The Vanity of Roses

by Lily White

  The entire arena was so silent you could hear a pin drop, anticipation for blood a vein through the air, a pulsing need for violence so thick it made me feel as if I were drowning in it.

  As soon as the first punch was thrown, that silence popped like a balloon, the arena filled with the chorus of men screaming for blood, with the demand for death that they found entertaining.

  I watched for the first few minutes, my body jumping when Connor took a hit to the side that knocked him back.

  Callan tugged me closer, his arm only a small comfort as I watched the fight continue.

  Connor dodged a hit that would have knocked any normal person out and then came back with a punch that must have broken his opponent’s nose. Blood spurted from the man’s face, his neck snapping back so hard that it made mine hurt just to look at it.

  The screaming only grew louder as Connor took advantage of the momentary lapse in his opponent’s reflexes, his body moving with such brutal movements that I could feel every hit, swore I could hear every crack of bone.

  Fifteen minutes later and the fight was decided, Moritze’s man falling to the ground when Connor proved to be the better fighter.

  The screaming grew louder as Connor looked up to scan the audience, hands reaching out to turn down their thumbs in a demand for death.

  Unable to watch, I turned my face into Callan’s chest, his hand coming up to cradle the back of my head as Connor executed a man for entertainment.

  I knew it was done when the audience erupted in bloodthirsty shouts, their voices immediately calling for the prize that would be brought out.

  Beside us, Moritze cursed beneath his breath, Callan’s chest shaking with quiet laughter to hear it.

  Leave it to Jacob to be the person to say what everyone was thinking. “Something wrong, Moritze? I’m starting to think you should start betting against the corpses you keep walking in here. You might actually make some money.”

  “Fuck off,” Moritze barked as he turned to leave.

  I wouldn’t look down. The audience was still screaming, which meant Connor hadn’t walked off with the woman brought in.

  It didn’t ease my thoughts to know that those women were doing it willingly. Regardless of whether it was all an act or not, people were still celebrating not only the death of a fighter, but the rape of a woman in the end.

  Callan pressed a finger beneath my chin and tipped my face to his.

  “I hate this,” I admitted. “All of it.”

  Amber eyes met mine with apology written behind them. I doubted the fights would ever end, but I hoped I could stop the prize portion one day in the future.

  Brushing the hair from my face, Callan leaned over to press a kiss to my forehead, his eyes lifting to lock on Franklin. Distrust filtered through the amber color, rage a simmering heat beneath his skin.

  I didn’t like the naked blade of the expression on Callan’s face, but rather than asking about it in front of everybody, I leaned against him instead, my eyes dropping down to the ring just as the gates were once again closing.

  A feeling of dread rattled through me, but for what reason I wasn’t sure.

  There was too much at stake. Too many games. Too many secrets and lies.

  But then, when I thought about it, that had always been what it felt like in my family.

  I decided right then and there that once the situation with Moritze was handled I would work to change what had always been.

  My childhood had been built on a bed of deceit and lies.

  I’d be damned to have my adulthood be the same.

  Callan

  My life hasn’t always been an easy existence. It was an obvious truth when one saw the scars that painted my back in thin silver lines. It was a hurried guess when one came up against my quick temper after stepping over acceptable lines. It was a blatant fact when one witnessed the violence I wore like a second skin, my hands too quick to fist at even the slightest insult.

  I was a walking time bomb most of the time, a dark presence, a quiet threat. In many ways, I wasn’t a good man, but I wasn’t a bad person, either.

  I was something in between, a grey area where morality was questioned, a blank slate where a probable future hadn’t yet been written.

  But that hadn’t always been the core of what makes me.

  Not always.

  And to think of the years I’d spent in the Rose mansion, a life I couldn’t remember much of in the time before this place, I had to admit that the worst sins of all that had contributed to who I became weren’t truths built from the abuse I suffered, but rather the questions I’d never thought to ask that would reveal the lies.

  Standing among a crowd of people celebrating Connor’s first fight, I clutched a glass of whiskey in one hand while the other was stuffed in my pocket. I long ago lost the suit jacket I wore to the fight per Franklin’s instructions, and I’d rolled up the sleeves of my white shirt to the elbows.

  Still, I felt constricted, tight, boxed in by the ridiculous desperation to keep up appearances and the incredible burden of expectations.

  Staring across the room, I scanned my eyes from person to person, took in the chaos that surrounded me, the oddity of the moment.

  We were surrounded by opulence, every inch of this mansion costing more than most make in a lifetime, and yet the people that filled it weren’t the well-bred and stuffy. They weren’t the faces of proper society. They were fighters and servants, whores and criminals, the life of this place changed since the night Marcus was gunned down in his own ballroom, the pulse of it more sordid and raucous than ever before.

  What would Marcus think to walk into the mansion now? Worse than that, what would his prissy wife, Katrina, think to see her daughter laughing among women who sold their bodies, her arm hooked together with a gentle woman who spent her days scrubbing and polishing floors?

  While they would no doubt punish her for daring to lower herself by befriending the help, I had never admired her more.

  Lisbeth’s eyes snapped my direction as if she could sense me staring at her, a shy smile stretching her lips as heat colored her cheeks.

