by SR Jones
I raise my chin and lift my gaze to his. I won’t allow him to make me feel like nothing.
“It’s just a silly game,” I snap.
“Sure, it is. But thought I’d let you know, so you didn’t go making a fool of yourself anymore.”
Fucking wanker, I seethe, but bite it back because he’s not a nice man, and he hurts people… I remember my uncle’s words ringing in my ears as they tortured that man so efficiently.
I can’t control this one as easily.
I swallow down the rage and instead try for haughty. “Well, I hope you enjoyed the show.” I give him a forced smile.
He sneers—outright sneers at me. “Not really. I found it a bit … desperate.”
I don’t even think, because if I did, I would stop myself. My hand raises to slap his sneering face, but his reflexes are lightning fast as he catches my wrist.
“Ah-ah. No slapping the hired help,” he says. The sneer is gone now, and he’s actually smiling, as if he’s enjoying this.
“And that’s all you are, hired help,” I spit out. “Remember your fucking place, before I get you fired by telling my uncle.”
He throws his head back and laughs, and despite hating him, there’s a beauty in him doing so that punches me in the gut.
“Tell him what?” Damen shakes his head, still laughing. “That you were stroking your pussy for all the world to see, and you didn’t like my reaction to it?”
“God, you’re such a dick.” I blink away tears as no way will I let him see me cry.
“And you’re a fucking tease.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I snarl. “Slut shame me.”
“I don’t think it’s slut shaming to state you’re a tease. If I got my cock out and stroked it on video for you to see, does that make me a slut? No. It makes me a tease.”
I push the image of him doing what he said out of my brain because I do not need those visuals right now. “It’s a silly game, a bit of fun, and you’ve blown it out of all proportion.”
“So Alesso consented to it, did he? He’s enjoying it as much as you are?”
Fuck, he’s got me there, and now he’s making me feel like a sexual predator or something. I hate him. I want him to come off his bike tonight and lose his dick in a freak accident.
I yank my arm free.
“You can go,” I say, with as much dignity as I can muster.
“Yeah, didn’t think so.” Then he steps into my space again and tips my chin up. He brushes his thumb across my jawline as I hold my breath. “In all seriousness, Maya. You want to be careful who you play games like that with.”
“Understood.” I really am going to cry in a minute.
He’s not done, though.
“Take me, for example. If you’d spent the last couple of weeks doing these shows for me, do you think I’d be ignoring them like Alesso?”
“No,” I say, voice defeated even to my own ears. “I suppose you’d have told my uncle.”
“No, baby girl, I wouldn’t have done that.” His thumb resumes its stroking. “I’d have come to your room and given you the relief you so clearly need. I’d rub your pretty little clit until you come all over my fingers, and then I’d eat you, and if you taste half as good as you look, I’d never forget it.”
I can’t speak, because I can’t breathe or move. He’s killed me. His words are so … dirty. They’re flaming. But he’s scary and unhinged, and it’s not safe for me to take this any farther.
I don’t have a say in the matter, though, because he lets go of me, takes a step back, and shakes his head once. “Or, at least, I would if I didn’t work for your uncle and wasn’t your hired protection. You be careful, sweetheart. You’re a beautiful girl, and you don’t need to play dangerous little games like that.”
He gets to the kitchen door and pauses. “Goodnight, Maya.”
I swear he tongue fucks my name when he says it.
My legs are like jelly, and I honestly feel faint.
As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, I turn and flee out of the kitchen, all the way to my room, where I throw myself on the bed.
I’m a mortified, turned on, throbbing, needy mess. And I can’t decide if I hate Damen or kind of adore him.
Shit.
I awake the next morning and groan into my pillow. Oh, the mortification.
Alesso has never once mentioned my little game, but Damen let me understand he both saw and disapproved straightaway. Then he went and blew my mind with a weirdly sexual interlude that had me panting for more.
I think he’s purposefully messing with my mind, so screw him.
