The Bully (Kingmakers)

by Sophie Lark

  “You don’t give the orders,” Dean rebukes him, his tone as sharp as a slap. It smacks the smile right off Valon’s face, and he sulks instead.

  “She’s getting up anyway,” he grouses.

  Dean ignores him. He wants to enjoy watching me cross the dining hall once more so I can retrieve his fucking milk.

  I walk as quickly as I can to get this over with, grabbing the first frosty glass bottle of milk I see and carrying it back to him, slamming it down just a little too hard in front of him.

  “There you go, your majesty,” I say.

  My face is flaming as I sit down once more.

  “I want grapes, too,” Dean says.

  I turn to stare at him, thoroughly incensed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me when I—”

  It only takes one look in those crazed eyes to shut my mouth. Dean is fully invested in this game, and that means he’s only too happy to deal out consequences if I disobey. Silently, I stand once more to walk back over to the food.

  Dean’s friends watch this parade with avid interest. I’m quite sure that none of them know how Dean acquired his own personal servant, and their curiosity is mixed with envy. For a bunch of power-hungry douchebags, nothing could be more appealing than a girl forced to jump to attention every time they snap their fingers.

  I seize a bundle of purple grapes, grown in the vineyards outside the castle grounds, and I ferry them back to Dean like an obedient little waitress. I plop them down next to the milk and resume my seat, praying he doesn’t have any other cravings.

  “Feed them to me,” Dean orders.

  “. . . You want me to feed you grapes?”

  “That’s right,” he smirks.

  I hope he chokes on these fucking grapes. I’d like to ram them right down his throat.

  Instead, I pluck off one dusky purple orb and hold it out to him. Dean’s full lips part as he opens his mouth.

  I place the grape on his tongue. As I pull my hand back, my fingers graze his lower lip. A shiver runs down my spine.

  I’m certain Dean sees me twitch. He doesn’t miss a thing.

  He bites down hard on the grape, crushing it in his mouth.

  “Very good,” he says, in that deathly low voice.

  Every boy at the table is staring like they’re watching a peep show.

  “What else can you make her do?” Pasha whispers.

  I’m sure Dean’s friends aren’t the only ones watching this mortifying display. I don’t dare look over at Anna’s table. She must think I’ve morphed into a masochist in the few short weeks since Chicago.

  The problem is that if I can’t look at Anna, and I can’t look at Dean’s leering friends, the only place left to fix my eyes is on Dean himself.

  Strangely, his injuries, the marks of his mortality, only make Dean seem all the more inhuman because he refuses to acknowledge them. Refuses to be cowed or humbled.

  I watched Dean win that boxing tournament almost unscathed. I’d hate to meet the man who actually landed a blow on him.

  “Another,” he says, his eyes drilling into mine.

  I pluck another grape off the stem, lifting it to his lips.

  This time, his tongue slides against the ball of my thumb as he takes it from my fingers. That instant of wet, hot friction sends a flushing warmth through my whole body. I know my face is bright red, I know I’m squirming in my seat. I don’t understand how my body can betray me like this when I fucking hate Dean!

  How can I loathe someone so much, and yet I can’t take my eyes off him? I’ve never been so present. I see the tiny golden hairs on Dean’s skin, the minute lines on his perfectly-shaped lips, the edges of his strong, white teeth. I feel his breath on my fingertips, warm from his lungs and faintly scented grape.

  “That’s enough,” Dean says softly. “Clear my dishes away.”

  I’m happy to clear his dishes, just to get away from him and the encircling mass of the other four boys, who have leaned over the table so they can watch our every movement. Bram Van Der Berg frowns suspiciously, his vertical scar and narrowed eye forming a shape like the crosshairs of a trigger pointed directly at me.

  Why does Dean have to be so public about this? People are going to ask questions.

  He doesn’t give a fuck. It’s the brazenness that excites him.

  I drop the dishes off with the kitchen staff, not having eaten a single bite of food. Dammit, now I really am starving.