  Everything male inside me woke up to look at her, every need to claim and possess, to consume and devour, to mark her body as mine, to ruin her for every other man.

  I laughed to wonder what Marcus and his prim and proper wife would think if they knew their precious daughter had been well and truly debased by the servant boy who had always bowed down to her.

  Shy eyes flicked back to her friends, the color deepening on Lisbeth’s cheeks that I wanted to chase down her body.

  Unfortunately, that would have to be saved for later because I had another problem that demanded my attention, one I was determined to confront as soon as the opportunity was there.

  Namely, the lies that still existed in the Rose mansion, the secrets and deceptions, the pretty pictures painted in effort to disguise all the ugly truths that always ran through every well-established family.

  They were like an onion, I was learning. Peel one layer back and you reveal another, each one more toxic than the last.

  It occurred to me that a particular face was missing among the revelry, the one man whose life mission had been to see to it that the Rose name was never tarnished. He should have arrived a little after us, yet an hour had passed, and he still hadn’t walked through the door.

  I was surrounded by Jacob, Connor and Benny, their voices background noise to my thoughts. Their laughter a contrast to the anger that rode me.

  Turning to Jacob, I nudged his elbow with mine, our eyes meeting as I tipped my head away from the group in a silent request he follow.

  He limped after me, finally stopping to stand at my side near a quiet corner free of curious ears.

  “Do you know where Franklin went after the fight?”

  Lisbeth and I hadn’t stayed long following Connor’s win, mainly because Lisbeth looked ill after the fight. The guilt had gotten to me for forcing her to sit through something I
knew upset her, so rather than keeping her there to watch the men in the audience haggle over the payment of bets, I’d led her from the viewing box directly to a car that waited for us out back.

  The ride home had been made in silence, her thoughts lost to what she’d witnessed while mine were focused elsewhere.

  Jacob turned to look at me, his brows tugged together in question.

  “He stayed with me in the box for about ten minutes after you left, but then he took off saying he was headed home. He’s not here?”

  “No,” I answered, my gaze crawling across the room, watching a group of people I’d come to call friends.

  “Maybe he’s getting it on with that chick I saw him with the other day.”

  My eyes snapped to him. “Who?”

  A careless shrug.

  “Didn’t know who she was, but she was pretty. Older, but pretty. I saw them talking out near the back gates of the garden when I was on guard duty. They were whispering about something. The conversation looked pretty hot and heavy from where I was standing.”

  My thoughts went to the woman I’d seen him with the other night.

  “What color was her hair?”

  “Dark with grey in it. But that’s all I saw.”

  Mentally jotting that information down to deal with later, I was about to walk the house again to see if Franklin had come in through a side door to escape the party. But then the front door opened, the man I’d been looking for walking through.

  Jacob nudged my shoulder with his, tipped his chin.

  “There he is.”

  We both watched silently as Franklin made his way through the crowd, a fake, polite smile on his lips when people patted him on the shoulder as he passed, his stride quick as he wound around small groups to approach the stairs and climb up to the third floor.

  I glanced at Jacob. “Keep an eye on Lisbeth for me. I’m going to talk to him.”

  He laughed. “Lisbeth is with Haley. She’ll be fine.”

  That didn’t make me feel better. Haley was a wild child, and we both knew it. Her attitude made her the perfect match for my best friend. Shooting him a look, I cocked a brow.

  “And Haley became a good influence, when?”

  Nodding, he smiled.

  “Good point. I’ll keep an eye out, stop them if they start dancing naked on tables and shit.”

  “Thanks. That makes me feel so much better,” I ground out as I turned to head in Franklin’s direction.

  Slowly weaving a path around the group, I quietly ascended the stairs, turned a corner and crept down the hall toward the family suites. The door was left open, and I walked through to find Franklin near a side bar pouring a scotch.

  His glass fell and shattered over the marble floor the second my hand wrapped around the back of his neck and I shoved his body against a wall, his cheek pressed to the plaster as my chest and hips caged him in place.

  While Franklin was my height, he was nowhere near my build, and any fight he had in him was no match for the cold anger that ran like ice in my veins.

  My mouth was close to his ear, the intimacy of it disturbing him more than the threat of violence.

  “Either you’re here to fuck me or fight me, and I hope you understand that I care for you, Callan, but not enough for the former to be enjoyable.”

  My lips stretched into a feral grin.

  “You’re funny. Unfortunately, I’m not in the mood to laugh at the moment.”

  “Let go of me.”

  He put up a pathetic fight, but gave it up after realizing I wouldn’t budge.

  The tip of my nose brushed his cheek, a subtle threat.

  “I’m here because, once again, I know you’re lying to me. And we’ve talked about this before. Just the other day, in fact. Which means you had every opportunity to come clean about all the secrets you’re hiding.”

  Franklin stilled, a breath escaping his lips.

  “So, here’s how this is going to go: You’ll tell me everything. Right here. Right now. And I’ll consider not killing you. But if you lie again, if you keep one more fucking secret from me and I find out about it, all the shit you’ve done for me in life will mean nothing. I’ll bury you in an unmarked grave after taking my time snapping every bone in your body. Are we clear?”

