“Thanks.” I kicked him in the ribs.
He grabbed my leg and tripped me against the concrete, then pulled me to my side, trapping me in an arm bar. “In war you know your enemy.”
I jerked against him.
“In peace.” He released me before my arm snapped out of its socket. “You know absolute shit.” He stood and offered me his hand. “It could be a teacher, a hot girl, a friend, the janitor for shit’s sake.” I grabbed the outstretched towel. “And in my experience, it’s usually all of the above, the ones closest to you are the ones that you need to worry about, so when people ask to be your friend, you offer to gut them — when a teacher gives you an odd look you stare him back down, you answer to no one, got it?”
“Got it,” I snapped.
“And Dante?”
“What?” Blood poured from my nose from his sucker punch as my eyes started to water, a burning sensation pulsed between my eyes… “Son of a bitch!”
“Always watch your back.” He grinned.
My nose still ached every time I tried to take a soothing breath.
The guys joked that I was too good looking — that it would do me good to get roughed up a bit.
“Show no weakness,” I mumbled to myself as I forced my body to walk in a normal slow cadence that didn’t reveal a hint of a limp. I held my head high.
My gait slow, steady.
As I made it past the final gate and looked up at the sign.
“Welcome new students!”
“I’m going to set that sign on fire,” I muttered under my breath.
“Get in line,” a deep voice said behind me.
I rolled my eyes and turned. “Still creepy as always, Sergio.”
He held out his hand. I hesitated than shook it. I hated him for taking my sister from me, for making her his wife, for making the perfect family.
For getting her pregnant.
For making life in the mafia look normal when it took my father away from me before I ever really knew him.
When it made me into the monster I always knew I was.
“Did you need something?” My voice was on edge just like my body.
Sergio gave me a cruel smile that didn’t reach his eyes, his gaze swept over me once, twice before he held out a backpack. “You forgot your lunch.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let me guess, peanut butter and jelly?” I jerked the black backpack away from him and glared.
He smirked. “Thought you were allergic to peanut butter.”
“Exactly.”
His smile fell as he stepped toward me. “If I wanted you dead — you’d be dead.”
“So far, best first day of school… ever,” I said in a mocking tone. “Will that be all… Dad? Or did you need something else?”
It pissed him off when I commented on his age.
Even though he was thirty and the rest of the guys were in their mid-twenties, it still made his eyes flash like he wanted to pick a fight.
But that was the thing about Sergio; he only used his fists when he had to. No, his warfare took place either on a computer or with his mind games.
“Just make sure you actually go to class.”
“I can’t believe this,” I grumbled. “Anything else?”
He glanced over my head then back at me. “Make sure she stays out of trouble too.”
And there it was.
Seventh circle of hell? Check.
Sergio Abandonato asking me to do the impossible. Double check.
“No!” I barked. “Trust me she can take care of herself.”
He glared. “Just because her physical wounds have healed doesn’t mean—”
“It doesn’t mean what? That she’s all better now?” I refused to turn around, to see her pretty eyes and the sway of her hips. “We know nothing about her except Frank decided to save her and now she’s living with us. You were stupid enough to invite the enemy in the gates, so don’t ask me to watch out for your damn mistake!”
His eyes widened and then he let out a low chuckle. “I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so irritated that you just shoved me in the chest.” His nostrils flared. “Twice.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d done it.
“We keep our enemies close.” He shrugged. “And since I can’t find out anything about her save the fact that the Petrov family raped and abused her beyond recognition—” My chest burned. “—she stays.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “But I’m not going to hold her hand.”
“Something you need to get off your chest?” His smile was cruel. “Because if a girl half your size is really that intimidating…”
“Hilarious. Don’t you have somewhere to be? A person to torture? Maim? Kill? Lives to destroy? Puppies to kick?”
He snorted. “Your job is to get an education and show everyone in this damn university that the families are united, strong, watching every move — prove to those who hold the power that we only let them take it back for a few years. Think you can do that without getting into detention on the first day, sport?”
“Did you just call me, sport?” My jaw popped, my body pulsed with the need to punch him in his smug face and reach for the gun I knew was strapped to his back barely hidden by the black leather jacket he was wearing.
“Good talk.” He patted me on the back. “Oh, and your sister wants you to come to dinner tonight.”
“Tell her I have homework.”
“Tell her yourself.” He put his sunglasses back on and started walking away. “See you at seven!”
I growled in response just as a few laughing students walked by me, only to immediately do a double take and start whispering.
Not only did I glare at each one of them, slowly making sure they knew from the way I stared that I’d not only measured them but found them wanting, but I pulled a knife out of my pocket, flicked it out letting the sunlight catch it, then shoved it in my backpack, all before sending one last look over my shoulder that said, yeah I’d stab you first, ask questions later.
