The Freshman (Kingmakers)

by Sophie Lark

  Miles steps out from behind Ares, hands still tucked in his pockets, his face the picture of confused innocence.

  “Why would I have your pen, Professor? What good would it do me—you know I never take notes.”

  “Don’t even try it,” the professor hisses, pale eyes bulging behind his glasses. “Don’t try to smooth-talk me. I’ve lost four pens since the semester started, four very expensive pens, every one gone missing while you were in my class.”

  “I don’t think I’m the only one in that class,” Miles says with calm reason.

  “You’re the only one with sticky fingers and the absolute fucking cheek to steal from me,” the professor says, standing with his nose only an inch from Miles’s.

  “Isn’t your pen right there?” Miles asks, nodding toward the breast pocket of the professor’s sport coat.

  “That is a different pen,” the professor says. “The last one remaining in my possession, in fact. This is a La Dona Menagerie fountain pen with a crocodile head design, individually numbered, one of only eight hundred and eighty-eight that were ever made!”

  All of us gaze in wonder at the bit of the professor’s pen protruding out of his pocket. I don’t know shit about pens, but the silver filigree cap does look expensive, particularly if the tiny red stones studded all over it are genuine rubies.

  “As you very well know,” the professor hisses at Miles, “the pen you stole this morning was a Romain Jerome, made with reclaimed materials from the Titanic. Completely different in color and style.”

  “That does sound lovely,” Miles says. “But unfortunately I only use Montblancs. Romain Jerome is a little bougie for my tastes.”

  I think I’m about to watch the professor have an aneurysm on the spot. His face has gone way past red all the way to deep purple.

  Unamused, he barks, “Turn out your pockets!”

  “Don’t you need a warrant for that?” Miles says in that dry tone that never betrays if he’s joking.

  “When you step foot on this campus, you sign your life over to me, boy,” the professor hisses. “I could have you stripped and hung naked from the Gatehouse if I cared to do it.”

  “Professor Graves . . .” Miles says, one eyebrow raised. “I didn’t know you thought about me that way . . .”

  The professor’s hand twitches, and I’m pretty certain he wants to seize Miles by the throat and throttle him. I’ve wanted to do that a time or two myself, so I have a certain level of sympathy. But the bulk of my focus is on the impossible task of trying to smother the laugh threatening to bubble up inside of me. Professor Graves is clearly about to snap, and it would be just like Miles to wind him up to the breaking point, only to have the brunt of his fury pour out on me instead because I’m stupid enough to let out a snort.

  “Turn. Out. Your. Pockets,” the professor seethes.

  “Alright,” Miles says, pretending to be cowed into obedience.

  He turns out the pockets of his trousers, revealing only a couple of coins, a lone stick of gum, a bent piece of wire that looks like rubbish, though I have a sneaking suspicion could be used to pick a small and simple lock—like the sort that would keep a desk closed.

  “Hmm.” Miles shrugs. “No pen, I guess.”

  Professor Graves narrows his eyes, looking Miles over once more as if he might have said pen tucked behind his ear. I can tell he doesn’t want to back down, but he can’t think where else Miles might have hidden it. My cousin would never carry anything as plebeian as a book bag.

  “This is your last warning,” he says to Miles, in quiet fury.

  “Professor,” Miles says, his face fixed in such an expression of sincerity that even I almost believe it. “I know we got off to a rocky start last year, but this year I’m determined to live up to your highest expectations of me. I really think you’ll find that I surprise you.”

  “I doubt it,” Graves says coldly. “Now clear out of here, this isn’t a place to congregate.”

  “Yes, sir,” Miles says with a little salute.

  The salute goes from his forehead straight out toward the professor. Graves is already turning away, so he doesn’t see Miles’s nimble fingertips making contact with the breast pocket of his jacket. Even I wouldn’t have noticed the flash of silver in my cousin’s hand, if I weren’t looking for it.

  The professor stalks away.

  Miles waits until he’s fully gone before holding up Professor Graves’s very last pen, turning the fine silver cap so it glistens in the sunlight.

  “He’s right,” Miles says. “This really is an expensive pen.”

