Even if I was just a bystander, I would be able to see that the opposite is true. She can’t even tell that these guys are acting like this because they’re too high to function properly. Luke and Tristan may be the best at installing security systems, but they’re also shit at passing up a joint. I’ve never seen them not high.
I debate whether or not I should be saying something, but I’ve seen her walking around the neighborhood a few times before. Once is enough to merit my concern, but a few times is disturbing. If I don’t treat this situation delicately, it may become a problem for me.
So, remembering to speak tactfully, I say, “You’re on my property,” which is a Hell of a lot better than “get the fuck out of here.”
Her eyes widen, and she shifts her body away from Luke and Tristan, turning her full attention on me. Behind her, they go back to their work, already bored with our conversation. Then again, it may just be me they don’t want to look at. Like most people I’ve met, they’ve always had trouble making eye contact with me.
“You,” she seethes, her venomous voice an invisible but lethal weapon. I can even imagine it slicing through the air.
A lesser man would back down. He would see the craze in her eyes and surrender. I’m many things—an asshole, a jerk, and a douchebag, to name a few—but a lesser man is not one of them. I can’t help but rise to the challenge in her voice, something in me wanting to draw nearer and match her anger with my own.
Truthfully, it’s not her I’m mad at.
I’m mad I had to spend a month in the middle of Nowhere.
I’m mad at Lucy for breaking in.
I’m mad that I have to revamp my security, installing parts from at least a dozen different companies in the case of another break in attempt using a master key.
And mostly, I’m mad that my little brother ordered a hit on me after word had gotten out that I had helped Asher raid a warehouse.
These are the things I’m mad at—not this firecracker of a woman. But man, is she an easy target. Huffing and puffing in front of me, I have no doubt she thinks she’s the big, bad wolf. Little does she know, I eat wolves for breakfast.
“Me,” I mock, my voice cold and belittling.
The condescension in my tone is obvious. After standing upright and taking a step closer, I lean against the railing closer to her and cross my arms casually. My face is the epitome of aloof as I, with careful precision, slowly run my eyes up and down the length of her trim and curvy body.
Anyone can see that, with her clothes on incorrectly and hair disheveled, she’s doing the walk of shame right now. I deliberately paste an amused expression on my face, instinctively knowing it’ll piss her off.
It does.
She takes a step closer, ballsy for such a little thing, and says, “You’ve woken me up every darn day for the last month. This is the last straw.”
I raise a brow. “Darn?”
She isn’t amused. “Yes. Every. Darn. Day. But not anymore. I’m reporting you to the city.” She frowns at me. “If you were nicer, I would have given you a warning.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” I say, unconcerned.
There’s a reason it has been a month of nightly noise, and my neighbors on either side of me haven’t reported a thing. We—John, Dex and I—have an agreement here. They turn a blind eye, field some questions about the mysterious neighbor, and should the need arise, I do favors for them.
Those favors usually involve bloodshed.
If you ask me, businessmen are worse than mobsters.
And between the three of us, we have enough connections in the city to do whatever the Hell we want. That includes making noise at 6 A.M., though it shouldn’t matter. Dex and John are my only neighbors close enough to hear.
They won’t say shit.
“B-but yo—”
I cut her off. “Listen, sweetheart,” I say, intuitively knowing the pet name will piss her off further, though I’m not sure why I want to. It’s probably because I’m an asshole. “You’re clearly out of your depth here. I’ll save you the trouble and let you leave now, with a quarter of your dignity still intact.”
She flounders for a long moment, staring at me with the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. She really is beautiful. I’m not surprised to see her lurking around here, given the resident playboy that lives next door.
With a killer body, a light smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose, and a cocky gleam in her eyes, she looks like an eclectic mix between the Queen Bee and the Girl Next Door. Like she won’t hesitate to tear your heart out and feed it to a homeless puppy, because he’s starving, she feels bad, and she doesn’t like you.
She also looks like Dex’s type. Any man’s type, even, but especially his. Dex is a thirty-years-old, self-made tech millionaire. He’s a blue blood through and through, but the money he’s made is one hundred percent his own and a byproduct of his technological prowess.
Dex hooked me up with my untraceable home network and surveillance system. He’s an average looking guy but an absolute animal when it comes to women, cycling through them quickly, sometimes even multiple times in a day.
I have no doubt that this is one of those girls, though for some reason, she’s acting like she’s staying around here for much longer. I’m tempted to uncross and re-cross my arms, using my strong build to daunt her, but I figure there’s such a thing as too much intimidation. I wouldn’t want her to go running off to the damn cops.
She opens her mouth to say something, but after a moment, she closes it again, huffs, and walks away from me. I try not to watch her retreat, but I can’t help myself. She has a nice ass, and it’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to check out a woman.
But when I turn in the direction of Dex’s house, she’s not there.
I swivel back, surprised when I see her quietly entering John’s brownstone. He doesn’t have a family. He doesn’t have a wife. He doesn’t have a daughter. So why the fuck is she doing her walk of shame to a man almost three times her age?