“Let the games begin,” I mumbled when they hurried off and all immediately began texting on their phones.
CHAPTER FOUR
El
PEOPLE WERE STARING.
I’d attended school for three months last year.
Three months of torture.
I rode with Dante every day.
And every day the door slammed in my face before I could get out of the car, let alone say, “Hey, could you keep it open?”
I wasn’t allowed to drive.
See? Prison.
Everyone seemed so… happy around me, like they were just waiting to finish college so they could be unleashed upon the world.
Like the world was waiting for them to finish so it could show them its greatness.
But all I knew was pain.
Darkness.
Running.
So when girls screamed around me, when they danced and joked, took selfies in the stupid quad, and then stared at me like I was an alien — I looked away, and tried to blend in with the trees.
And when that didn’t work…
I just… looked down at my feet and watched where I was going.
I was living an absolute nightmare, surrounded by complete strangers who knew nothing about me and an adopted family who only took me in because they had an ounce of humanity and knew that if they didn’t, I’d most likely be killed for what I knew.
Flashes of crowns invaded my vision as I stopped walking.
And the stars.
Always the stars, written in ink, written in blood across marred skin, across my own. I tugged the sleeve of my white oxford shirt down and sighed as a stinging spread down my veins.
I was safe.
Safe.
Safe.
Safe.
Nobody knew who I really was here — they never would.
And he was dead.
The monster who had touched me was dead.
If only the saying wasn’t true — where you cut off
one head — two often appear and I knew better than anyone that the monster I’d shared a bed with was a mere taste of what the Petrov family stood for.
I started walking again, even though bile rose up in my mouth and threatened to make me puke all over the sidewalk; I kept my head down, I kept myself small.
I focused on the cracks in the cement as I slowly made my way toward the business building.
And stopped when two boots moved in my line of vision.
I moved to the right, the boots followed.
I went left. Same thing.
Finally, I lifted my head and locked gazes with ice blue, ice that burned and froze all at once, ice blue that did nothing to hide the hatred, the anger¸ the barely controlled rage — all directed at me.
I lifted my chin.
“El.” Dante spat my name more than said it, and slowly wrapped an arm around me. His muscles flexed like he was pissed he had to touch someone so… tarnished. “Walk with me.”
People were staring.
Probably more at him than me.
He was a god among men.
A man among silly boys who were still growing into their bodies.
Dante Nicolasi was easily the most beautiful and horrible person I’d ever met in my entire life. Looking at him was physically painful and touching him — well he’d never touched me until today.
Which meant he was either going to kill me or he was using me for something.
My body shuddered both with the need to get closer and the need to fight for my life and run.
Was this how it was going to happen?
Without the protection of the Family back at the house?
With Dante by my side?
Would he snap my neck?
Inject something into my skin?
Throw me off a building?
Or just beat me into submission?
And why didn’t anyone else notice the way his rage was barely kept in check? Even during family dinners he looked ready to throw a knife at someone.
Dante wasn’t just angry.
He was anger itself.
And part of me wondered if that was all he knew.
Just like all I’d known was fear.
By the time we reached the building, I was shaking. “Did you need something?” My voice came out smooth, indifferent, cold.
He barked out a laugh, his nose colliding with my neck before he whispered in my ear. “I need you as a human shield.”
I swallowed back the ache in my throat. “So Italian royalty lives, and the Russian whore dies?”
It was out before I could stop it.
Dante didn’t as much as flinch when his cruel smile dipped toward my face. “Finally admitting how you spread your legs for the enemy.”
I casually reached my arms around his waist, my fingers stretched toward the knife I knew he always kept in his pocket. I used my body, went to that place I swore I’d never go to again.
This was survival.
Nothing more.
When my body arched up toward his, his eyebrow lifted in a mocking gesture that gave me pause. “It’s in my backpack, nice try though, if I didn’t already know how much you hated me, I’d almost believe I could slam you against the wall, lift up that plaid little skirt and make you—”
He stopped talking then.
I barely had time to register what was happening, before five guys very slowly made their way toward us.
Talking around us stopped.
Dante pulled me into him, hiding us near the shade of the building as he watched over my head. Anyone looking at us would think we were getting ready to make out rather than slit each other’s throats.
“Whatever you do,” Dante breathed down my neck. “Don’t look over your shoulder.”
I exhaled a shaky breath as he pulled me tighter against him, his cologne hit my nostrils making me feel weak for thinking how nice he smelled, how strong he felt, how much of a lie it really was.
Talking started again.
Dante slowly pushed me away just in time for one of the five guys to turn, and give him a mocking bow in front of at least a hundred people.
