Beautiful Trouble: A Dark Mafia Romance

1

Winter

Your past always claws you back, baby.

Mom said that right before they shoved her in a van and took her away. I was ten years old, and Father looked happier than I’d ever seen him.

I didn’t understand why he smiled as Mom disappeared. I understand now.

I still remembered the touch of her lips against my cheek. Wet with tears. She said she’d be home soon.

That wasn’t true.

I thought about that moment a lot. What I should’ve said, if it would’ve made a difference.

Probably not. I was just a stupid little girl.

And Father was what he was.

In the end, he got what he wanted, and Mom was gone for a long, long time.

Your past always claws you back. Those words floated through my head as I woke up in a strange bed in a room that looked so familiar, but all the details were wrong. I’d never seen it before, but I’d been in rooms just like it all my life.

Stuffy, expensive. Understated. Filled with simple antiques—early American, mostly—that cost a fortune.

Old money. The sort of family comfortable in their wealth.

Not like Father. He wished he had a good name, and he tried to fit in with the quiet wood-paneled hallways and the easy country club money, but that was what turned him into the bitter, twisted little rat I’d grown up with.

The woman sitting in the corner on a rocking chair looked like the room. Blonde hair pulled back in a deceptively simple bun. Exercise clothes in earth tones from Lululemon. Needlepoint flicking in and out like a snake’s tongue.

Familiar but strange.

The particulars matter, but they don’t change the nature of a thing, like how the casinos in Vegas look different, but they’re all the same kind of hell. At least that’s what my mom said during one of our many phone calls. That stuck with me, the sameness of hell.

I thought she was right about that. Dress up evil however you want, but it’s still bad all the way through.

The woman didn’t know I was awake. That was good. I snuck a peek at myself: still in the same clothes, which was a relief. They hadn’t stripped me.

I’d thought for sure that smiling bastard Darren would strip me.

There were two doors. One led to a bathroom—I caught a glimpse of a vanity, shining chrome, the edge of a mirror—and the other must’ve led out to the hall.

There was a fireplace with chairs around it.

No TV.

Old money, like I said. Tasteful.

“You can stop pretending, dear.” The woman’s voice was kind and surprisingly soft. I stiffened when she spoke and tried not to scream.

“How long have you known?”

“You made a noise.” Her nose scrunched up. “When you woke up. It was an ugly little grunt.”

I sighed and stretched. I tried to sit up on an elbow and my head swam. A million questions swirled through my brain, and most of them were worthless. Like: Where am I? What the hell do you want from me?

What I remembered from the kidnapping was hazy, like a half-remembered dream. That afternoon, I’d left Roman and Cassie’s house in Avalon and decided to walk back to my apartment. That was a mistake, in retrospect. She had tried to warn me. I hadn’t listened. I’d thought I knew better.

I could be like that.

Then the car pulled up. One of Roman’s guards. He tried to help me. Another opportunity, but I hadn’t listened.

This whole not listening thing was becoming a pattern.

They shot him. Blood all over. Then Darren walked toward me with that easy, horrible smile. Like the world bowed at his feet and he expected it.

I knew that smile. I’d seen it on other men.

But on Darren, it held another dimension.

He was handsome. Beautiful, really. Chiseled and fine. Green eyes the color of electric moss. They were liquid and strange, those eyes. I could get lost in them.

He exuded confidence like heat rolling off a desert highway.

I wanted to reach out and run my fingers through his thick hair before I plunged a knife into his chest.

I couldn’t remember anything after that. There was Darren, walking toward me, looking like he was about to feast on his favorite meal and could barely contain his excitement, then a blank.

Drugged, probably.

“Where is he?” I asked.

The woman stilled. She stopped her needlepoint. I caught a glimpse of what she was making.

Rainbow over a mountain range. A bit precious, but I wasn’t an art critic.

“Where is who, dear?” The woman tilted her head and stared intently.

Studying me.

She was probably in her fifties but looked younger. Fillers and some small work here and there. Her surgeon was good, really good. She looked like she had money, like all the ladies I’d grown up with. They had a certain face, like they were well-preserved. Dried out. Pickled.

They could run from time, but it always caught up.