Snap, Snap. “Can I get some service over here, please?”
Can I get a life transplant?
I bought the illusion my parents sold me for twenty-two years, even when it was tainted with ignorance and decaying with neglect.
From the outside, life looked perfect. Too perfect. That should have been my first clue, but what socially awkward young woman wants to turn down a shot at peer envy? My clothes were always stylish, my ponies thoroughbreds, and my language multi-cultural. I was taught to speak Russian, English, French and Italian fluently—my education courtesy of the most exclusive schools in Paris—and I was carefully dissimulated from the realities of my father’s business.
Until I watched him shoot a man dead on the front porch of our estate six months ago.
That’s when the truth slipped and I caught a glimpse of my real cage.
Our security detail wasn’t a hired firm for the rich and famous, they were stone-cold killers, loyal only to my father. He wasn’t the esteemed Parisian businessman that he portrayed himself to be. He was their Pakhan.
After that, the blows kept coming.
His close confidante, Maxim Lebedev, a man who I considered close enough to be my godfather, was one of his Brigadiers. His business cohorts were Two Spies and Derzhatel Obschaka. The men at the fringes of our lives were nothing more than Patsan soldiers…
Worst of all, I learned that freedom is an unobtainable fantasy for Bratva women like us. Our wealth makes our fiction easier to swallow, but it doesn't take away the taste. Last month, I was dreaming of a job at The Louvre. Today, I’ve arrived in Cannes to marry a man I don’t even know the name of, and my future? It’s just another commodity for my father to barter and trade.
I refuse to let this define me, though.
My end game is too important.
She’s too important.
Snap, Snap.
The edge of the bar’s terrace blends seamlessly with a rainbow mile of golden sand and bathing suits. I don’t remember Cannes being this beautiful the last time I visited. Beautiful people, yes, but not with the same vibe and texture—from the plush greens of the palm trees lining La Croisette to the white-bullet leanness of the vessels harbored in the nearby Vieux Port de Cannes. It’s the paradox of life, laid out before me like a perfect, billion-euro picnic. You notice so much more when uncertainty is punching holes in your existence.
Beyond the beach, the Mediterranean is a shimmering blue ribbon mixed with threads of silver and gold. The waves are calling to me as my fingers inch toward the charcoal pencil at the bottom of my purse next to my book. Not that I’ll ever swim in them again. In a few strokes I could capture the outline of that superyacht on the horizon.
“Ielena.”
My hand retracts guiltily as one of my father’s men appears next to the table, turning my personal space into something dark and claustrophobic.
“I’m coming,” I tell him in Russian, motioning to a glass that’s three quarters drunk.
“Quicker. Your father is expecting you.”
“Five more minutes.” I hold his gaze, watching his scowl spread like poison.
“Three.”
“Fine.”
He stalks back through the busy bar and out to the waiting car.
Snap, snap. “For the last time, can I get some fucking service over here?”
A shocked hush descends over the terrace as all eyes swing from the angry American to the waitress.
“Of course, monsieur.” Smiling tightly, she pulls out her notebook and makes her way over. “Pardon me. I did not see you there.”
Her English is as fluent as her lie, which is just as well because this man reeks of bad Hollywood.
“Get me a Ricard Pastis in a highball. Double-quick.” He doesn't even look up from his cell as he barks out his order. He keeps scrolling through his messages as if he’s searching for the Holy Grail in tiny black letters. Cambria font.
The waitress shifts her weight to her other foot, and I can hear her internal scream from here. “Would that be with a dash of grenadine, monsieur?”
“Grenadine?” He takes on her question like an uninvited challenge. “Why the fuck would I want something like that in my Ricard?”
“Because it’s the traditional French way,” I interrupt coolly, having heard enough. “It’s called the ‘Milk of Marseilles’.”
