever Kane and David did to him when I thought about the alternative. If they didn’t find out who the rat was in Dominic’s crew, the same thing that had happened to that associate of Kane’s—he’d called him The Inferno—would happen to my dad when Gavini got to him. Then it would be Kane’s turn, before Gavini took me for himself, if not something far worse.
It also helped to remind myself that the agent wasn’t some white knight like the ones I’d seen on TV, who saved others and took down perverts and killers. He was a thug who used his badge to murder innocent witnesses and help rapists and murderers in the Mafia walk free.
Then, before I knew it, it was 3PM and, we had another problem to deal with. Dinner with Kane’s family.
Seated in the limo on the way to his father’s estate, it surprised me when Kane slid his hand slowly into mine, his big grip infinitely gentle. He rarely showed this kind of tenderness, and its rarity made it feel all the more powerful.
“Are you alright, angel?”
“Yes.” I shook my head “no.”
He smiled sadly. “Scared?”
There was no point in hiding it when my hand shook in his. “Terrified.”
“Good. I’d be worried if you weren’t.”
“Are you?”
He shrugged. “I stopped being scared of my father years ago. It helps that I’m too big for him to fight.”
The matter of fact coolness in his voice, as if violence and threats were something he just accepted, chilled me to the marrow. No child should have to live like that. I found myself wondering what kind a woman his mother was, to have lived with a man as horrible as his father. In that moment, I definitely didn’t want to know who my father was. For all I knew, my real dad could be just like his.
I squeezed his hand back, trying to let him know I was there for him. Did I imagine the twitch in his jaw, the way his throat worked?
“Just remember to keep your mouth in check,” Kane said. “Every time you get stuck, look at me. I will find a way to tell you what to do.”
“Okay.” I hated how dry my throat was. The limo stopped and David got out. My heart raced way too fast.
“No matter what I say or do, it’s to protect you. Got that?”
I nodded. Fuck, what was I getting myself into?
David opened the door. Kane took my hand and helped me out of the car. I gulped, looking up at the huge imposing mansion that took up a whole city block. It rose into the late afternoon sun, three floors of white stone, all pillars and immaculate gardens, not a blade of grass out of place.
And I’d thought Kane’s OCD was bad.
David got back into the limo to park it while Kane and I walked toward the mansion’s double doors. A large stylized “D”, exactly like the one on the ring Kane wore, was engraved into the varnished wood of each door. Kane’s hand settled on my elbow, gentle for about an instant. When his grip tightened, I knew.
Time’s up.
I slid my best submissive face on and bowed my head, but it felt more like I was putting on a suit of armor. The problem was, all my life, my best weapon had been my mouth, and tonight, as long as Kane’s father was in earshot, I didn’t have that anymore.
True, I had six years of martial arts training from my dad, not to mention the towering colossus that was Kane beside me. I knew he’d protect me with everything he had. Yet, following him up to his father’s front door, I’d never felt so defenseless in my life.
10
I didn’t know what the hell to expect when Kane and I got inside his father’s giant mansion, but it wasn’t what I found. Sure, everything about the inside of the house screamed of the opulence and arrogance I’d expect from a Davros, from the man who’d built his empire out of greed and bloodshed. With it’s ridiculously high, fifteen foot ceilings, marble pillars and old fashioned candelabras, I was reminded exactly why I not only hated the Davros name, but of what I stood to lose if I let anyone in this family get under my skin.
Victor Davros had ruined my dad’s life, taking his invention and landing us in the poorhouse, forcing my dad to go to a monster like Gavini for help. Poison ran in the man’s veins, so it was hard not to look at Kane and feel some of the old fears and mistrust for him seep back in, misgivings about him I hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever. In the last few days, Kane had proven he wasn’t like his father. Still, standing in the middle of a front foyer in the house of what had to be one of the most corrupt and manipulative CEOs in the world, everything I’d been taught about this family was hard to ignore.
It didn’t help that, beside me, distance and cold pragmatism shrouded Kane like a cloak. The moment we’d gotten out of the car, he became another person, and that only made me more confused when it came to my heart. Yes, I knew he had no choice. He had to play a role, the same as me. I just wished he didn’t make it look so easy.
“Take your coat off and put it on the rack.” Kane nodded to me. Utterly cold, toneless, an order given to a slave without feelings.
I swallowed. Here we go…
Carefully, I gave him the downcast look he’d instructed I always give him when in this role, and mumbled a “Yes, Sir.” He hadn’t taken my coat off the way he usually did, always being the perfect gentleman. Instead, he waited for me to do it.
