Pretty Sinner (The Oligarchs)

I held my chin up. I refused to fall prey to self-pity.

He took me to the far side of the compound, toward a long range of targets. Kaspar opened a small shed and came out with a large black crossbow and several bolts tucked into a nylon sheath. He held it out to me and I took it uncertainly.

It was surprisingly light.

“Carbon fiber,” he explained. “It’s for hunting. My men aren’t here to kill deer, so they don’t bother with this stuff.” He steered me toward a large crate and placed the crossbow and the bolts down on top.

For the next ten minutes, he showed me how to pull back the string, how to notch the bolt, and how to shoot. I lost myself in the simple mechanics of pull, load, fire. I was terrible and missed the target more than I managed to hit it, but the power behind each strike, the ease with which Kaspar positioned my body and walked me through the steps of aiming and squeezing the trigger was strangely alluring and hypnotic.

I forgot about my family. I forgot about my freedom, and Cards, and Kaspar himself, even though his hands were on my hips and his lips were next to my ear, speaking to me quietly as I aimed down range. I shot the bolt, missed, and tried again. Over and over, until I hit it several times in a row.

“Not too bad for your first time,” Kaspar said as we collected the bolts. “My father taught me how to do that when I was nine.”

“You don’t talk about your parents much.”

He nodded, gazing away. “There isn’t much to say. They’re dead now.”

“What happened?”

“My father was killed by an enemy mafia. The other Oligarchs all say it was an accident, but I’ve always wondered.”

“I thought Oligarchs weren’t supposed to attack each other.”

“That’s what the rules say.” His smile was bitter. “Rules are meant to be broken, or at least bent.”

I chewed on my lip. Darren and Roman knew that better than most. “And what about your mother?”

“She left after my father died. She wanted to get away from this life before she ended up like him. I heard she married a flight instructor and ended up smashed on the side of a mountain when he decided to fly in bad weather.”

I sucked in a breath and let it out. The Oligarch families had money, power, and influence, and yet they were all traumatized, broken, and irrevocably scarred. None of us got out clean. None of us survived intact.

Kaspar steered me to the shed. I helped him put the crossbow away and as I turned to leave, he stood in the doorway.

“I don’t talk about my parents,” he said quietly. “Even when they were alive, they were never kind. My father taught me to shoot by hitting me with a plastic switch every time I missed. My mother treated me like an errand boy one day and like a nuisance the next. I wasn’t sad when she died. I was happy when he was murdered. Does that surprise you?”

“No,” I said honestly. “I grew up with Oligarchs. I know what they can be like.” I paused, softening a touch. “You don’t seem like the kind of man to pity the dead.”

“I don’t pity anyone.” He stepped closer. “Life is suffering and pain. Even for people like you and me, Penny.”

“I’m not like you.”

I wasn’t shattered and destroyed.

I was still a human.

So far, at least.

“You are. It’s hard to see from the inside, but to all those people out there, we’re freaks and monsters.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that. My brother and Roman want to make the Oligarchs better.”

“Your brother and Roman might be right, but I’m not interested in playing their game.”

“So what game are you playing?”

“Revenge.”

I let that sink in. “Revenge for what? Against who?”

“Against Maeve. For you.”

I shook my head. “I have no reason to hate Maeve.”

“After all these years, you still don’t see it. She’s like a blind spot. There, but not really.”

“Who?” I took a step back, away from him, heart racing. I backed into the wall and a nearby bucket of old fishing rods rattled.

“Alice.”

I sucked in a breath. We hadn’t spoken of her since that day, so many years ago. She was the ghost that lingered between us, and her death was the reason I pushed him away. Alice was the catalyst for my hate.

I knew death and pain. I lost Livvie and that nearly broke me.

But Alice was different.

There’d always been something strange about my roommate. She was too quiet, paid too much attention to me, but she seemed twisted and bent out of shape like so many other kids I knew. She’d had a hard life, and I got the sense she didn’t have many friends, if any at all. I tried my hardest to get close to her, but there was always a barrier between us.