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It takes me a moment to realise that my mother’s inquiry is directed at me. Her one-eighty from a botched nose job to one of the girl’s older sisters shouldn’t surprise me considering she’s been pushing me in Victoria’s direction for months. I drag my eyes away from the semi-busy main street of the mid-sized country town I call home to ask, “Which one is Victoria again?”
My mother titters like my direct question is the funniest thing she’s heard today. “The middle daughter. The—”
“The one with the lazy eye,” Dad offers in a flat tone. “And the overbite.”
Shrugging, I peer down at the half-eaten and very over-priced lunch. “Not sure why you keep flogging that dead horse, but I’m not interested in Victoria—” I hold a finger up to silence my mother when she tries to interject. “—and, no, I’m not interested in the sister with the new nose either because there is no way in hell I’m marrying into the De La Rue family. I want to get away from you… marrying a daughter of our closest neighbour is the exact opposite of escape.”
“Sit down, Lizzie,” my father orders when my mother tries to storm off.
As soon as she lowers back into her seat, he reaches under the table. The weak woman who birthed me presses her lips into a tight line and does her best not to blink when her eyes fill with tears. Being intimately acquainted with my father’s cruel ways myself, I imagine he’s got quite a vicious grip of either her wrist or her thigh right now. Joseph Kingsley rules the pair of us with an iron fist, and while these regularly scheduled displays of upper-class happiness are my mother’s idea, he is just as concerned by our public image as she is.
Perception is everything in his game.
He is a sitting Member of Parliament, after all. Next in line to run the state of Western Australia. Having rumours of his wife storming away from him simply wouldn’t do. There can be no visible discord, not an iota of truth is allowed to cast over his reputation as a family man with a strong moral code and an even stronger intolerance for crime and corruption.
The snarky voice that lives in my mind raises his ugly head, ready to spit venom at my understated description of my controlling father. Dear old Dad is dirty to the core—he’s just found the perfect way to keep his deeds buried and his nose clean. My maternal grandfather, the boss of the Irish mob, deals with the underworld. My father acts as the moral conduit, bending the law to suit their mutual goals.
When the monster pushes against the bars of the chemical cage I keep him contained in, I bite the inside of my cheek until the tangy copper taste of blood washes over my tastebuds. Few things satisfy the demon in my head when he tries to escape the leash I keep him on.
Thankfully, blood is one of them…
“Speaking of flogging dead horses,” my father mutters. I follow his gaze, darting a look over my shoulder in the direction he’s staring. My monster howls at what we find. Rage settles over my vision in a red mist. “When are you going to dish out a proper serving of payback to Lysander Mayberry?” I can barely hear Dad past the need for violence that’s whooshing in my ears. When I don’t answer quick enough, my father nudges my dodgy left knee with his. I hiss. He ignores my pain tell me, “He needs to be taken down a peg… and soon.” Mother makes a nervous sound of disagreement but doesn’t otherwise contradict him. “I heard last night that he’s been accepted into the University of Western Australia and will be training with the Perth Wagyl’s as well. The bookies have him odds on to debut this season—he’ll be the youngest player to play in the federation when he does.”
This time, the blood that floods my mouth is accidental since I didn’t mean to sink my teeth into my bottom lip. A trail of blood runs from the corner of my mouth. I dab at it with my linen napkin, grateful for the distraction my mistake provides my monster, as I twist in my chair to get a better look at my arch-nemesis.
Athletically gifted, morally righteous, Sander’s need to be judge, jury, and punisher was my downfall. I hate him with a white-hot rage that will scorch the earth around me if I ever set it free. He’s stolen everything for me—the future my father just laid out was supposed to be mine. I want it back, except the damage he inflicted on my knee permanently removed the possibility that my expulsion from the National Basketball Federation could not.
Policy decisions are meant to be broken. Knees not so much. Especially with sledgehammers wielded by fourteen-year-old boys. The punishment Sander dished out to me destroyed my life, so I’ve made it my life’s mission to ruin him and his posse of upstarts.
Unfortunately, in the four years since he demolished my knee, I’m yet to find a way to hurt him in return. He’s well-protected. Not in the same way someone from an elite family like mine is, hidden behind a veil of wealth and fear, Sander’s untouchable because of the loyalty he’s personally inspired in addition to the infamy that comes with the motorcycle club his family belongs to. A club infinitely more popular than any that embraces my family as members.
The Black Shamrocks MC. A motley crew of gunrunners and weed sellers.
Somehow, they inspire a level of loyalty that is unattainable to me, even with a sitting Member of Parliament for a father and a wealthy socialite with underworld connections for a mother. I’ve never managed to cultivate fidelity in anyone outside those forced to serve me. For all my pedigree and previous sporting achievements, I’m as much an outsider in Inadale as I am a member of the inner clique.
Of course, the cocktail of chemicals my mother has the butler pour down my throat every morning doesn’t help. Curbing my psychotic compulsions and antisocial tendencies with pharmaceuticals may make me easier to control, but they also dull my particular brand of cruel je ne sais quoi.
What once made me a leader, now renders me a follower.
Thanks to Sander Mayberry and his overactive sense of justice.
“Hmmm,” Dad muses. He laughs, a genuinely evil sound that he rarely lets loose in public, and the sound rips me out of my pity party. I turn back to him, my gaze narrowing when I discover that he’s smirking. “I didn’t think he’d have the stomach for it, but here she is. Out in the open. A siren being dangled in front of a monster.”
My father’s emphasis on the last word is my first clue.
For a second time, I follow his focus, only this time I look past Sander.
Crossing the street with one of the local slut’s who recently graced my bed is a goddess. Tall. Blonde. Tanned. Curvy. The girl is exactly what my father called her.
A siren.
It takes one glance to lure me in, a second to hook me.
“Who is she?”
“That’s Lilianna,” Dad replies. “Lysander’s twin. He’s very protective of her—she rarely makes it into town without a continent of bikers surrounding her.”
I vaguely remember her from school. The twins were in their first year at the senior school while I was finishing my last. Studious and quiet. She was on the running team, but I don’t think we had anything else together, so Lilianna never really snagged my attention back then.
