Chosen: Part One

by Josie Litton

  With a mental shake, I steeled myself. I was wearing heels but even with them he was inches taller. Without them, I wouldn’t come any higher than his broad shoulders. But more than that, even through the fine wool of his bespoke suit, I could feel the power of sinew and muscle under taut skin. My contrary mind instantly conjured up thoughts of how he would feel all over. For the first time with any man, I desperately wanted to find out.

  What on earth was wrong with me? I should have been repulsed by the potential for violence that I felt so clearly just beneath the veneer of his civilized manner. But instead, I found it both arousing and bizarrely reassuring. What did that say about me?

  I was still pondering that when we reached the table and Adam released me to hold out my chair. Our bodies brushed as I sank into it.

  I told myself that was an accident but when it was followed by the light stroke of his fingers across the nape of my bared neck, I knew that his actions were deliberate. The shimmer of pleasure that ran from his touch all the way down my spine coalesced in my core. My nipples hardened. To my shame, I had to bite back a soft moan.

  The knowing gleam in his eyes as he sat down next to me left no doubt that he understood exactly the effect his touch had. My resolve hardened. If I accomplished nothing else, I had to find a way to right the balance between us.

  The family dining room also looked out toward the park. I was distantly aware of the bright streams of traffic passing on the other side of its dark swathe. All around us the life of the city went on, millions of people hoping, dreaming, striving. But as the minutes passed, I became less aware of any of it. My perception narrowed to the man at my side. All my senses focused on him.

  Our surroundings--the pretty Chinese silk wall coverings, the Chippendale furnishing, the works of art--seemed an incongruous setting for such a powerful, dangerous being. They only served to emphasis the aura of unrestrained will that emanated from him.

  It occurred to me that whereas I felt compelled to play roles, he did not. He was exactly as he had been during our two previous encounters--proud, compelling, in control. And yet I couldn’t shake the certainty that his motives, whatever was truly driving him, were deeply concealed.

  As the appetizers were served, the talk around the table was light and predictable--how pleasant the weather was, whether New York property values were likely to overtake London’s, the prospects for an improvement in the commodities markets, and so on.

  But before long, my father took the conversation in a more pointed direction.

  “If you don’t mind my saying, Adam, you’re very young for the position you hold.” His smile was shrewd but it didn’t reach his eyes. They remained narrowed and assessing.

  “You’re what, twenty-eight?” He chuckled. “When I was that age, I’d just made partner at a financial firm here in the city and felt damn lucky to have accomplished that. You’ve certainly achieved far more.”

  Adam’s smile was disarmingly modest. Given what I had seen of his character, I wondered how he managed it.

  “My position is partly hereditary,” he said. “The head of my family has always been chosen from the direct male line. However, the family council still had to give their approval.”

  “What is this…family council?” my father asked.

  “It’s made up of the heads of every branch of the Falzon family. You could think of it as a board of directors. I became a member when I was fifteen. Seven years ago, when I turned twenty-one, I was chosen to lead the council.”

  “So young,” my mother exclaimed. “Is that usual for your family?”

  “Not at all,” Adam said. “But I had shown that I was ready.”

  I waited, wondering if my parents would express any curiosity about how he had done so. When neither did, I realized that, like Will, they were aware of the rumors about his parents’ deaths and his own brutal response. They simply didn’t care.

  Such was the allure of Adam’s power and wealth, they would deliver their daughter up to him without a second thought. A shiver ran through me. My hand shook as I reached for my wine glass and took a small sip. I didn’t dare allow myself more. Above all, I needed to keep a clear head.

  “Your position must entail a great deal of responsibility,” my father was saying.

  “It does,” Adam replied. I wasn’t looking at him but I felt his eyes on me as he continued. “The decisions that I make not only affect the well-being of my family, they also impact the lives of families that have served us for generations. It is my duty to assure their welfare, not just materially but so that they can live in peace and with dignity. That comes above all else.”

  His words surprised me. I had been so busy thinking of him as a violent killer who disturbingly was also the most compelling man I had ever met that it hadn’t occurred to me there might be more to his nature.

  Yet what he had just said spoke to a genuine commitment to the welfare of others that went far beyond any I had encountered in my own family, or for that matter in the world around me. In fact, I had to reach back into memories of college anthropology and history courses to find anything to relate it to.

  “What you’re describing sounds like what used to be the foundation of all human societies,” I said. “No one lived just for themselves. Everyone had duties and obligations to each other.”

  My insight clearly surprised him. Yes, Mister Falzon, I have a brain!

  He nodded in approval. “Exactly. The fact that much of the modern world has discarded that system in favor of one that is far more exploitive doesn’t matter. For the Falzons, nothing has changed.”

  “But surely,” my mother said, “your life isn’t just about duty. You can do as you wish, can’t you?”

  For the first time that I had seen, his smile was just a little pained. Quietly, he said, “I wasn’t raised to think that way. Fortunately, I’m well suited to fulfill my obligations.”

  His willingness to open up about himself emboldened my curiosity. Forgetting that it was unwise to show any interest in him, I asked, “How long has your family been on Malta?”