And why the fuck is it bothering me?
Chapter Four
Don’t get the impression
that you arouse my anger.
You see, one can only be
angry with those he
respects.
Richard M. Nixon
I want to kill that jerk, but the time it will take to do that equates to less time with Mina. I get two hours with her on Saturdays at her state run group home.
That’s it.
Two hours a week.
Eight-point-six hours a month.
One hundred and four hours a year.
That’s less than the amount of hours the average person sleeps in two weeks.
The sobering thought only strengthens my resolve to land John. And with that in mind, I swallow down my angry retort and push my way past John’s nuisance of a neighbor. Only when I’m past the red brick of the outside steps and through the mahogany doors do I allow myself to take a calming breath.
Rolling my eyes at my attire, I strip myself of everything and grab the button down John wore yesterday from the couch. I shrug myself into it, buttoning only one button above my belly button and leaving the rest of my toned body on display. I learned weeks ago about this particular preference of his, and I’ve been greeting him in his button downs ever since.
I’m nothing if not adaptive.
I order breakfast delivered, paying for it with the black AmEx card John gave me last week. Slamming the door on the delivery kid’s face when he gapes at the sight of me in John’s button down, I roll my eyes and carry the bag into the kitchen.
I plate the food onto John’s fancy dinnerware, so it looks like I made it. After throwing the empty delivery bag into the trash bin with a bunch of napkins tossed over it for some extra camouflage, I make my way to his bedroom, a convincing smile plastered all over my face.
“Hey, sleepyhead.” I wink at him when he groans.
I watch patiently as he makes a show of waking, struggling to lift himself out of the sheets. I can’t help but compare John to his jerk of a next door neighbor, which is how I know I’ve gone insane.
Nevertheless, I note that John is flabby where his neighbor is hard—which is everywhere. His hands, his stomach, his arms, his face, and even his legs. Something about seeing John, a man I’m sleeping with out of necessity, after seeing his neighbor, a man I’m so attracted to that it’s made me momentarily stupid, is so disheartening.
It makes me wonder if this is the life I’ll forever be trapped in.
And if so, will I ever be happy?
And does my happiness even matter in the grand scheme of things?
I don’t have the answers to these questions, questions I’ve been able to ignore for quite some time now, so instead, I focus on John and force myself to forget the unforgiving glare of the handsome stranger next door.
He sits up slowly, eyeing my legs and cleavage before settling on the plate in my hand. “You made breakfast again?” he asks, his voice eager.
“Sure did.” I give another sweet grin, hoping that I look like every misogynistic man’s wet dream—a woman that looks like a Victoria’s Secret angel, cooks like Martha Stewart and spreads her legs quicker than a lady working a street corner.
Yep.
Guys are great, aren’t they?
And John is the king of them all.
Last week, he asked me to make him a sandwich. I don’t cook. Not even sandwiches. I’ve burnt water at least a dozen times in the past month. But at least he didn’t address me as “woman,” like one of the last guys did.
So, I cut my losses and made him a darn sandwich.
It was awful.
Instead of giving it to him, I had Subway delivered. Filthy rich and distantly related to a Rothschild, John never had Subway, nor had he heard of Subway. Naturally, I took credit for the sandwich, too.
When I place the tray beside him, he pats the bed and says, “Come join me.”
Giving him a teasing look, I shake my head and walk towards his bathroom. Before I reach the doorway, I turn back at him, and just as I suspected, he’s staring at me, a distinct expression of longing in his eyes.
Making sure his eyes remain riveted on me, I unbutton the sole button and allow the fabric to slide slowly off of my shoulders in a teasing movement. With one final wink, I shut the door, cutting off his view of my bare body.
And that is how you gold dig.
Hook.
Line.
And sinker.
But my problem has never been getting men. It’s always been reeling them in.
A quick shower later, and I’m heading towards China Town, where my baby sister lives. From the decaying paint to the fishy odor throughout the halls, the building is run down and dilapidated, but it’s an upgrade from where we grew up.
When Social Services took Mina away, I was only eighteen. I was too young to get her back, and my incubation pod, who I refuse to address as anything more than the woman who birthed me, didn’t bother trying.
Now, four years later, I am twenty-two years old, am on my last year at Wilton, and still haven’t gotten my little sister back. As much as I’ve accomplished by even getting into Wilton, I suspect I’ll always feel like a failure. At least until I get custody of Mina.
At twelve years old, it feels like Mina and her childhood is wasting away in this dump of a place. She needs to be around someone who cares about her, someone who loves her. And no matter what her case worker says, that’s with me—not here, at this dreadful place.
The receptionist grins at me when I sign in. I return it, though it’s forced. Playing nice has never been my strong suit. I’ve always found it to be a waste of time, and most of the time, people aren’t genuine anyway. But the smile I paste on my face is convincing, because I can’t afford to leave a bad impression on someone who possesses the power to revoke my time with Mina.
She matters more to me than anything or anyone else.