  “Going to add it to your collection?” I laugh.

  “Oh, I didn’t keep the others,” Miles says carelessly. And with that, he chucks the pen in a clump of grass at the base of the Armory. I see Ares give it a wistful look, like he might have wanted to use it, but he doesn’t stoop to pick it up again. Ozzy has no such compunction—he grabs it and stuffs it in his pocket.

  “Why do you come to school if you’re determined to antagonize the teachers and never learn anything?” Anna says to Miles.

  “Oh, I learn things,” Miles says. “Just not exactly what they’re teaching.”

  “What does that professor teach?” I ask.

  “Finance,” Miles says. “You’ll probably have him, too. Luckily neither of you has the last name Griffin, so he won’t hold it against you.”

  I’m not so sure about that. But on the other hand, I’m sure Miles isn’t the only student causing trouble at Kingmakers.

  Speaking of which . . .

  “I saw Dean Yenin,” I tell Miles.

  “Oh yeah?” he says, without much interest.

  “He’s just as big an asshole as you’d expect.”

  Miles shrugs. “Assholes and psychopaths. That’s half the kids at this place.”

  “The rest of them don’t have a grudge against us.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” Miles says. “Anyway, I don’t care about any grudge. So our grandfathers wanted to kill each other—who gives a fuck. We never met either of them.”

  Actually, Miles is the only one of us who did meet Papa Enzo, even if Miles was just a baby at the time. Plus he still has his other grandfather Fergus Griffin, while both of mine are dead. Maybe that’s why he acts like it doesn’t matter. Or maybe Miles truly doesn’t give a fuck about anything.

  I’ve never been quite as close to Miles as to Anna. Not only because he’s a year older than us, but because he’s the only kid I know who slightly intimidates me. He’s so fucking reckless. If there’s a rule, he wants to break it deliberately, just to see what happens. There’s no line for him. Nothing he won’t do.

  He reminds me of my uncle Nero, who can be pretty fucking scary. Actually, most of my relatives are scary in one way or another. Uncle Dante is the size of a buffalo and could break your back with two fingers. I’ve heard rumors of what my own father had to do to secure his position as Don. Even my Aunt Aida—Miles’s mom—has this streak of wildness you wouldn’t expect from a politician’s wife with three kids. On a trip to Hawaii I saw her dive off a sixty-foot cliff into the ocean, laughing like a maniac, with no idea what was in the water below.

  In a way it comforts me, knowing they all share that streak of madness that bubbles up in me sometimes.

  But it scares me, too, because it feels like we’re all race cars careening around on a track, barely clinging to our sense of control.

  At Preston Heights, I was surrounded by a bunch of Camrys and Fiats. Now I’m at Kingmakers with a whole lot of other revved-up racers. And in the mass of Ferraris and Maseratis, it seems impossible that none of us will collide, bursting spectacularly into flame.

  Miles and Ozzy join Anna, Ares, and me for lunch in the dining hall. The tables are packed with students.

  Miles points out some of the kids from families we know—people I’ve met before, or just heard of in passing.

  “That’s Calvin Caccia over there,” Miles says, nodding in the dire
ction of a surly-looking boy with a massive diamond stud in one ear, shoveling down a plate of fresh-made pasta as quickly as possible. “He’s a Junior, heir to one of the Five Families in New York.”

  Next to Calvin sits a reedy, bespectacled boy who’s talking in his friend’s ear a mile a minute.

  “That’s Damari Ragusa,” Miles says. “He doesn’t look like much, but he’s got a half-dozen siblings at this school, and they’re all connected with the Italian families in Palermo and New York.“

  “I think I met his brother on the boat over,” I say.

  “Matteo?” Miles says, already ahead of me. “Yeah, he’s the baby of the family. Probably an Accountant like the rest of them.”

  “Who’s that over there?” Ares asks, pointing to a table of well-groomed students. They’ve got uniforms on like the rest of us, but there’s an undefinable air of style and wealth about them. It helps that half of them are blond and extremely good-looking.

