Mateo: A Dark Mafia Romance (The Syndicates Book 5)

by Raven Scott

  Only, now that happiness was gone, there was nothing but a void left. Unfillable, bottomless— empty.

  Chapter 2: Ophelia

  “My father wants to kill everyone in your family.” Aleksander watched me with his hawk like gaze. “Are you upset because of what they did?”

  I could only summon a slight nod. He’d been raised as the eldest Makovich to be power itself. In no feasible way did he care about the opinion of a small fish like myself when he was a shark whose teeth always grew back. “They’re stupid.” Licking my dry lips, I lifted my head.

  Aleksander arched a brow quizzically.

  My mouth dried at his calm demeanor— all the while I was falling apart. “What?”

  “You’re not going to try to reason with me for your life?”

  A soft scoff escaped my nose, but if he took offence, it didn’t show on his face. The darkness that slowed my mind became deeper, and I reached a trembling hand to my temple.

  “Well, I suppose that does count for something.”

  “I’m sure that unyielding attitude intimidates some people, but you didn’t kill all the Avernisk’s. You’re not gonna kill us all, either.” I sniffled as I spoke, “Whoever you keep alive… don’t expect much.”

  Aleksander’s features drenched in amusement at my rasp. “What if I decide to keep you alive, Ophelia?”

  For a fraction of a second, my mind puttered into action before I shook my head.

  Aleksander leaned back, throwing his arm over the back of the sofa leisurely. He exuded iron will, and anything or anyone that got in his way would be crushed. “What if I gave you the opportunity to take your boyfriend and leave this life?”

  “You wouldn’t. The families wouldn’t be crushed if you did that.” Maybe, for the first time, I stared Aleksander directly in the eyes. My eyelids ached and threatened to close, but I didn’t feel the instinctual need to look away. “You can’t just obliterate them. You need pawns. You don’t want them but need them. It doesn’t matter who they are, though. Pawns are replaceable for a reason…because once they go rogue, there’s no forcing them back onto their square.”

  “You think I see this as a game?” he asked.

  Frowning slightly, I shook my head again.

  Aleksander tapped the back of the sofa with a thoughtfulness blazing from his eyes. “Tell me about your relationship with… what was his name? Sascha?”

  “No,” the answer slipped out before I could stop it. Pursing my lips thinly, I ground my teeth as the temperature in the air dropped like a stone. We were sitting, waiting for whatever grotesque play Aleksander had planned. Glaringly, I wasn’t involved, but I didn’t know if this was a good thing or not. Whether Aleksander had different plans for me was not a mystery, but the specifics were. Regardless… it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered.

  “How about I tell you what I know about your relationship, then.” Aleksander gazed at me through hard, narrowed eyes.

  There was no escaping it, but the anxiety of him knowing anything about Sascha flooded my gut.

  “Your boyfriend is a professor at Moscow State University as a nuclear chemist. You’re only 22, but he’s almost 40. You’ve been together since a few weeks after you turned 18, but I couldn’t find out how you met. Your parents hate him because he wasn’t born in Russia, but he’s been here since before the fall of the USSR, and he’s got dual citizenship. Both his parents are dead, now, and he’s got no siblings in the country.”

  “… That’s not much about our relationship, just us as people.”

  Aleksander shot me the blandest look possible.

  My brows twitched as they drew together. “You really don’t know anything about us?” I asked.

  “You’re very good at keeping secrets. I’ll be honest, Ophelia, I came here today with every intention of killing you.”

  Goosebumps rose on my arms and across my chest at how casually he spoke. What kind of monster just says something like that?

  Leaning back again, Aleksander crossed his knees to tilt his head at me. “I decided not to because of exactly how little I could find on you and your boyfriend. Interestingly enough, you always use cash, avoid places with too many security cameras, and have no online presence. So, either you’re very careful or very boring, both of which I find positive traits.”

  “We’re boring. I like it… being boring.” Sucking my bottom lip between my teeth, I held my throat in a clammy palm. Inhaling a shaky, shallow breath, my eyelids fluttered to dislodge a particularly brave tear. “Being n-normal people— they don’t worry a-about coups, about dying, being k-killed—by their bosses.”

  “Why would you worry about my killing you, Ophelia? Ignorance isn’t an excuse, and that’s a philosophy I live by. Frankly, though, you weren’t ignorant. You didn’t suspect something was going on and ignore it, which is the definition of ignorance, by the way. No… you, Ophelia, aren’t just ignorant. You’re innocent. At least, in this, you’re innocent.”

  Hiccupping a gasp, I closed my eyes tightly and turned away.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever truly believed someone was innocent, but this coup…” he paused. “You’re innocent of it.”

  “You’re contradicting yourself.” Aleksander talked circles around me, and I was tired of spinning around. “Just say it, okay?”