“And who the hell asked you, Miss Prissy Prosaic?” His top lip curls in scorn as he takes in my elegant white shift dress, my flawless make-up, the subtle diamond studs in my ears and the neat chignon. It’s the uniform I’m forced to wear to curb my individuality and to hide all my secrets. My father’s men were careful to leave their frustration only on the parts of me that good girls never show. “Go back to whatever over-privileged money pit you crawled out from, and stay the hell out of my business.”
A rush of warmth hits my cheeks. Before I have a chance to respond, an icy riposte beats me to it—with an accent a full wheel of British contempt.
“I suggest you take your own advice there, Anderson. Or perhaps you’d prefer my fist to make the decision for you? How much do you owe me again?”
The sunburn drains from the American’s cheeks as he clocks the guy standing behind me. “Aiden Knight,” he splutters, switching from rude to repentant in a heartbeat. “You're a long way from Monaco.”
“It’s a pleasant day and I fancied a drive.” There’s a pause. “Fist, Anderson,” he reminds him smoothly. “And I want the half a million you owe me.”
“You’ll have it first thing tomorrow.” Anderson stands so fast his chair falls backward with a clatter. “I was just, ah, leaving.” He chucks a fifty-euro note onto the table and turns toward the exit like a sprinter focusing on the finish line.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” The man’s voice has a tinge of amusement to it now.
“Right.” He swings back to me so fast his Wayfarers slip down his nose. “Sorry. Bad day.” Next, he turns to the waitress. “Here, have a tip.” Another fifty euros gets tossed onto the table, and then he’s gone, bouncing off tables in his haste to escape.
It's all because of the man I can’t see, the one whose presence is furling around my body like an anaconda’s embrace. He smells of danger, too. Of sinful memories that never fade. Of the kind of bastard who would reel a woman in and use her up before taking Juliet Capulet’s dagger to her heart.
All this, and I haven’t even seen his face yet.
“Everything okay, Nicolette?” I hear him say, slipping into flawless French. His shadow is bolder and more defined than it should be. It’s burning up my shoulders and casting near black across the white tablecloth.
The waitress nods, scooping up the cash from the table with a grin. “Oui, Monsieur Knight. Your timing was perfect. As always.”
“Glad someone’s pleased to see me. And more wine for the mademoiselle.”
Instinctively, I smack my palm across the top of my glass. “No, please, I—” I turn and stop, my protestations lost forever to the busy terrace.
Urbane.
Savage.
Beautiful
The colors of him… My God. The colors.
It’s not so much their vibrancy. It’s their parity, and how they all meld together to make up a picture of male perfection.
His inky-black hair—short on the sides and long on the top—creates a flawless frame for a set of golden features as sharp as they are sensual. In contrast, his gaze is a stormy cerulean-blue ocean. A designer suit and a fitted black shirt deliver a hard sell for a body that’s ripped and lean, and there’s an enticing dash of dark hair at his open neckline.
“Do people normally act that way around you?” My words come rushing out as I forget my head, my manners, and everything else in between.
“You mean like frightened lapin?” His eyes gleam unpleasantly. “Only when I’m pointing my hunting gun at them. What are you drinking?” he asks, switching back to English again.
“It’s not nece
ss—”
“No arguments.” His expression screams arrogance, and he defies my wishes with a smirk. “My bar. My rules. Nicolette, another Sancerre I believe.” He nods at the hovering waitress.
“You own this place?” I say in surprise.
“Amongst others…. Fuck it. I need a drink as well. It’s been a hell of a day. Open a bottle of the Château Pavie, Nicolette,” he shouts, pulling out the canvas chair next to me. Without my permission, I might add. “The 2001, not any of the later ones.”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“May I suggest the 2015, instead?” I say quietly, feeling the need to dispute his choice, but not fully understanding why. “The hints of black cherries and oak are stronger on the palate.”
“You know your Saint-Émilion?” His mouth quirks in surprise as he slowly folds his body into the chair, his movements in stark contrast to the sudden, sharp peak in my heart rate.