  “That’s Jules and Claire Turgenev, Neve and Ilsa Markov, Louis Faucheux, and Coraline Paquet,” Miles lists them off without hesitation. “The Markov sisters are from Moscow, and the Turgenevs are Paris Bratva.”

  “Siblings?” Ares asks.

  Jules and Claire Turgenev certainly look alike—both have the same ash-blond hair and eyes of a peculiar smoky green. They look more like poets than mafiosos—Jules’s hair is long and sun-streaked, and he wears a cross dangling from one ear. Claire has a dreamy expression and clear evidence of paint under her fingernails.

  “Cousins,” Miles corrects him. “Bit of a messy situation, actually. Claire’s a year older, but Jules is the first male. Her mom and his dad are half-siblings. They operate the Paris Bratva as a triumvirate, with Claire’s dad as the third member. Not sure who’s actually supposed to inherit, or if they plan to keep that up. Both Jules and Claire are enrolled as Heirs.”

  “Jules is in my dorm,” I say.

  “He’s a Freshman.” Miles nods. “Claire’s a Sophomore.”

  “There’s Bram Van Der Berg,” Anna glances toward the table where Bram sits with a half-dozen friends—not Dean, though. “We met him in Dubrovnik. He was kind of an asshole.”

  “All the Penose are like that,” Miles says carelessly.

  Miles seems to know everyone, and everyone knows him. A dozen different people stop by our table to give him a quick fist bump or ask a question or shoot the shit. Even the Juniors and Seniors seem to respect him.

  Twice I see someone slip Miles cash while they shake his hand, and once I see him pass a little packet back in return. Looks like my cousin is up to his old tricks. I’m sure whatever he’s supplying is all the more valuable in the isolated environment of the island.

  “He’s in our dorm, too,” I say, nodding toward Hedeon Gray, who took a seat next to his roommate Kenzo, but probably regrets it since all of Kenzo’s friends are chatting away in Japanese.

  Hedeon is handsome with a cleft chin, athletic build, and freshly-cut dark hair styled in a fade. But he’s got a permanent scowl and a defensive hunch to his shoulders that makes him look fundamentally unapproachable. He’s attacking his lunch like he hates it.

  “They made him the Heir, huh?” Miles says, raising an eyebrow.

  “Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “He’s adopted,” Miles says. “He’s not really a Gray. And he’s not the only adopted son, either. His brother’s right over there.”

  Miles inclines his head in the direction of a table of Enforcers. I hope he’s not talking about the guy who looks like he was carved out of granite with a dull chisel. He looks even grumpier than Hedeon, if such a thing is possible.

  “That’s his brother?”

  “Silas Gray.” Miles nods. “Now that’s your classic psychopath. The Grays have spent more money paying off his victims than he’ll ever earn for them. Probably why they gave the title to Hedeon.”

  I notice Hedeon didn’t even consider sitting at his brother’s table. There can’t be much love lost between them if they won’t even eat together.

  “Where’s the Chancellor?” I ask Miles curiously. “I thought we’d meet him by now.”

  I remember the inky signature of Luther Hugo on my Kingmakers acceptance letter.

  “Trust me, you’re better off not seeing him,” Miles says. “If you run into him, it means you’ve gotten yourself in pretty deep shit.”

  “Is he scary or something?” I say.

  “Yes,” Miles says bluntly. “Anyway, you’ll meet him once the Quartum Bellum starts.”

  “When will that be?” I ask, trying to keep the eagerness out of my voice.

  “Couple of weeks,” Miles says.

  “Are you going to try to get the Captainship?”

  “Fuck no.” Miles shakes his head. “I don’t want that shit on my shoulders.”

  “I’d take it,” Ozzy says. “Better to be the boss than have to listen to whatever other asshole gets it. It’s like being president—if somebody actually wants the job, they’re probably the worst person to do it.”

  “But you said you want it,” Miles says.

  “Exactly.” Ozzy grins. “And I’m the worst person to do it.”

  “What about you?” I say to Anna and Ares.

  “Maybe,” Anna says, frowning. “I’d have to know more about it.”

  I look over at Ares to see his opinion.

  “Not me.” He shakes his head. “I’m not interested in that.”