If he thinks I’m going to be all devastated at his little bombshell about Alesso pining for some local girl, or all angst-ridden about his own behavior, he’s got another thing coming. I’ve far more worrying issues on my plate, like how to avoid marrying a psychopath.
Something weird is happening to me, though, when it comes to Damen. First of all, I get all turned on watching the man smoke a cigarette. I think about him when my mind should have been all on Alesso, and then the minute he went uber alpha on me, I became horribly aroused. I found myself angry and humiliated, but I was turned on. In a way I didn’t expect.
He might say he found my show desperate, but I’m not buying it. A sixth sense tells me I got to him. Got underneath that hard, dour exterior and made him feel something, and that’s why he tried in turn to get to me.
It wouldn’t be hard to make Alesso feel something because he’s normal, but Damen? He’s so closed off and hardened that despite me making a fool of myself, I feel a sort of triumph that I broke through.
And Stella is right. Damen is hot too, in his own demonic way. Certainly, the way he looked at me as he held my wrists did something to me. His name suits him. Demonic Damen. I start to giggle and then sober.
I brush thoughts of my hunky bodyguards to one side, because—bigger issues.
I need to talk to Mom. Beg her not to make me marry Yannis. Surely, she’ll understand?
Of course, they are out, so I have to wait all day to get my chance. I stay hidden in my room, too ashamed to risk seeing either Alesso, Damen, or Markos. I bet they’ve all had a good laugh at my expense.
Hours later my parents return home, and I go to speak to Mom.
“You should have come to the opera tonight, darling,” she says as she sits at her dresser cleaning her face. I love watching her routine; it’s been the same since I was a small child.
She doesn’t wash her face; instead, on her dresser she has a box with cotton wool pads inside. There is an expensive cream cleanser, a plant-based toner that smells of home and comfort to me, and then the moisturizer she applies last. I don’t get how she can feel clean without splashing her face with water, but she insists that’s what the toner is for.
I have happy memories of sitting at my mother’s feet watching her do this, or conversely, watching her apply her face before a night out somewhere. I find myself doing it now, plonking down on the carpet by her feet.
“I don’t like opera,” I tell her. “It’s horrible screeching singing and stupid storylines.”
“It’s culture, darling.” She sighs at me, impatient.
I don’t know when we stopped being close. At what point exactly I began to have a better bond with our damned housekeeper than my own mother, but it seemed to occur around puberty. Mom is stunning. A truly unique beauty. She’s willowy, with bone structure you could cut glass on. Her hair is redder than mine, and she has very pale skin. Her mother, my maternal grandmother, is from Germany, not Greece. She moved here when she married a Greek man, and Mother has her looks. I got some of it, the reddish tinge to my hair and my green eyes, but somewhere along the way I didn’t get the rest. Instead of Mother’s willowy frame, I got my dad’s bulkier build. I inherited curves that no one in our family seems to have, so I’m not sure where they came from. I’m also fairly tall. Not sure where I get that from either. My parents are kind of short.
Mothe
r doesn’t like my figure; she thinks I’m fat, or too curvy as she puts it, and tells me often enough.
She also doesn’t like my style, but her uniform of Chanel suits and beautiful shirt dresses will hardly suit my curves. She says my style is trashy, but no matter what I wear I can’t cover up my bust or my ass, so I highlight them instead. If I try to cover them up, I end up looking frumpy and bigger than I am.
She also doesn’t know much about me. I like culture. I often go to art galleries and museums. I’m just not into the society side of it, going to openings or the opera purely to be seen.
“Mom, I need to talk to you. Have you seen the papers?” I put it straight out there.
I brace myself for her to sigh and roll her eyes and tell me to grow up, but she surprises me. She pauses mid swipe with the cotton wool pad and meets my gaze in the mirror. “Yes, I have. I’m not happy, and I’m going to talk with your father about things. You can’t marry that boy. He’s … he’s not well in his mind.”
I’m so shocked I can’t speak. I thought I’d have to beg her, argue with her.