I don't have his full attention, though. Not even close. One minute he’s gazing out at the beach, the next those cool blues are greeting old acquaintances on the terrace.
“So, what do I call the newest sommelier on the Riviera?” he says, nodding at someone else over my shoulder.
“Issa.”
“Issa?” I adore my nickname. It’s feminine and strong—a rose with thorns—but the scornful way he says it makes it sound silly and frivolous. “How disappointing.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
His expression hardens. It's like he’s seeing me for the first time, and not liking what he sees. “Issa is neither one thing nor the other. It’s the mudblood of appellations… A chronic indecision.” Nicolette places two glasses and a bottle down in front of us. “Issa,” he adds, with another of his wicked smirks, “is a piss poor attempt by your parents at the whole naming thing.”
I sit there gaping at him, too shocked to think of a comeback.
“So, tell me. Are you a ‘half-measure’ mademoiselle, both in name and in life?” His gaze drops to my neat and unexciting dress with the same disinterest on his face as the American had.
And it stings.
It stings more than it should.
“Did you rescue me from one insult, just to give me another?” I sputter. The woman who never shows any emotion is sliding dangerously close to showing all of them at once.
“Don't kid yourself, I wasn't rescuing anyone.” He clinks my untouched glass with his own and drinks deeply, catching the eye of someone else to my left. “You were an excuse to pick a fight with a man I don’t like very much.”
I blush again. “An excuse?"
“Yes, a decorative, if somewhat insipid excuse.”
“Then why deign to sit with me if I’m so ‘insipid’?" I say tartly. “Never judge a book by its cover, Monsieur—”
“Knight.”
I scoff. “Not from where I’m sitting.”
“Not from where anybody’s sitting, if I’m being honest.” He grins wolfishly. “Knights defend virtue, which is a fucking waste of time if you ask me. Don’t you agree, Miss…?”
“Doe,” I say firmly, gathering my things together. “I don’t feel like having my surname ridiculed as well.” There’s no way in hell I’m being ripped apart by some cruel Englishman who views me as nothing more than his afternoon’s entertainment. “I’m leaving now, monsieur.”
“So soon?”
He doesn’t look in the least bit bothered by it.
“Yes, I didn’t realize chivalry came with a twist of scorn.” I then watch, incensed, as his eyes start to drift again. “You could at least give me your full attention when you’re offending me!”
His head snaps back, eyebrows lifting. And then he laughs, a lush and dangerous sound that awakens parts of me it really shouldn’t.
“Well, well, well, the blank canvas has a smear of paint, after all.”
You have no idea.
“Why are you being so rude? I never asked you to sit here. I never asked for your wine or your disrespect.”
“Why? Because I find your kind insufferable and I fancied the sport… Vive le revolution,” he drawls. “Let them eat brioche. Am I right?”
“My kind?”
“Stupid rich, bored, empty, unemployable, unsalvageable.”
All the things my mother is.
All the things I’ll never be.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I say, tossing my napkin down. “I have a new fiancé waiting.”
Wow. I must be desperate if I’m throwing that in his face.
“Then, go.” He dismisses me with a flick of his hand. “Run along to your half-measure billionaire husband-to-be, and make your equally half-measure children in your ghastly half-measure mansion by the sea.”
My vision starts to swim as he unwittingly outlines the black hole I’m being sucked into.
“And your life is so perfect?” I say, blinking at him.
“At least my happiness doesn’t hang on the success of Chanel’s spring/summer collection.”
There’s a pause as I drown in his terrible, hurtful, alluring masculinity, and then I’m tipping the contents of his expensive bottle of wine all over his glossy black head and Armani suit.
“Au Revoir, Monsieur Knight,” I say, slamming the bottle back down on the table as he leaps to his feet with a furious curse. “I may be a big joke to you; I may be something to mock and despise, but I can promise you this. I have colors that you will never know about, I have a core of steel running down the length of my spine and into my rich-girl Louboutins, and more importantly—” I grab my silk purse, and spin on said heels. “After today, I guarantee you will never think of me as boring again.”
