Dark Mafia Prince: A Dangerous Royals romance (2 page)

I guess this life twists everyone, eventually.

It’s better that she’s not the same person. It makes my job easier.

Mira

M
y father has
a black cellphone that he never uses, but it’s always on, always charged, and always within reach, full of dark threat, just like his gun. He’s had it for years, and I never heard it ring.

I hear it the week after my twenty-eighth birthday.

It’s a Saturday afternoon. We’re out on the porch. I came back for a ribbon-cutting ceremony where I put in a rare cameo as mafia princess Mira Nikolla in Oscar de la Renta and Manolo Blahnik. I was so proud that he’d funded the research wing of the local hospital where Mom died—a research wing in her name. Not a lot will bring me back home these days, but a wing in Mom’s name? I’m there.

Missing Mom is one of the few things we have in common anymore.

The cynical part of me wonders if he funded the wing just to get a visit out of me. Maybe he did. It doesn’t even touch the debt he owes to society.

Do I sound pissed at my own father? I am. Do I still love him? Always.

We’re all each other has left. We’ve had each other’s backs since the day Mom died. The day he fixed me with that intense gaze of his and said, “It’s us two now, Kitten. It’s us two. Two against everything, alright?”

I should be packing—the limo is coming in a few hours to take me to the airport. I’ll be back in New York at the advocacy center where I work, back to being the lawyer in jeans and Target tops, like some kind of reverse Wonder Woman—I spin around and turn into a girl you’d forget two minutes after you pass her by.

Which is exactly how I like it. It makes it easier for me to do my job, fighting for kids and families.

We have people thinking I’ve spent these past years on worldwide shopping sprees, which is embarrassing, but better than having bodyguards follow me around—that would
not
work at the advocacy center. PR people maintain a fake life for me. A sad social media construct that keeps me under the radar. And mostly it keeps Dad safe. I’m his Achilles’ heel. A way to make him weak.

There’s a type of bird that lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. Sometimes I feel like I ended up in the wrong nest like that. But we’re family—that’s the bottom line.

Dad did terrible things coming up like he did, but we have each other’s backs. Even at the age of ten, I understood. Me and Dad against the world. It still means everything that he said that.

So we’re out on the porch of the lake residence, me still in my mafia princess pink, when the chirp sounds out. I have no idea that it’s that second cellphone. I guess I never imagined it would have the bird-chirp type of ring. I always thought it would be something more ominous. Like a blaring tone.

But the chirp is ominous to my father. His face goes white.

He answers it, and I can tell it’s Lazarus. In addition to being Dad’s enforcer, Bloody Lazarus is pretty much the worst psycho I’ve ever met. Even across the large, lavish porch table laden with feta and olives and strong Turkish coffee in priceless china, even with my dad pressing that phone to his ear, I can hear the psycho.

It takes exactly two seconds for Dad to pull me inside and call out for the house staff guys.

“What’s going on?”

He just shakes his head and resumes his conversation. “Put Jetmir on it. Fuck! Fuck! Where’s Leke? Fuck.”

Dad’s voice is higher, not in volume, but octave. It’s a bad sign.

But here’s the really bad sign: Nobody comes. Dad called for staff, and none have arrived. They always appear instantly. “Staff,” in this case, is a euphemism for soldiers whose job is to hang around the house and not be seen or heard unless they’re needed.

I never see Dad worried. I never see the world not bending to his every whim. My blood races.

There’s only one reason dozens of soldiers wouldn’t come running when my father yells for them.

He gets his go bag out of the front closet, grabs his headset, and sticks his Luger into his belt. He hands me a small revolver. Mother-of-pearl handle. Loaded. “Down to the seaplane. Now.”

“Dad.” I hold it like a dead thing, looking up at him, like,
really
? I don’t do firearms, and he knows it. But he’s completely freaked out. And I’m thinking about his bad heart. I shouldn’t add to his stress.

“Got it.” I put it in a proper grip like I learned in shooting lessons. Like a dog, fake sitting down. I’ll ditch it later.

He throws me the boat and seaplane keychain. The keys are attached to a little buoy that floats if you drop it in the water. “Get that plane out of the boathouse. Now! I’ll meet you.”