“I thought you might believe it should still go ahead,” I say carefully.
She sighs. “You and I, Maya. We used to be so close. Do you remember? You loved sitting in here. Watching me put my makeup on … and then, we drifted apart. Maybe some of that was my fault. I know I ride you hard about how you present yourself, but a lot of it was yours. You weren’t an easy teenager.”
I bristle at that, because I was so damn good compared to my friends! I got good grades in school, and I didn’t drink or do drugs. Once I hit nineteen, I had my little ways of rebelling, my secret sex sessions with tourists, and maybe the odd night out drinking too much Metaxa and dancing until dawn, but as rebellions go, it was generally tame. The truly wild bits Mother doesn’t know about anyway.
“I miss how things were.” She turns to me, her routine abandoned for the moment. “However strained things may have been between us, you’re my daughter, and I love you. I won’t have you marrying that boy.” She pauses, looks at the carpet, then back to me, her eyes worried. “I’ve learned worse things about him than what is in the papers.”
Oh, God. My stomach lurches.
“Like what?” I cross my legs and look up at her, exactly the pose I used to take as a child, and she smiles.
“You know I lunch weekly with some of the girls?”
I bite back a smirk. The girls are all forty and fifty-something mob wives, and some of them would cut you if you looked at them the wrong way.
They include Uncle Stamatis’ wife, Aunt Helena, who is classy like Mother, but also some tougher women who are married to some of the underbosses and lieutenants.
“They were talking, and one of them knows Yannis and his family well. They’ve had problems with him since he was around nine-years-old. He tortured animals. His mother found him one day, leading a frog around the garden with rope tied around its neck. He hurt their pets and was generally unpleasant. His mother tried to get him help, but it obviously didn’t work, because one day she found him with a bird on their kitchen countertop. He’d cut its head off.”
I gasp at that and try to put the image out of my mind.
“He’s a troubled young man, and it’s not safe for you to marry him. I’m going to talk to your father, but it won’t be easy.” She purses her lips and falls silent for a moment. “But this has to be stopped. I’ve never gone against him before, but I’m hoping he’ll listen.”
“Do you think he will?”
“I can only try, darling.”
***
The next few days my nerves build and build. I’m not sure if Mother has spoken with Father yet, but I’ve heard more awful rumors about Yannis. Nothing in the official media stories that are circulating, but instead rumors on Twitter and other social media sites. Anonymous accounts saying they know someone, and how Yannis hurt this someone, scared them, or intimidated them. Yannis hasn’t responded to any of it, and I doubt he will. It’s all anonymous stuff, because other than Aggatha, who has serious guts, who would out a mob boss as their tormentor?
I’ve not seen Damen since the mortifying incident the other day as I’m still avoiding him and the other guys. No more shows from me. It doesn’t feel like a game anymore; it feels scary.
There’s a knock at my bedroom door, and Mother pokes her head around, looking flustered. “Maya, get dressed. We’re going to see Yannis and Lefteris.”
“What?” I stare at her. “I thought … you said you’d talk to Father.”
“I have, and now he says we’re going for a chat with them. A talk, your dad says. Oh, Lord. This is a nightmare. What if they shoot us dead there and then?”
My stare widens. Yannis might be an abusive asshole, but Mother’s imagination is running wild. “Of course, they won’t. We might not be that important, but I am Stamatis’ niece, and we carry the Kantos name. He’d start a mob war if he shot us.”
“Maybe, but your father, he’s not made many friends over the years. Even Stamatis only helps us because they are brothers. Get changed, put something conservative and smart on. Be downstairs in ten minutes.”
Mother sweeps out of the room, and I sigh as I head to my walk-in closet.
Ten minutes later, I’m dutifully waiting in the lounge. I’m wearing a navy dress that hits just below my knees, with mid heels. Pearls at my neck and a slim gold bracelet at my wrist compliment the look. I hate this dress. It is frumpy as fuck, but if Mother wants conservative, then I’ll give her it.