  He didn’t immediately answer. I could feel the hesitation in him.

  “Let’s start with where you went after the fight tonight.”

  Another hesitation. My fingers gripped tighter, the tips digging into muscle, fingernails scraping skin.

  “I was meeting with a woman.”

  I shoved him harder against the wall. A love tap that bounced his skull on the plaster.

  “Who?”

  “The woman I have living in Moritze’s compound. She started working there right after he contacted me about the information he has on us.”

  Interesting.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this last time we talked?”

  He hesitated again. I gave him another love tap, a groan crawling up his throat when bone met plaster.

  “Because I don’t know yet if she’ll be able to find the information we need.”

  “Speaking of,” I said, leaning into him even more, “what does Moritze know about Lisbeth? You must know how angry I was to hear him taunting her about something right in front of me.”

  “He doesn’t know-“

  Plaster dust fell to our feet when I slammed his head again.

  “Don’t lie. Your bones are extremely fragile. More than you realize, and I have the patience of a saint when it comes to breaking them one by one. I saw your face, Franklin. What Moritze said rattled you. I’d like to know why.”

  Franklin went quiet, his eyes clenching shut before opening again.

  “Leave this alone, Callan. It doesn’t matter.”

  The tip of my nose brushed his ear. I felt him shudder, whether from disgust at the odd intimacy or from the threat, I wasn’t sure. Either way, it bothered him.

  “It matters to me.”

  “You’re a dick. You know that?”

  I grinned. “Tell me something I don’t know. Like what Moritze knows about Lisbeth for starters.”

  Silence bled between us. One second, then two. But then Franklin’s body relaxed, the fight draining out of him, resignation melting the tension from his shoulders.

  On a deep breath, he confessed, “Lisbeth isn’t Katrina’s daughter.”

  I stilled at the mention of Katrina’s name.

  “Which means what exactly? She’s not a Rose. Not the heir of the family estate?”

  “No. I didn’t say she wasn’t Marcus’s daughter. She just had a different mother.”

  Brows tugging together, I loosened my hold on him. Not enough to release him, but enough that pain wasn’t shooting across his muscles.

  “You should explain why I didn’t already know this.”

  “Every family has their secrets,” he answered behind gritted teeth.

  I let him go, my body moving back as he pushed from the wall and turned to face me. Plaster dust smudged his cheek, a red mark on his forehead showing where he’d have a nasty bruise. I didn’t feel bad about damaging him. This shit with secrets and lies was going to end.

  “I’ll give you a chance to be completely honest with me now. But I swear to God, if you don’t tell me everything-“

  “There’s nothing else to tell,” he barked, his hand moving to brush the dust from his jacket, to examine the knot forming on his skull.

  “Who is Lisbeth’s mother, and why is this yet another secret?”

  Rolling his eyes, Franklin shot me a look that all but said I was a fucking idiot.

  “And ruin the Rose reputation? Do you think Katrina would have been okay with people knowing she never had a child and instead her husband knocked up a whore? Fuck, Callan, you’re not dumb. I think it’s obvious why she would choose to raise the child as her own rather than give up that information. The bitch was far too fucking vain to admit her
husband had a wandering dick. So, rather than take the hit to her pride, she adopted Lisbeth, raised her as her own.”

  My teeth clenched. I should have known it had everything to do with the vanity of Roses. It was the worst sin of the family, the one weak thread that had threatened to destroy all of us at one time or another. Even me. Even Lisbeth.

  And for what?

  To keep an iron grip on pride?

  It was becoming obvious that none of us had a valid claim to it.

  Not with all the secrets.

  Not with the constant presence of all our lies.

  It had to change because the weight of these secrets had become a burden that was slowly crushing the walls in around us, burying us beneath bullshit that shouldn’t matter.

  “Who is her mother?”

  “A former slave. Which is how Moritze ended up with that knowledge since it’s part of what he has against us.”

  “Why is it still a secret?”

  His grey eyes pinned mine. “She was a slave. Think on that for a second. Here. Unwillingly. A trafficked woman. Is that something you want the world to know?”

  I was beginning to hate this fucking family. Hate my role in it. “So, who is she?”

  He stilled, lips pulling into a thin line before he answered, “That, I can’t tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I swore not to,” he yelled. “I may have done a lot of dishonest things in my life, Callan, but when I swear to something, I stick by it. And it’s seriously pissing me off that you keep assuming I’m doing anything but protecting this family. You’ll break every bone in my body? Are you fucking kidding me? Why? I’m not the fucking threat you should be worried about. I’m the man dealing with this shit so you don’t have to worry about it. All you’ve ever cared about is those fights, so who the fuck do you think is running things in the background?”

  Our eyes locked as his face tinged red with anger, but the fact he met my stare made me stop to consider he might not be lying.

  He wasn’t wrong to accuse me of being willfully blind either. Up to the day Lisbeth reappeared, I didn’t give much of a shit about anything beyond the fights. But now I had something to protect, something that meant enough to me that I would tear down the fucking world if that’s what it took to protect it.