  “We arrived in the spring of 1091, shortly after Easter.” He spoke matter-of-factly, as though describing events of no more than a few decades ago. “My ancestors were part of the wave of Norman conquerors who had already taken over Sicily. They liked what they found on Malta so they decided to stay.”

  “More than nine hundred years ago,” I said, unable to hide my astonishment. “That’s incredible.”

  “Perhaps, but looked at another way, we’ve been on Malta far longer.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He smiled, as though anticipating my reaction to what he was about to say.

  “When my Norman forbearers arrived there, they wasted no time laying claim to the daughters of the old Muslim and Byzantine families that had ruled Malta.”

  A shiver ran down my back. Too easily, I could envision that Falzon men, possessed of the same ruthless savagery that Adam himself had shown at such a young age, cutting a swathe through all opposition to take what they regarded as theirs.

  Without taking my eyes off him, I asked, “Did they? And how did those women feel about that?”

  He shrugged. “Some of them didn’t come willingly, at least not at first. But by all evidence the marriages were successful in the long run. Besides, it was hardly as though we were doing anything new by asserting our rights as conquerors. Those old families had done the same with the even older Greek and Roman lineages that were on Malta before them. We became heir to them all.”

  I tried to comprehend what he was saying. His paternal lineage dated back almost a millennium. But on the maternal side, which he didn’t hesitate to acknowledge, his heritage extended far longer into the distant past.

  No wonder he had such a powerful sense of duty. He had been bred for it. In his blood and bone, in his very soul, he must have understood from the youngest age what it truly meant to belong to something vastly larger than himself. And to be respon
sible for guiding it safely into the future.

  “Your home on Malta must be extraordinary,” my mother said. Her eyes lit up at the thought. “The art…the antiques…”

  With a start, I realized that she had provided me with the perfect opening. Before I could think better of taking it, I said, “Your parents were art collectors, weren’t they? But they were more interested in modern works.”

  Adam didn’t flinch, at least not visibly. But that didn’t stop me from feeling the sudden surge of surprise, anger and something else--pain?--that coursed through him.

  For the first time, I had caught him off guard. I didn’t know whether to be relieved that I could so or concerned about what his response would be.

  His voice dropped, becoming even more icily controlled. “How do you know about them?” he asked.

  “One of my art history professors mentioned them.” I hesitated but the need to say what I truly felt proved too strong to resist. “I’m sorry about what happened to them. You were so young.”

  I didn’t want to think about the boy he had been, scarcely out of childhood, still so achingly vulnerable. What kind of people had his parents been? Had they loved him? Had he known that they did? Had they made him feel safe, protected, cherished only to have it all ripped from him in a terrible act of violence?

  When I considered it that way, I could understand--at least to a point--the brutality that had awakened in him. But he was a man now, not a boy, and he controlled what amounted to an empire. Surely, he must have mastered his darker urges.

  Believing that should have given me some reassurance. But I wasn’t so naïve as to not realize that Adam’s ability to channel those urges would have only made him even more dangerous than he had been as a desperate boy, trying to kill his way out of grief.

  Belatedly, I realized how wrong I was to take the risk of goading him in any way. If I had any sense of self-preservation at all, I should have been looking for a way to escape his attention, not inadvertently strengthen it.

  If the look in his eyes was any indication, all I had done was focus him even more intently on me.

  I looked away, too taken aback to continue sparring with him. The conversation went on but in safer directions. I half listened, joining in from time to time only to avoid drawing yet more scrutiny.

  Mostly I just watched as he charmed my parents. He did it so easily-- a few words here and there, a smile in my direction, a lingering look as though he couldn’t tear his eyes away. I couldn’t help being impressed.

  At one point, he even said, “Haven House strikes me as a very worthy endeavor. It’s to Grace’s credit that she has chosen to support it.”

  “It certainly is,” my father agreed. Never mind that he had expressed his disapproval in no uncertain terms, going so far as to demand why I wanted to waste my time on those he termed “rejects and scum”. If my involvement with Haven House was acceptable in Adam’s eyes, that was good enough.

  I told myself that I should be grateful. His expression of support might make it easier for me to convince my father to give me access to the funds I needed. But I couldn’t focus on that when I was so distracted by the man himself. By the time dessert was served, I decided to postpone any effort to talk with my father. I needed to be fresh, my mind sharp, before I tackled that.

  Clearly, Adam’s interest had elevated me in my parents’ regard. I would let that sink in for a day or two before trying to make use of it. Even so, I pretended that I wasn’t yet ready to leave as he prepared to depart. I wanted no pressure to accept another lift from him. To my great relief, he didn’t offer one.

  “What a remarkable young man,” my mother said when he was gone, after graciously thanking her for a lovely evening. She beamed me a smile. “You did very well, dear, for the most part.”

  “He’s quite something,” my father agreed. His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “Have you had contact with him before, Grace? When you’ve been in Europe perhaps?”

  I shook my head. “We met for the first time at the gala.”

  “Well, he was obviously aware of you,” my mother said. “According to your grandmother, he arranged for you to be there.” She made no effort to contain her glee.