  Too late. Dean appears at my side, already carrying my bookbag. He thrusts it into my hands, and then as soon as I sling it over my shoulder, he dumps his own armful of books on me.

  “Carry those,” he orders, tossing back his shock of white-blond hair.

  “Fine,” I mutter, staggering under the weight of the books.

  I’m seething with fury, and it’s only the first day of this treatment.

  I’m not going to make it through the school year. I’m just not.

  I’m going to snap and strangle Dean, and then he’s going to rat me out to the Chancellor, and they’ll reopen the investigation into Rocco’s death, and they’ll find evidence that it was me, because I wasn’t that fucking sneaky. I know there’s some mistake, some piece of evidence I missed that will tie me to his death as soon as Luther Hugo knows where to look.

  I stalk alongside Dean, arms burning under the combined weight of his books and mine.

  Once again I’m a little shadow, stuck to the side of a smarter, stronger person.

  Only this time, it’s not my lovely sister I’m trailing.

  I’m bound to the devil instead.

  5

  Dean

  My control over Cat Romero is an aphrodisiac to which I am quickly becoming addicted. Every morning my heart rate quickens as I descend the stairs of the Octagon Tower, knowing she’ll be waiting there for me, her big dark eyes taking up half the space of her face, and her arms wrapped tight around her petite frame.

  I’ve spent all night long imagining how I’m going to order her around. Picturing that indignant pink flush that suffuses her cheeks, drowning out her freckles, and the way her body trembles with barely-contained fury as she’s forced to stuff down the retorts she’d so sorely love to return, in favor of simply obeying.

  She hates it, yet she has to do it.

  And that is indescribably delicious to me.

  All my life I’ve been fucked over. My father bitter and maimed, spiraling into claustrophobic rages until he drove my mother away. My mother fleeing when I was only ten years old, abandoning me to my father’s madness. The remnant of our once-proud family sidelined by the Bratva, while those who betrayed us flourished in Chicago.

  Then I came to Kingmakers, only to watch the one girl I’d ever desired reject me for my worst enemy, my own fucking golden-boy cousin who lives the life I should have had.

  Nothing has ever gone right for me.

  Until now.

  Cat is a gift that fell into my lap.

  And nothing and no one can take her from me—because I know her secret. I hold her life in my hands. As long as she and I are the only two people who know what she did to Rocco Prince, I’m free to torment her to my heart’s content.

  God, how I love it.

  I love the way she serves me, resentful but submissive. I love the way Bram and the others are racking their brains, dying to know why this girl follows after me like an obedient puppy. And most of all I love the way it’s driving Anna Wilk and Leo Gallo crazy, because they can’t comprehend why Cat leaves the shelter of their protection to return to me again and again.

  Miles Griffin would have figured it out. But he’s six thousand miles away in Los Angeles, along with Cat’s sister. Cat is all alone, completely at my mercy.

  I’m slowly expanding my control over her.

  Testing her.

  I tell her what to wear each day, and how to wear it. I like her green skirts the best, and her thick black knee socks that highlight her innocence. Her hair has grown longer since last year, the
wild curls down below her shoulders. I tell her when to put it up in a ponytail, and when to hold it back from her face with a band.

  She’s my own personal doll that I can dress to my tastes.

  I know it infuriates her. My demands are arbitrary and capricious. And that’s exactly what I enjoy—never letting her get comfortable. Never letting her know what’s coming next.

  I spend a lot of time watching my little pet. I’ve come to know every freckle on those delicate cheeks. Every thick, black lash on those wide-set eyes.

  Cat Romero is pretty.

  Her beauty isn’t as obvious as her sister’s.

  But the more I see of Cat, the more I begin to fixate on the details of her person. Her smooth, tan skin and her perfectly-shaped hands, like a suit of armor made in miniature to show the craftsmanship. Her pale pink lips, as heart-shaped as her face. Her sharp white teeth that flash into view when she dares to snarl at me.