  I don’t know if that’s actually true, or if Ares just thinks nobody would want to take orders from him, since he’s not exactly at the top of the social order here.

  “I want it,” I say firmly. “Because I want to win the whole damn thing.”

  Miles scoffs. “Freshmen never win.”

  “I will,” I say.

  Miles just shakes his head at me, laughing silently. “Never change, cuz,” he says.

  That night, something happens to me that has never happened before.

  I’m lying in bed in my dorm room, with Ares fast asleep on the other side of the room. He seems to have gone unconscious the second his head touched the pillow, but I’m still way too hyped up by the fact that I’m actually at Kingmakers, on an island in the middle of the Adriatic Sea.

  My brain is swimming with all the sights and sounds of the day, plus all the wild fantasies I have for the upcoming year.

  Fantasies are so much more than dreams—they’re a vision of the path you need to take to get what you want.

  Professional athletes know this. The visualization in your mind is as important as the physical practice in the gym.

  So when I’m laying here like this, I’m not just reveling in pleasant dreams. I’m picturing my future.

  I see myself becoming Captain. I see myself becoming the first Freshman to ever win the Quartum Bellum. And then I see myself taking over as Don of Chicago. Becoming the most powerful mafia boss on the east coast. And then in all of America.

  The fantasy builds and builds as I see my future self achieve success after success.

  But because I am exhausted, after a time I lose control of my brain and it starts to drift and float, and it starts spinning these visions without any conscious control. What I see becomes richer in detail, more real than the room around me, or the sound of the ocean hitting the cliffs far below.

  I see the mansion I’ll live in someday, even larger and grander than my parents’ house. I see a yacht, a private jet, a bank account with an impossible number of zeroes.

  And then I see something I’ve never seen before: two little children running around my house. Twins, of exactly the same height. They’re turned away from me, so I can’t see their faces, but I hear their little voices babbling as they talk and laugh, and I see their dark curls, just like mine at that age. I hear their little feet padding as they run away from me across a thick Persian rug.

  I’ve never pictured having children before. I guess I always assumed I would, but I’m only eighteen—it’s not anything I’m anxious to
experience right now.

  Still, it makes sense that a vision of my future would include the children who will continue the Gallo line. Why build an empire if there’s nobody to receive it?

  And in that dreamlike state, I feel myself turn around, looking for my wife.

  Instead, I see Anna standing right behind me. Anna wearing an elegant black gown, her long sheaf of silver-blonde hair laying over her shoulder.

  I immediately feel a pang of guilt, because I’m not supposed to look at Anna like this. Any idiot can see that she’s beautiful, but I’m not supposed to notice that she’s sexy. I’m not supposed to imagine wrapping my hands around her tiny waist, or pressing my lips against the silky smooth skin on the side of her long, elegant neck. I’m not supposed to imagine pulling the thin straps of that gown down her shoulders, baring those perfect breasts, and covering them with my hands . . .

  I’ve been told that Anna is family all my life. I was raised to treat her like a sibling or a cousin.

  Any time I noticed how good her hair smelled, or how full her lips had become, I smothered that thought, if for no other reason than to keep Uncle Miko from murdering me. I told myself there were other beautiful girls, and I should pay attention to them.

  I tried . . . I went on so many dates. But too often when I had the chance to take a girl out for a second or third time, something came up with Anna—she asked me to see a movie or told me she was going to some party. And every time I chose hanging out with her instead.

  Now, in this dream-state, I see Anna standing in front of me, looking her most stunning, her most sensual. Her ice-blue eyes fixed on mine, her full, pouting lips quirked up in that mocking smile that means she’s up to trouble . . .

  She trails her fingers down my chest, all the way from my breastbone down to the waist of my jeans.

  Looking up at me she says, “Leo . . . is your cock as big as the rest of you?”

  I swallow hard.

  “Do you want to see?” I whisper.

  Anna nods, never taking her eyes off mine.

  “You do it,” I say. “Unzip my pants.”

  I see her slim, pale hands fumbling with the button of my jeans, succeeding on the second try. Then she pulls the zipper down. My jeans slide right off me and disappear. Magically, my underwear does the same.