Father walks in, gives me a once over, and nods. “Now, don’t go messing this up,” he warns. “This match is important for us, for the whole family.”
More like for Daddy Dearest. I bet Uncle Stamatis would let it go if he knew the truth about Yannis. He’d find another way to ensure peace or simply hire more muscle like Alesso to keep him safe if the peace broke down.
Stamatis might be wanting to steer his business into more legal territories over time, if the rumors and mutterings I hear between my mother and father are true, but he still has balls. A big set. He won’t want a member of his family being married to a man outed as an abusive asshole. In fact, it makes him look weak, this going ahead.
No, this match matters the most for my father. For years he’s been the screw-up younger brother. The one who went to prison many years ago for aggravated assault and robbery, and then was stupid enough to run his mouth, so that my uncle had do all kinds of bad deals and palm greasing to get Father off a ton of shit lists.
Father was relegated to being nothing more than the accountant for the business, a position he resents deeply. He and Uncle have a lot of rivalry between them, and it goes both ways. Not sure why, because my uncle is older, richer, more powerful and, frankly, better looking. Yet, he’s seemed at times to be as bitter and jealous as my father, which makes no sense.
Mother comes into the room, and she looks as beautiful as always. I wish I had half her elegance and poise. I smooth my dress down, hating the way my lower belly is visible in it. I’m not fat, despite what Mom says, but I do have a bit of a stomach to go with my hips, thighs, and boobs.
“Come on,” Father says with a scowl.
I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I’m nervous as hell. I’m about to face Yannis Pappas and his father.
We approach the Pappas’ mansion after a long drive to the coast, and I gawp. I know for a fact my uncle has more power and more businesses, but Lefteris Pappas has obviously put a shit ton of his wealth into appearing moneyed to the hilt.
It’s a huge, stone-built house on a small hill with a winding drive. There are stone pillars jealously guarding either side of the door and a high fence around the property. It’s within a residential area, but set back from other houses nearby. Four rottweilers are roaming around the grounds, and I eye them with trepidation as our car sweeps in through the smoothly opening gates and up the drive.
A gleaming pool stands floodlit to one side of the property, and there
are trees and shrubs all around, hiding the pool and the patio area from prying eyes.
When we pull up outside the imposing front of the house, the door opens and Lefteris stands there, legs apart, arms folded over his chest, face impassive. Next to him is his wife, Phoebe, and to one side, Yannis. My supposed husband-to-be is giving our car a death stare.
I try to swallow down my rampant nerves as we climb out.
“Welcome,” Lefteris intones in a surprisingly high voice.
It makes me smile, but I bite it back when I notice his little brown eyes latch onto it, like a shark spotting a minnow.
Phoebe Pappas is a woman who was probably once a great beauty, but now looks faded, sad too. Her face in repose has a tragic quality to it, and her smile doesn’t do much to change it.
As we enter their beautiful, opulent home, an oppressive sense of melancholy washes over me, and I don’t understand it.
“Come.” Lefteris motions for us to follow him, and we do, into what looks to be a formal sitting room. The floor is marble, with a huge cream Persian rug dominating the center of the space. A sofa is to one side, and three chairs are dotted around the other.
In front of the chairs is the most insanely luxe coffee table I’ve ever seen. It has a thick oval walnut base. Next is a gold layer, and then another thick layer, this time of icy grey marble.
Good God, the thing must have cost thousands and thousands of pounds. Everywhere I look there are beautiful over the top touches. This whole place is designed to scream and shout that the people living here have a lot of money.
My family are not badly off at all, and my uncle is one of the wealthiest men in Greece, but his house has a homey feel to it. Pictures of him, his wife, and my cousins adorn their hallway. The formal sitting room is all dark wood and leather sofas; their informal one contains a huge sectional sofa, beanbags, and a massive TV. They don’t go in for ostentation like Lefteris and his family clearly do.
“I’m sorry you had to read about my son’s exploits in the media.” Lefteris drags me out of my contemplation with his words.