  I wondered if I would get tired of this game, but the more I play with her, the more I want.

  My classes seem interminable, because I’d much rather be greeting her outside the door, her face flushed and sweating because she had to run across campus from her class to mine.

  It amuses me to see her struggle to carry my books. She’s so small that she can hardly bear a burden that I could lift with two fingers. I could hoist up all of Cat with one hand. My arm itches to do it. I remember the times I’ve picked her up right off her feet, the sense of complete control it gave me to lift her and hold her like she really were just a tiny kitten dangling from my jaws.

  I’ve been making her write my papers for me. I could easily do it myself, but it’s tedious to write out the paragraphs by hand. I get a perverse pleasure watching her pause between sentences, shaking out her cramped fingers. I’ve spent hours watching her work, tilted back in my chair while she sits on the other side of the library table, her delicate neck bent over the page, her dark curls covering her angry expression.

  I want to push her further. I’m craving it.

  I’m consumed with dark fantasies of what I could make Cat do . . .

  Meanwhile, I’ve returned to Snow’s boxing class.

  That Wednesday after I tried to fight him with humiliating results, I entered the Armory gym with shoulders back, head held high. I was daring the other students to say one fucking word about that fight. I planned to put them in their place before the sentence left their lips.

  But Snow was already standing in place on the mats, silencing even Vanya Antonov with his formidable bulk.

  He gave us a lesson on footwork, then split us up once more to practice.

  This time, he paired me with Kade Petrov.

  I had to swallow my irritation, knowing that he was testing me to see if I would use excessive force against a Freshman again.

  I certainly was tempted. Kade was only a little better than Tristan Turgenev—quick and eager, but sloppy, undisciplined. He’d keep his head for a couple of rounds, then get over-confident, leaving himself wide open.

  I popped him a few times as a reminder, but under the watchful eye of Snow, I was careful not to exceed the bounds of the exercise.

  “Zaebis, you’re good,” Kade said admiringly.

  “You could be, too, if you kept your focus,” I muttered.

  “How long have you been boxing?” he asked me.

  I shrugged. “All my life.”

  I learned how to fight as soon as the boys at school got a look at my father. They already mocked me for my accent—I spoke English too much at home with my mother. They called my father a monster, and my mother an American whore. I fought three, four, five of them at once, coming home every day with bloody noses and blackened eyes, until I learned to do enough damage to shut their fucking mouths. Some of those boys became my friends. Some fought me in the underground matches years later.

  One is at Kingmakers with me now—Pasha Tsaplin. He’s Bratva too, though his father is a drunken disgrace. He only got into school on the strength of Danyl’s recommendation, same as me. He owes Danyl four years’ service for that favor. I suppose I got off lucky with only two.

  “My brother taught me to box,” Kade said.

  “Adrik is famous at Kingmakers,” I said.

  “I know,” Kade sighed.

  I supposed it was a lot to live up to. But that’s the nature of our world—you must surpass the achievements of your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfather. That is empire building.

  After class, Snow clapped me on the shoulder.

  “You did well today,” he told me.

  “You mean I was a better babysitter,” I snorted.

  “If you can’t teach something, then you don’t know it very well yourself,” Snow said.

  I nodded, struggling against my residual resentment over how easily he’d beaten me.

  As he was about to tidy up the gym, I burst out, “What was it like fighting Rueben Hagler?”

  Snow turned back, cocking one graying eyebrow.

  “It was one of the hardest fights of my life,” he said, his gravelly voice heavy with exhaustion just from the memory of it. “Hagler was known as an intelligent and adaptable boxer. No matter how you tried to change your strategy in the fight, he would match it. I was past my peak at that point. Defending my belt against the up-and-comer—”

  “I know!” I interrupted, unable to help myself. “I watched the fight live on TV. My father let me stay up—we were in Moscow, so it was late, almost two o’clock in the morning before it even began.”