Slipping the coat off, I hung it on a rack by the door, taking note of the other coats there. They were pragmatic, simple, not the luxuriant fancy ones Kane and his family were likely to wear. Then it hit me. The servants’ coats. These were t
he servants’ coats.
Oh, I knew this was all part of the role, as was Kane’s mask of command. He had no choice, anymore than I did. Still, I couldn’t help feeling like I’d lost something, something that had at last started to blossom between us. I shook the feeling off and turned to him, waiting for my next order, but his focus was elsewhere now.
“Ollie.” Kane put his arm around the shoulders of another man who’d come into the foyer from somewhere. He looked startlingly like Kane, but with a full head of grey hair, and looking about ten years older. Oliver. So this was the half brother he’d talked about. “I thought you were supposed to be in Sicily already.”
“I was.” He clapped Kane on the back. “Change of plans, little brother.” He waved to a youngish looking woman with stunning, waist-length blond hair and long legs. “Kane, this is Danica Rue, my fiancée.”
Kane kissed the woman’s hand with one of his charming smiles that always made my stomach do flip flops, and she beamed. Then, just as I’d been dreading, Oliver turned his attention to me.
It only lasted a second. Less, in fact. He looked me over, appraising, but it surprised me, his eyes seemed curious and playful, not cold and brutal as I might have expected. A little shorter than Kane, but still impressive, he had curlier hair and a friendly face. He said nothing, keeping his distance from me. Instead, he looked at Kane with a raised brow. I could almost hear the unspoken words.
Is that her? The slave?
My face flamed so hot it felt like I was in a sauna. I pushed the humiliation down deep. If I was going to get through this, I had to play the role. I kept my eyes low, letting my embarrassment show in a way that I hoped looked like someone forced into her position. Kane had said I couldn’t look too agreeable.
Unlike Kane’s brother, Danica didn’t even seem to notice me, her eyes going right past me as if I wasn’t there.
“Where’s Dad?” Kane asked his brother, looking around. The two men walked through the foyer, Oliver arm in arm with Danica. Kane barely gave me a signal to follow, an automatic gesture, as if he was only half aware I was there.
“He’s coming, unfortunately. Seraphina’s here, though.”
“Joy.”
Oliver grinned.
We entered a huge living room area, furnished in thick, plush couches and chairs that probably cost more than my dad’s entire farm, all shiny, polished oaks and dark blues.
I had no idea what I would be expected to do. Kane’s father would view me as a slave, but how strictly would that be enforced, and would the rest of the guests see me as such? If so, would they even acknowledge me unless they had to?
At least I wasn’t forced to wear that hideous see-through dress I’d had to wear to meet Gavini the first time. It represented the role Kane’s family was supposed to think I played, but apparently it wasn’t appropriate at family gatherings, except under special circumstances. What constituted special, I didn’t want to know.
In minutes, everyone was reclining on the comfortable looking sofas. Realizing what I would have to do, I froze. As Kane had told me in the lessons, I was supposed to sit on the floor at his feet. I’d thought it was bizarre and unsettling at the time, but there was nothing compared to the feeling of being treated like a slave in front of an audience who thought it was real.
“What are you doing girl? Sit,” Kane snapped.
For some reason, my heart raced uncontrollably, blood rushing to my head. Kane sounded so convincing, and everyone was looking at me, waiting. We’d role played this scenario to prepare me, but this was the real thing. Suddenly the lights seemed too bright, the room both imposing and closing in all at once. I’d never felt so on display, so vulnerable, and the iciness in Kane’s eyes only made me shakier.
Slowly, I lowered myself to the carpeted floor at Kane’s feet. Crossing my legs, I laid the thick, frilled white skirt Min had squeezed me into over my knees. Leaving not a sliver of skin on my legs exposed.
A maid scurried in, handing everyone drinks from a silver tray. While she moved about, one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen walked in. I might have thought this was Gala, but she was too old. With streaks of white hair woven through an otherwise midnight black bun, she looked about fifty. Faint wrinkles on her slender hands spoke of age, as did the fine lines that crinkled around her prim mouth and eyes. She had eyes identical to Kane’s, hazel so deep they were almost gold, and a pristine white gown fell down her slender frame like a column. Gold and diamonds glittered on her wrists, fingers, and neck. She seemed to float into the room instead of walk. Both bird-like, and severe, she could only be Kane’s mother.
“Kane. Oliver.” She glided over and kissed both men on each of their cheeks, waving at them when they moved to stand. “No, don’t get up.”
It surprised me she’d kissed Oliver like he was her son, especially when I could see how much he disliked her. He accepted the kiss, but he looked like he’d rather have turned his face aside.