  “You can’t be innocent in this business, Ophelia, and you can’t just escape it. Work for me, and I’ll allow you your side piece and your relative anonymity.”

  Now this drew my tired eyes to his face.

  Aleksander frowned under narrowed eyes. “All you have to do is marry a man that does benefit me if you won’t.”

  “Excuse me?” Croaking harshly, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  Aleksander stood up to smooth his jacket, staring down at me like I was a bug under his shoe. His 5,000 ruble shoes. “Innocence doesn’t equate to uselessness. Either you’re useful to me, or you get removed from the picture. Keep your boyfriend. Keep your secrets. Keep your boyfriend a secret I don’t care. Somehow, someway, Ophelia… you said it yourself. All pawns are replaceable. I’m giving you the option to decide how you’re replaced.”

  The strangest sense that Aleksander Makovich ‒ the most powerful person in Russia ‒ was doing me a favor swept through me as my eyes widened in surprise.

  He inhaled deeply through flared nostrils. “I’ll give you two months to decide, Ophelia. Now, let’s go execute your parents and brother.” Aleksander held out his hand for me, eyes expectant and glistening with impatience.

  Clenching my jaw hard, I forced my knees unbend and flexed my toes. Every part of me was still and unyielding, as if my joints were made of the concrete I slept on last night. Just moving was exhausting, but I refused to take his hand. Crossing my arms tightly over my chest, I shook my head and hoovered a huge breath— until my lungs couldn’t take it.

  He raised a brow at me. “Do you care if they die? Or do you care because it affects you?”

  I didn’t bother trying to think hard enough to answer him. The living room seemed too wide, and my legs ached just thinking of crossing it.

  “I assume you find comfort in knowing they deserve what they’re getting simply because they’d have to be beyond idiotic to try it. I’m sure it’s even worse knowing they didn’t even graze my father.”

  “… It’s got nothing to do with what they deserve. My dad plotted to kill your dad and wasn’t even close to being successful. What’s common law for attempted murder? Retaliation. So… no. It’s not worse. I don’t find comfort in how idiotic my parents and brother are. I’m just— just sad. Sad, I’m involved because I was born a Cherinivsky. Ophelia Matheson sounds better than Ophelia Cherinivsky.” It hurt to talk, to think— to move— to be, and my cheek twitched as a sigh escaped me. Disgust tinged my voice.

  Aleksander frowned at me ‒ not that the curiosity in his eyes diminished in the slightest.

  My knees wobbled dangerously as I made my way across the vast expanse o
f my father’s home. “If you’re going to do it— do it right, so you don’t have to suffer the consequences.”

  “Confidence breeds foolishness. Obviously, you’re the black sheep in personality just like your name. That’s another curiosity I find interesting enough to keep you around. Your parents named you ‘Ophelia’, but they hate your boyfriend for his dual citizenship of which the primary isn’t Russia.” Aleksander opened the door to the dining room for me. “You’re definitely more interesting than your brother.”

  I glanced up at him. “Martin’s name is just as not Russian as mine. Go stick your arm up his ass rather than making me find someone that can open his mouth just right.” Beyond the dining room was the back garden, and goosebumps washed my arms and across my abdomen. “For someone streamlining, you’re pretty convoluted.”

  “See… even more interesting. You just insulted me, and I don’t feel any urge at all…”

  Tensing as Aleksander pressed the cold barrel of a gun to the back of my head, I gulped harshly.

  He smirked faintly, like he enjoyed my reaction, even as he touched my cheek. “Don’t make me wait forever.”

  “You won’t have much of a forever if you don’t put that gun away.”

  The feminine voice hit me like lightning.

  Aleksander’s face froze. His eyes tore off me into the dining room to narrow into slits.

  “We have four more of these circus acts to get through, Aleksander, and you aren’t going to shoot her, so hurry up.”

  “I have an image to maintain, sokrovishche,” he replied.

  “The last time you shoved a gun in a girl’s face, she ended up having sex with you every other night. Let’s hurry this up. You have exactly 7 more people to shove guns in their faces, and none of them are women.”

  My brows in surprise at how annoyed the woman sounded.

  She gestured in impatience.

  Aleksander sighed in defeat before shouldering his way past me.

  The door slid closed against my back, a foreboding click echoing in my ears. “W-wait, wait—“ Holding up my palms as her bright, brown eyes met mine, I pointed between them. “He shoved a gun in your face, and—you find that attractive?”

  “Yeah? You don’t think it’s attractive when your boyfriend gets all bossy?”

  Blinking hard, I could only nod stupidly at the ‘duh’ tone of her questions.

  “If you didn’t, all that snot earlier wasn’t worth it.” She turned and strutted off.

  I gulped harshly at the amused smirk and slight shrug Aleksander shot me before following her.

  Who was worse…?

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