  Snow shook his head. “You must have been a baby . . .”

  “I was four. I did fall asleep, but my father woke me up when you walked out to the ring. Hagler had played his fight song, like boxers always do, but when you entered, the lights went down until there was only this pale white beam on the ring, and no music, only a soft, whispering noise like snowflakes falling down . . .”

  Snow chuckled. “He hated that sound. All the boxers did. They were trying to amp themselves up before the fight. The quiet took the heart right out of them.”

  “It was mesmerizing,” I said, fully immersed in the memory of sitting on my father’s lap, heavy with sleep, but glued to the television screen where the powerful boxer stepped into the ring, pale and blond just like me, with eyes of glittering ice. I’d never seen anyone more terrifying.

  “The fight started out rough. I tried to keep my distance. I had a good reach, and Hagler was known for using lateral movements, working the body. But it was no good. He kept the pressure on me, finding the perfect moment to throw his power blows right to my fuckin’ liver. I had never taken hits like that. They bent me over.”

  Snow winced, as if he could still feel the phantom blows.

  “God, he was quick, too. He frustrated me. He would hit me with a punch, I’d try to return one, and I couldn’t fucking find him, it was like he’d turned to smoke. He was damaging me. I couldn’t feel all the hits, but I felt myself getting slow and stiff.”

  I remembered all this. How the older champion had been attacked again and again by the vicious young phenom, who had double the odds at the bookies. Everyone said Hagler would be the man to take Snow down.

  “Did you think he would win?” I asked Snow, watching his face closely to see the truth, whatever he might reply.

  “No,” Snow said, firm and decisive.

  “Not even for a minute?”

  “No.” Snow shook his head.

  “But . . . how? How did you know you’d come back and win?”

  Snow smiled to himself.

  “I knew I would win because I promised Sasha I would,” he said. “And I’ve never failed her yet.”

  I looked at him narrowly, thinking he was joking.

  It was a ridiculous answer. No boxer could win a fight just to please his wife.

  Snow could see my incredulity.

  “A fight isn’t won by belief. But once you’ve done all you can in the gym . . .” He tapped my chest once more, remind
ing me of our previous conversation. “The last bit is in here. You’ll know that it’s true. Once you’ve found it yourself.”

  I found it infuriating that Snow kept talking about boxing as if it had anything to do with emotion. Yet I kept thinking over what he said as I ran to my next class.

  I’d already missed Cat, who must have gone on without me when I failed to appear. I also missed International Banking, Professor Graves having already shut and locked the door.

  I ended up walking through the greenhouses, wondering if there was any truth to Snow’s ideology. I had always thought of him as the ultimate machine, fighting with what looked like cold logic and unfailing brilliance. I thought it was his wit and nerves that sustained him.

  He was trying to tell me it was what . . . love?

  The idea was laughable.

  Still, I lingered after class to talk with Snow several more times. And I began to enjoy his sessions more and more, as the intricacy and difficulty of the instruction increased.

  Now it’s become my favorite class.

  I think that sentiment is shared among all of us who attend. It’s impossible not to respect Snow’s methods, or his skills, which hardly seemed to have dulled since his days as a champion.

  Every one of the students is improving in leaps and bounds. None more than me, in my not-so-humble opinion.

  I keep working with Kade, who shows flashes of brilliance when he can control his impulsiveness. Sometimes I pair with Jasper Webb, one of the better fighters in the class. He’s definitely the quickest, which is useful for honing my reflexes.

  Even Vanya Antonov is developing, though he’s still sloppy and arrogant. I despise him, and the feeling is clearly mutual. He needles me every chance he gets, trying to goad me into losing my temper in front of Snow. I haven’t obliged just yet, but I’m aching to wipe that smug grin off his face.

  I know a conflict is coming.

  Vanya can’t beat me in grades or performance.

  So I know he’ll be looking for another way to bring me down.

  6

  Cat