  I managed a tight smile. “So she gave me to understand. I should be going.”

  “So soon?” my father asked. “Adam would have given you a ride.”

  My mother cast him a quick glance. “Grace is wise to maintain some distance, at least for the moment. He doesn’t strike me as a man who likes things to be too easy for him.”

  My father hesitated but perhaps remembering how he had come to marry the daughter of an old Boston family long on history but desperately short of cash, he deferred to her judgment.

  “Very well,” he said. “I’ll have the car brought round.”

  “No need,” I said quickly. “The doorman will get me a cab.”

  My mother and I exchanged another round of air kisses only this time she gave me a little hug. I managed to hold myself together long enough to say ‘goodnight’ to them both and get out of the apartment.

  I’d survived a family dinner that had felt more like an ambush. But going down in the elevator, I felt no sense of relief. On the contrary, I was already wondering what Adam Falzon’s next move would be.

  Worse yet, a part of me was eager to find out.

  Chapter Ten

  My father was an eminently civilized man, a scholar, a philanthropist, and--as Grace pointed out--a patron of the arts. In addition, he fulfilled his responsibilities as head of the family with diligence and skill. Only on rare occasions did he behave with necessary brutality and then he took no pleasure in it.

  After he died, I had to accept that my resemblance to him, in which I had taken a child’s pride, was nothing more than a façade. The sort of adaptive coloration that certain animals acquire in the wild. In reality, I was a throwback to an earlier era.

  The savage, raw grief that gripped me after my parents’ deaths transformed into rage even before I stood beside their open graves and watched them go into the ground. Pure, unadulterated fury burned away every other human impulse in me. After all these years, it was still the most powerful and honest emotion I had ever experienced.

  Left unchecked, that level of frenzied anger would have destroyed me. But channeled…controlled… That was an entirely different matter.

  I owed my salvation to Rolf. The former colonel in the Swiss military had been my father’s most trusted aide, quietly in the background throughout my childhood. When it ended so abruptly, he stepped forward. While on the surface at least, my life remained that of a privileged--if now orphaned--heir to an aristocratic family, in reality it changed beyond all recognition.

  It was Rolf who took me to the places few people ever saw--the private academies and training camps where the way of the warrior was still taught to the world’s true ruling elite. At first, I chaffed at the restraints such places imposed. But gradually I came to understand that only by putting personal discipline at the center of my being could I fulfill my destiny.

  I was born to kill.

  Not merely for vengeance, although I embraced that wholeheartedly. But by killing those who had taken my parents’ lives, I cast fear into any who would raise a hand against the Falzons and those who served us. The few who were foolish enough to do so in the years that followed met the same end.

  Destruction became my road to salvation.

  Around it laid the landscape of my life. Even I recognized it for the barren, harsh place that it was.

  I’d thought of that at dinner with Grace and her parents. For a brief moment, it was tantalizing to imagine that I really was no more than an eligible young man who had become attracted to a lovely young woman. What could be more natural than for me to seek her out while at the same time assuring that her parents knew and approved of my interest in her? It was old-world, of course, but then so was I.

  The reality, of course, was far different.

  Her indi
gnation at my refusal to respect her wishes provoked me. So much so that I had given into temptation and allowed myself to touch her. I could still feel the shiver that moved through her when my fingers brushed the vulnerable nape of her neck. Her response pleased the beast in me. However, it didn’t change anything.

  Objectively, she was exquisitely fuckable. But the raw bolt of lust I felt the first time I saw her in the flesh still astonished me. I would have to be very careful about that. It gave her power she could not be allowed to have.

  Especially when I recalled the compassion and empathy in her eyes when she spoke of my parents…

  A dart of longing for something I couldn’t even name pierced what passed for my heart. I ignored it and stared across the street. A light rain had begun to fall. Elsewhere in the city, the night was just getting started. But in this quiet, residential neighborhood people were settling in, preparing for a work day tomorrow.

  Several hours ago, I’d watched Grace get out of a cab and walk into her building. Since then, other people had arrived there singly and in couples. I noted with satisfaction that Will Foster was not among them, nor were any of the other men she might have considered suitable paramours. She was alone.

  I told myself that pleased me only because it simplified what was about to happen. But the truth was that at the mere thought of another man’s hands on her, a red mist rose in front my eyes.

  “It’s time,” Rolf said.

  I glanced at the tall, somber man beside me. Everything was in place. There was nothing left to do except initiate the plan that I had worked out with meticulous care before coming to New York.

  My nostrils flared. I could smell the salt tang of the harbor mingling with the aromas coming from a nearby bar and a Chinese restaurant. The light from the street lamps grew brighter. All my senses heightened. Energy rippled through me.

  “The men know only I touch her?”

  Rolf shot me a quick look but he said only, “They do.”

  I nodded. “Then let’s go.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  I was tired when I got back to the apartment. Being with my parents was always stressful, never more so than recently. But Adam’s presence had raised that to a whole new level. Determined to relax, I took a hot shower, put on a pair of soft sleep shorts and a camisole top, and got into bed.