“Good to see you, Mother.” But Kane’s voice sounded flat and I thought I heard amusement in her throaty laugh.
“As always, you know how to say the right things, Kane.” She backed up to take a seat, but bumped into the maid, who’d turned to head back to the kitchen.
The plump maid tried to stop her tray from falling, but the one glass on it—presumably for the still absent Victor Davros—toppled and spilled onto the floor. Kane’s mother backed up, and the red wine barely missed splashing her perfect dress with crimson.
“I’m sorry, Missus Davros, I’ll clean that up.”
“You’d better. Well, go on. Scurry back to your hole.”
The maid fled.
Empathy tore through me for the maid. Jesus Christ. If this was how the evening was going to go, I was in for a long night.
“Danica,” Kane said, and I had a feeling he was speaking for my benefit too, but making it look like his words were only for Danica. “This is my mother, Seraphina Davros.”
Danica stood and shook her hand. It struck me how much she looked like a Barbie, all tall and blond. The two women air-kissed, and in a way, I was glad at least I wouldn’t have to get that close with any of them.
This time, when Danica’s eyes passed over me, I thought I saw something flicker in them. Confusion, but why? Then it was gone before I could be sure it was even there.
While Kane’s mother seated herself on a high backed chair among the group, Kane glanced around for somewhere to put his bourbon, but he’d ended up in the middle of the sectional, and both tables were too far away.
“Give me your hand.”
He was talking to me. I barely stopped myself from asking what he meant, when he grabbed my hand and put his glass in it. I pressed my lips together and lowered the glass into my lap, but he pulled my wrist back up, leaving my hand raised enough that he could take the drink easily without stretching. My face heated intensely again and I could feel everyone’s eyes boring into me.
Strange. Had we been alone, this might have been oddly hot. Kane had done the whole using me as furniture thing before. Except no one had been around, and he’d done it to discipline me. Now, shame and humiliation rolled over me in waves, but without the accompanying need Kane’s dominance always made me feel.
He has to behave like this. He has to show them you’re his property, there to be used.
I held his drink up and hoped I maintained the look of an object willing to serve.
“So this is the one.”
At his mother’s words, I did what Kane had taught me when I had to look at someone. I wasn’t to make eye-contact directly, so I snuck a fleeting glance at her through lowered lashes.
Seraphina Davros’ eyes stabbed into me, hard and razor-sharp. I felt like a worm on a hook, trapped under her stare. Any other time, I’d have squared my shoulders and asked her if she’d rather take a picture. Instead, I held up Kane’s glass and hoped my face was as expressionless as Kane sometimes looked.
“She is,” Kane said.
�
�Well, she is beautiful, if a little rustic. And a few pounds too wide in the hips.”
My jaw wanted to fall open at her tactlessness, but I pressed my lips together and looked at my knees. And she was probably only getting started.
Seeming to ignore his mother’s insult entirely, Kane took his bourbon from my hand. I wondered if he brushed his fingers against mine on purpose.
“Did I hear somewhere you bought her off a farm?” Seraphina sipped her wine, a small, dainty touch of her lips to the glass.
“What of it? Isn’t the discussion of purchases supposed to be man’s purview, Mother?”
An unexpected bolt of warmth for him hit me. She’d have to shut up now, right?
“I hope you didn’t pay too much for this one. That horrible red hair sticks out like a sore thumb.”
Nope, guess not.
“Mother, really?” Kane sounded almost bored. “You can’t find another way to amuse yourself than to make fun of the help? What happened to the whole “beneath your notice” thing?”
She gave a prim lift of her shoulders. “Is it so bad that I take interest in the things you choose to amuse yourself with?”
Things? Fucking hell, his family really did see me as an object to be used.
Kane had put his glass back in my hand again and I gripped it so hard I was surprised it didn’t shatter. I didn’t get a chance to see how he responded to his mother this time before a deep male voice that sounded remarkably like Kane’s, only older, filled the room.
“I believe one of you boys is in my chair.”
I nearly forgot myself and looked up, right into his face. Catching myself just in time, I barely lifted my head, just enough to see what I was dealing with.
I wasn’t sure what I thought Kane’s father would look like. Maybe someone who’d appear as brutal as Kane had made him sound, all hardness. Instead, he looked almost grandfatherly, with a head of short cropped hair, cool blue eyes the same hue as Oliver’s, and a long frame in a pressed grey suit, lighter than Kane or Oliver’s. Broad shoulders along with large hands and feet told me he’d been as built as Kane once, and just as lethally handsome. Faint wrinkles in his cheeks and a much more cynical look in his eyes took away any sense of companionability in him. This man made Kane look playfully charming.
