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ELSA
“I didn’t knowyou had a sister.”
Not many people do. I keep my personal life personal. Especially after I got passed over for a highly competitive job at a firm in London when they learned I had a ten-year-old living with me. Not one person in that interview room believed that she was a younger sister, and that there just weren’t any parents around anymore. I could see the same look in their eyes that I used to get when I’d take an even younger Nora to the playground.
When the age difference between you and your sister is as large as it is between Nora and me, people don’t see a teenager with her baby sister.
They see averyyoung mother with a cataclysmic mistake.
They see someone they can silently judge while smiling benignly.
That particular firm, after fawning over me for three months, suddenly told me that they didn’t think I was “the right fit” for their “culture”.
“Most of our junior partners work hard andthenstart families of their own,” one of them told me.
I walked out before I could tell them all to go fuck themselves. Thattheycould try raising a child alone when they were still a teenager themselves after their mother dies.
But there’s no judgement in Hades’ tone. And when I turn to look at him as the lift rises, all I see is a genuine look of interest in his sharp, ice-blue eyes before he turns to face the doors again.
It takes me a full two seconds to realize I’m still looking at him before I manage to rip my gaze away.
Goddammit, why is he so fucking attractive?
Again, it would besoeasy to write Hades off as some sort of trust fund brat who’s only playing at being a gangster. He was born with more wealth that I can even imagine. The Drakos family home on Central Park South is a neoclassical mansion from the British countryside—as in it wasliterallya mansion in England that Hades’ great-grandfather had moved, brick by brick, and rebuilt on the roof of a forty-story building overlooking Central Park.
Hades has never wanted for anything. He’s never had to pull all-nighters for days on end in order put food on the table while raising a kid sisterandgoing to university. He received an allowance from his trust fund while he fucked and partied his way through Harvard.
And yet, as easy as it would be to think of him as this soft, moneyed, pampered brat…even I know that’s not really true at all. And let’s face it, words like “soft” and “pampered” are the last ones I would use to describe Hades.
He’s not good looking in the way a rich trust fund brat usually is. His is a dangerous, lethal beauty. And it’s not just the viciously piercing blue eyes, the dark brows and tanned skin, the tattoos and muscles, or the razor-sharp jaw and cheekbones that give him this overall deadly attractiveness.
It’s the fact that heisdeadly. Heissavage and vicious. Heislethal.
He’s a killer.
Hades isn’t pretending to be a tough guy. He’s pretending to be normal. And the times I truly realize that are the times when my sinful attraction toward him despite my fear of him burns the fiercest.
“Her name is Nora,” I finally say. “She’s fifteen.”
Hades nods. “And she’s living with you right now?”
“She’s always lived with me.” The lift comes to a stop, and the doors slide open. Hades starts to exit with me, but I stop, turning back to him with a furrowed brow. “Look, I’m fine, you can go. Thanks for driving me,” I mumble.
He nods, his eyes lancing into me in a way that sends a ripple of heat down my spine.
“See ya,” I blurt.
I turn and start walking down the hallway.
See ya?
Seriously?
I groan, but when I walk around the corner and see the two police officers standing outside my apartment door, my cringey interaction with Hades and his sinful hotness melts away.
The two cops are here because a neighbor called to complain about the loud music and the smell of pot smoke coming from my apartment.
“Good evening, officers,” I venture with a professional smile. I extend my hand to shake theirs. “Elsa Guin. I’m the owner of the unit.”