Chapter Two
Aiden
Four Hours Earlier…
My kingdom sleeps.
Light streams through the stained-glass windows, stripping the blackjack tables of their sin and burnishing the golden tips of the static roulette wheels. The cries of the slot machines are jarring in their silence. Their parapets of neon lay dormant and dull.
I’m carving a path through this wasteland with my dead father’s words playing on a loop inside my head, drumming beats and rhythm into my stride.
“Smart men are illusionists, son. We created the long game. We embrace patience for the prize, even if it burns like goddamn hell to do so.”
For fourteen years, I’ve created and waited, and now I’m all but fucking done with patience.
Past the baccarats, the casino bar rises up from an ocean of crimson. It’s the color that stains my life, my Rococo ceilings, my exclusive bank accounts…
“Morning,” I murmur to Frankie who is standing by the counter waiting for me, a strip of polished mahogany that sentries a champagne and whiskey collection worth a couple of million-plus.
“Aiden the Raven.” He shoots me a crooked grin as we shake hands.
His massive six-foot-four mostly comprises side-eyes and sarcasm. We both hail from the same streets of London where survival isn’t a birthright it’s the number of punches thrown on a battlefield. He followed me to Sicily when we were kids, and we’ve been keeping bad company ever since.
He handles the day-to-day running of this place, ensuring that the hosts, the supervisors, the dealers and the croupiers all live and die by our rules. He has other talents, too. Darker stuff. Easy trigger fingers type stuff. Twist a rough diamond in the palm of your hand and it’ll blind you with all kinds of light.
“When’s the last time you were up this early?” he asks.
“Back when my conscience was as clear as the Med.” I gesture to the empty tumbler and the bottle of fifty-year-old Glenfiddich he’s placed on the counter for me. “Is that an anesthetic or a Bloody Mary in disguise?”
“What the hell do you think?”
Ignoring his chuckle, I pour myself a generous double, knocking it back in one.
“Where is he?” I say, grimacing as the alcohol trails a fireball down to the parts of me that used to beat free of this bullshit. Back to a ti
me, long ago, when I fought my battles with my fists, front and center. When I wasn’t navigating this eight-million-meanings-in-a-chess-move Sicilian crapola.
“Private room off the atrium.” Frankie reaches over the counter for another glass.
For ten years, I was happy to keep my hands red-wet for Tommaso Zaccaria. I was the man who eliminated problems, and I brought in Frankie to help bury the bodies. Then I learned about La Famiglia’s plans for international expansion on the French Riviera. An opportunity to turn the place into my own private playground? A license to print money?
Sign me the fuck up.
Zaccaria agreed, so for the last four years we’ve been using each other like backstreet whores. No conversation, just dirty action and a blank space for regret. I clean Italian money through my luxury casino, and in return he gives me a percentage that would make any gold-digger’s eyes sting.
Now he’s here uninvited. Invading my space… My kingdom. The man who never leaves Sicily these days is dishonoring me with his presence.
“Did he say what he’s here for?”
Frankie’s shrug is non-committal as he measures out a drink for himself. He knows what I’m angling at. He knows how badly the taste of revenge cancels out the single malt on my tongue. “He requested an audience, nothing more.”
“Pissed?”
“Preoccupied.”
“Interesting.” I mull this over as a second Glenfiddich disappears down my throat. “So, the don himself, a bunch of his sons and his consigliere decided to have themselves a little fun on the Côte d'Azur.” I opt for the simplest of explanations as I slide the tumbler away and turn toward the atrium.
“Aiden—”
“Stop.” I clip the wings off his next words with a look. He should know better. I’m the fucking Raven, remember? I circle darkness. I feast on it. I grow stronger on it.
Black Skies Riviera: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance Page 2
