Pretty Sinner (The Oligarchs)

I stared at the floor and took several deep breaths, willing myself to calm down.

I didn’t know what it was about her. Something in her eyes, in the way she moved, in her lips, in her laugh, something about her made me lose myself. For a little while, whenever she was around, I could forget what I was—broken, rent asunder, scarred and inhuman—and be something else.

Almost a man, instead of a beast.

But I was too much like Rome to ever regain my humanity, even with Penny to guide me back from the depths.

There were too many bodies at the foundation of my life.

And before Penny was mine, there would be more.

5

Penny

Present Day

Rome, Italy

In the morning, I got sick. I curled up on the bathroom floor, trembling with a cold sweat, and stared at the toilet like I might die.

Nothing hurt. My stomach was fine. I didn’t have a fever. But every time I closed my eyes, I remembered Kaspar’s hands covered in blood, his smile like sunshine, his anger like the moon. I remembered him standing outside of my dorm, calling out my name, remembered him following me to class and all the stupid girls that said I was so lucky, so lucky to have a guy like Kaspar so obviously in love with me.

God, I was lucky. So lucky, especially when he broke into my room and stole my phone, or when he called me every night over and over until I answered, only to do it again the next day. I was lucky he stalked me, obsessed over me, and wouldn’t leave me alone.

I tried not to think about Alice. She was gone and didn’t matter anymore. Her face was blurry now, like a picture left out in the sun for a week, but I could still hear her voice and smell her side of the room—cinnamon and spice and fresh laundry. She was funny and outgoing and I loved rooming with her, right up until the end.

Kaspar came eventually. I knew he would. He looked at me there on the floor, his face unflinching. There was no pity in his eyes.

“Get up. We have another meeting.”

“No, I can’t.”

“You’re not sick. Get up.”

I groaned and tried to push him away, but he pulled me to my feet. I struggled weakly as he pulled off my tank top and yanked down my sweats. He pushed me into the shower and closed the glass door.

I stood there in my panties and no bra, my nipples rock hard, Kaspar’s eyes staring at me.

“Shower,” he commanded.

I turned on the water.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. When I went to him, I thought offering him one night of lust would satisfy his hunger, and when he refused me, while teasing me the whole time, it was like someone kicked me in the guts. Then this morning, I threw up, trembling like a leaf.

The hot water helped. Kaspar disappeared. I cleaned myself up, got out, toweled off, and dressed. When I finished, one of Kaspar’s men, a young guy with dark eyes and thick black hair, stepped into my room.

“He’s waiting downstairs.” He smiled at me. It was the first time any of them had shown any kindness since we arrived in Rome.

“Thank you. Do you know where we’re going?”

He shook his head. “Not my job to know.”

“Only your job to drag me around, right?”

His smile faltered. “For your own protection.”

“Protection from whom, I wonder?”

He didn’t say anything, only waited for me to follow.

Kaspar was in the lobby. He stared at me like I was the sunrise, and I felt the sickness in my guts again.

It was strange to be wanted so badly by someone so beautiful and so deeply, horribly broken.

Kaspar ushered me out into the hot afternoon. Rome was built on a swamp, and the humidity was almost unbearable. If it fazed Kaspar, he didn’t show it. He stalked around in his dark suit like the heat didn’t touch his skin.

We arrived at a small cafe near the hotel. Kaspar sat me toward the back and brought over a coffee and a small croissant. I ate and drank quietly while Kaspar read a newspaper in Italian.

I didn’t know much about him, which was strange—of all the Oligarchs, he kept to himself the most. Despite having gone to the same college, and sharing a blood-soaked history, I didn’t know where he grew up or what his family was like.

I stared down at my small white mug and wondered what Livvie would do in my situation.

Probably flip the table and run. She was always the strongest of us. I was convinced that was how she was able to make that final horrible choice.

A man stepped into the cafe. Kaspar half stood and I looked up.

My jaw fell open.

He was tall and handsome, with a square jaw and an All-American physique, like a linebacker from Princeton in the fifties. His smile was dazzling and white and genuine, so much the opposite of Kaspar, and he strode forward like the world waited on him.