And when Mina sees me and smiles, I give the first genuine smile I’ve given since I saw her last week. With red hair, innocent green eyes, and a bright smile, Mina is the spitting image of me ten years ago. The only difference is her inability to walk.
That only seems to be a problem to her case worker, Erica. We were fine before they ever visited our place and deemed it unfit to raise a handicapped minor. I had taken care of Mina, and she was loved and cherished, healthy and eating, happy and laughing.
Where was Erica when I was sleeping on the piss-stained carpet most nights? Where was Erica when I was scavenging through empty cabinets for food to eat? Where was Erica when I hadn’t a toothbrush to clean my teeth or shampoo to wash my hair?
Nowhere.
It was like I never existed.
Not until I had barely just turned eighteen, and she was there to take away the only person that has ever truly mattered to me.
Shaking the dark thoughts away, I ruffle Mina’s hair. “Hey, kiddo.”
She groans. “I’m twelve, not six.”
“And you’ll still be a kiddo when you’re thirteen times that age.”
Without a second of hesitation, she says, “You’ll probably be dead when I’m seventy-eight, and you’ll definitely be dead if I ever reach one hundred and fifty-six.”
Despite the morbidity of her words, I’m grinning. I take any opportunity to test her mathematical prowess. Mina may not be good at all subjects, but she’s a math whiz when it comes to mental math. Fostering that ability of hers is the only silver lining of this forsaken place.
“Seriously, though, how are you doing?”
She rolls her eyes, her pretty green eyes vibrant beneath a thick canopy of lashes. “I’m fine. Why do you always ask me that?”
“Because I’m your sister, and I worry.” I eye her tiny body and narrow my eyes. “Have you gotten skinnier? Are you eating? Are they feeding you here? Do you have enough food? Are they giving you what you need? Do you fe—”
She holds up a hand at me and laughs, throwing her head back in a beautiful movement. “Minka! Stop! Jeez! I’m fine. I promise.”
I sigh. “I worry about you.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“I worry about you.”
“You already said that.”
“Well, I do, okay?” I take a seat on the plastic chair beside her wheelchair, and the cheap material squeaks beneath my weight. “What do you want to do right now?”
She grins and, in that uber mature way of hers, remarks, “You mean, now that you’re done wasting our time asking me if I’m fine?”
“You’re such a punk.”
“I was fine last week when you asked me, too.”
“You suck.”
“And I was fine when you asked me the week before that.”
“My love is wasted on you.”
“And the week before that.”
“I will lock the wheels on your wheelchair.”
That shuts her up.
She widens her eyes, and then we’re laughing, tears trapped in our eyes and hope bourgeoning in my soul.
In moments like this, I forget that I’m not a good person. That I’ve pissed off and pushed away everyone who’s ever talked to me.
In moments like this, I feel like I can move on from who I am, from the person I never wanted to be.
From the person I hate.
Chapter Five
The truth will set you free,
but first it will piss you off.
Joe Klaas
I focus on the pedestrians as the Uber I’m in sits behind a red light. Across the street, two men catch my attention. One looks to be in his mid-thirties, and the other can’t be any more than a few years older than Mina’s twelve years.
My eyes narrow as I watch the older man hand a few bills to the kid. The kid loo
ks at the money for a moment before pocketing the bills, reaching into the brown cardboard box before him, and handing what looks like a foil-wrapped chocolate bar to the man.
To the untrained eye, the whole exchange looks innocent enough—just a poor kid trying to earn some money selling chocolate bars and a wealthy man trying to help. But to my eyes, I see what’s really happening.
Actually, I’m intimately familiar with what’s happening.
After all, I used to be that kid.
I suppress the urge to look around the streets. Somewhere on this street is this kid’s boss, be it a parent of his, a neighborhood dealer, or some other scumbag who thinks it’s okay to use kids to deal drugs.
A part of me wants to open the door and help the kid out, to get him away from the mess he’s in. But I don’t. Instead, I sit silently as the Uber driver pulls away from the congested street, because like most things in life, it’s too complicated. There are too many variables and way too much uncertainty.
If I helped the kid, I could have done more damage than good. Social Services would come, and who knows? Maybe I’d be separating the kid from an older sibling who’s trying her best to get her and her brother out of that mess.
Or maybe I’d be separating the kid from a younger sibling that has yet to be born. Then, I’d be robbing a child of a future protector, and that’s the absolute last thing I want to do.
That last thought has me contemplating the next few weeks. My impending graduation looms ahead of me like a lighthouse, but instead of leading me to shore, it’s causing my brain to go afloat. The closer and closer I get, the more lost I feel.
Don’t get me wrong. I know where I’m going. Before I graduate, I’ll find a new place to live, I’ll find a part time job while I study for my LSATs. And if all goes well, I’ll apply to and get into Wilton’s accelerated law school program for my juris doctor, which would help me get my law degree in one year instead of two.
Niccolaio Andretti: A Mafia Romance Novel (The Five Syndicates Book 2) Page 3