“We’re going in the
seaplane
?” The seaplane is a fun-time thing. It’s a recreational vehicle, not a getaway vehicle.

He tips his head up at the ceiling, a movement that tells me everything. We’re going in the seaplane because somebody might be on the roof, expecting him to go in the helicopter.

It’s a takeover.

Shit.

I grab my purse, kick off my heels, and take the stairs to the lower level. I head through the ornate rooms and back through the servant areas, and burst out the side delivery door.

It’s a cool autumn afternoon. Nice. Or at least, it was nice.

I run along the perimeter of the estate, where it’s shaded by trees and the limestone wall. Less obvious if you’re on the roof.

The first few minutes I jog stealthily, grass cool on my bare feet, but then something builds up in me and I’m just running like hell, shoes and satchel in one hand, gun in the other.

I won’t use the gun. Dad always says having to shoot just means your threats didn’t work. As if I’ll even make threats.

I round a tree, keeping to the shadows. I get down to the seawall and run along it, heart thundering, up to the boathouse door. I punch in the combo and pull it open.

It’s dark and gloomy inside the boathouse; Just a few high windows let in the sun.

I scurry around the slips past the speedboats to the seaplane at the end. I unlock the lift with the key that hangs from a string, and then I hit the button to start lowering it to the water. Usually the grounds guy does this. Where is everybody?

The motor whines as it lowers the plane, white with blue stripes and blue pontoons. While I’m waiting for that, I go to the corner, lift a panel, and slam my palm onto a button. One of the boathouse doors jerks and squeals as it begins to raise up like a garage door, unveiling the sparkling blue water of Lake Geneva.

Inch by inch, the light slants in.

Movement from the dark side. I’m not alone. A man.

My heart skips a beat as he pushes off the wall, his face in the shadows, dark curls catching the light. His suit jacket hangs open to reveal a white shirt and a black slash of a tie. Slacks cup and kiss his thighs as he moves. Do I know him? I can’t make out his features in the gloom.

“Hello?”

He continues toward me, silent as a panther. Power rolls off him, even in the dark.

Then he strolls past a dim slant of light coming in from a high window, like strolling through a hazy spotlight.

It’s then that the full force of his dark beauty crashes through me. Sharp hit of a cheekbone. Generous lips that look softer than sin. Predator eyes so dangerous and beautiful, you might get lost in them. You might let him kill you.

His gaze is a dangerous caress. A .357 flashes at his side.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think there’s something familiar about him.

He moves onward, into the shadows, and I tell myself it has to be an illusion. This is a man you don’t forget.

I feel his power in my bones as he nears. I don’t like it, but I know to respect it, the way you respect a hurricane.

And the suit. With most Albanian mafia guys my age, the suit is a uniform, something put on in the morning. This guy wears a suit like a Hun might wear fur. It’s part of him, molten with danger.

I raise my piece and aim at his chest. My voice is hoarse. “I’ll use this.”

His gorgeous lips quirk, and he just keeps coming. Is he that stupid? That brave? It’s like he knows I won’t use it.

He passes yet another shaft of light from a high window. We lock eyes, and again I’m seized with that sensation of familiarity. Something about his dark curls and dark lashes. Or maybe his eyes, so big and deep and piercing. The line of his slightly scruffy cheek.

I can’t shake it…it’s like when you catch a whiff of something that transports you somewhere, like a half-forgotten dream that’s floating away. All you remember is a feeling. The feeling I have of him is nice.

That can’t be right.

He’s on me in a flash, a massive arm around me, his face in my hair.

“Let’s have that, baby, and we’ll wait for Daddy together.” He rips the weapon from my hand and then yanks me roughly against him, holding me from behind, hard body against mine.

He presses his piece to my cheek. My mind goes blank. One twitch of his finger and I’m dead.

My heart slams in my chest. “I’m not your baby.”

“You’re whatever I want you to be, starting now.” His voice is a velvet glove, the edge of the gun painful punctuation on his sentence. “It’s a new day.” He starts pulling me the way I came in.

I make out a pair of slumped forms in the corner of the boathouse. Ramiz. Jareki. “Are they…” I can’t bring myself to say it.

“Napping on the job?” he supplies in a vicious tone. “That is really terrible. Really outrageous.”