As if Dante knew he was going to challenge him, he smirked and stepped out of the shadows — but not before shoving me back against the wall as if to say stay — and approached him.
Gasps sounded around me.
“What the hell is he doing?” someone whispered. “You don’t approach them, you don’t talk to them!”
I rolled my eyes. All five of the guys had stopped by then.
Each of them was at least six feet in height, two had blond hair, and the other three had sandy brown hair.
Sure, they were fit.
But all I saw were Eagle Elite uniforms.
And then one started taking off his jacket.
He rolled up his sleeve, slowly, inch by inch, as if he was afraid of getting a bloodstain.
And on his forearm.
A crown.
With three bloody stars above it.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dante
“I KNOW YOU.” The guy spoke with a slight accent. “Weren’t you the charity case the Abandonatos took in last year?”
I shrugged, keeping my rage in check. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“You’re new.” His brown eyes were flat, cold. “So I’ll give you a pass, but next time you speak without being spoken to, I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
So hard I had tears in my eyes.
The guy stiffened.
“What’s your name, man?” I crossed my arms.
“None of your damn business.” He spat at my feet, a bit of liquid came into contact with my boot. I sighed and stared down at the wet spot.
“Those are my favorite boots,” I said in a hollow voice. “They’re original Win’s.” One of the only benefits of being close to Chase was his connections to the fashion world, and my favorite boots.
“I don’t give a fuck if they have the blood of your dead whore back there.” He pointed at El. “You don’t speak unless spoken to.”
One of the guys behind him snickered then said, “Apologize.”
“Finally, someone’s making sense,” I muttered. “Go ahead, I’ll wait.”
The guy shoved me. “He meant you, dumbass!”
“Don’t. Touch. Me.” I clenched my fists.
He sneered at me. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”
I cracked my right thumb.
Then my left.
Well, so much for not getting into detention.
I swung just as he ducked and tried to punch me in the stomach. I dodged his punch and kneed him in the gut then swung my backpack to the ground and started using his face as a punching bag.
My knuckles split. Again.
Blood mixed with sweat just like this morning.
One of the other guys charged me from behind.
I picked him up off my back and slammed his body into the concrete; his head fell back with a crack.
Another one of the guys charged.
And then it was three against one.
Yeah, this was going to hurt.
Searing pain hit me in the chest before I fell back against the sidewalk only to have a boot kick at my chest, down, down, down.
“Stop!” A female voice sounded.
The kicking continued.
And then I was getting pulled to my feet by the guy who’d just been kicking me. “Tell me, did you get the message? Don’t speak to us.”
I smiled a bloody smile and went to that place, the place Chase told me only to go when I absolutely needed to prove something.
To win.
I cocked my head to the side, and slammed it against his, then muttered, “Message received.”
The last two guys stared me down then looked at their friends and slowly helped them to their feet.
“Anyone else?” I wiped the blood caking my mouth with the sleeve of my now dirty white button-
down shirt just in time for El to jerk me away from the growing crowd.
She wasn’t fast enough.
In fact, all she did was pull me in the direction of a man who looked like he’d seen better years.
He was older.
Short.
And agitated.
“Mr. Abandonato.” The minute he said my name the place around me fell quiet. It was my introduction, so I let the fear of people around me settle in.
“He’s an Abandonato?” someone whispered.
The guy groaning on the ground behind me spat, “Italian scum.”
“Russian dick face,” I said under my breath.
“Let’s go.” He sighed and then looked over at El. “You too, Miss—”
“Petrov,” I supplied, outing her in front of everyone.
One would think the dean was going to pass out.
He didn’t.
Instead, he paled.
Yeah, I just bet he wished he’d put a shit ton of vodka in his coffee this morning.
CHAPTER SIX
Dante
“THANKS FOR NOTHING,” I said under my breath as we walked side by side toward the admin building.
El glared. “You mean for keeping your windpipe from getting crushed? You’re welcome.”
I sighed. “It was part of the plan, I had it handled.”
“You were letting them beat you!”
“Exactly,” I said, adopting a bored tone. “Can’t show all my cards all at once you know… every game has its strategy.”
She said nothing.
We took the elevator to the dean’s office just in time for his secretary to nearly run into the dean. She looked ready to puke, her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and her lips were pressed together in a firm line like she was about to give him some really bad news. “They’re here.”
“All of them?” he asked, his voice shaking.
She gave him a quick nod then looked at me and El, her expression thunderous before she sat down at her desk and started typing away on her sleek metallic MacBook Pro.
“Better not keep them waiting,” he muttered, opening both of his office doors wide to reveal not just one mob boss.
But all of them, including Sergio.
“Shit,” Tex, the capo, shook his head and laughed. “I think you owe me twenty bucks, Serg.”
Sergio glared. “I said no detention.”