My knees practically vibrate as he walks me out of the boathouse to the bench next to the door. You can see the whole lawn from here. He sits us there and pulls me onto his lap, holding my upper arm in an iron grip.

“You’re hurting me,” I say.

No answer. Economical with his words. With pain. I know a killer when I come into contact with one. I concentrate on my breath and tell myself not to freak out, but this is bad—really bad. He’s cool. Competent. Focused.

“Right now, you can still walk out of this,” I say. “Whatever you plan to do, you can’t get away with it. Just cut your losses.”

The killer says nothing, and it comes to me that he’s actually gotten away with a lot already. Planned carefully. Even sitting here is a well-made choice: Dad won’t see us until it’s too late, partly in the shade as we are. He’s positioned for maximum shock.

The killer has everything under control. Like he was born to this.

He’s hot and hard under me. Pure muscle and steel and man. My belly tightens. I shift, trying to minimize the places my body touches his.

He pulls me to him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I swallow.
Stay calm
.
Don’t let him feel your fear
. I strain to hear the golf cart whir. Dad’ll take the golf cart down. But the green expanse of the lawn is empty. Is he okay? What about his heart? The lake sparkles on, soft waves, gentle breeze carrying the faint scent of seaweed. And I realize something strange: No boats.

It’s one of the last lovely fall days. Everybody who’s anybody comes up to Lake Geneva from Chicago on a day like this. “Where are all the boats?”

He gazes out—wistfully, almost. A dark curl caresses his cheekbone. “Looks like they took the day off.”

He’s different from the guys in Dad’s circle. Contract killer? Lone wolf? “People wouldn’t just not come out—”

He smirks. “Message from the mother ship?”

I swallow. This guy did something to make them stay away. I can’t imagine what. He has to be somebody, pulling all this off. That kind of thing takes men. Extreme choreography. “What is this?”

“Shhh,” he growls into my ear. “Take the strap off your purse.”

“You can’t—”

“Can’t
what
? Tell me what I can’t do, Mira Mira.”

Mira Mira
. That’s the name of the fashion blog the PR person runs. The PR person with the greatest gig in the world, running around to Paris and Hong Kong taking pictures of clothes. Like it’s me out there, freaking out over the latest couture.

“Tell me one thing I can’t do right now.”

I can’t. He’s taken absolute power in a way no other man would dare. It’s strangely mesmerizing, the way impossible feats sometimes are. Because nobody is supposed to be able to do this.

“Good answer.” His breath is a caress on my ear. “Don’t you test me, Mira. You won’t like the result.” He moves his lips to my ear. “Now wrap the strap around your wrists.”

There’s something in the way he says it that gets me hot and cold all over my skin. Is he doing it on purpose?

“Make it nice and tight.”

With shaking hands I undo the strap and circle it loosely around my wrists.

He puts the gun aside and with a few twists he yanks it tight, tying the knot, so that my wrists are bound in my lap. He settles me in, then takes up his gun. You can see everything from here. Everything that matters.

I’ve met a lot of scary guys who are full of special mafia snowflake opinions on wine and weapons, but this man is in another class entirely. A barbarian in Armani. There’s a dark freckle on his right cheekbone, like a tiny dark jewel. That, too, is strangely familiar.

Heavy pounding on the stairs behind me. I don’t have to look to know someone’s coming down from the roof deck of the boathouse. The perfect place for cocktails after a boating party. Or keeping watch during a takedown, picking off the chess pieces.

The guy comes into view, huge and dark and Albanian like my captor, though this one is younger—early twenties, maybe—and has a more military look, with short hair and posture like a soldier. He, too, wears a suit and tie.

“Viktor, I want you to meet somebody. This is Mira Nikolla. Mira, this is Viktor.”

The man nods curtly. “Lazarus is still in the wind.” Viktor speaks with a Russian accent.

Lazarus was supposed to be here for lunch, but he ducked out.

My captor frowns. Whatever he’s doing, he wanted Lazarus under control for it.

He’s right to be unhappy. If there’s one person you don’t want after you, besides my father, it’s psycho Bloody Lazarus.

“She agrees,” he says, reading my expression.

“You don’t know what I think,” I spit out. The last thing I’m willing to do is help these guys or offer any kind of insight.