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TATUM
“You’re going to be in charge of her,” Alex declared as he tapped on his laptop in his office above The Dacia Café. We both shared a penthouse floor in The Time Warner Building, recently renamed the Deutsche Bank Center, in Manhattan, but we crossed the 59th Street Bridge into Queens almost every day. Sunnyside, Queens, nicknamed Little Bucharest, was the hub of our mafie world. Alex came to work above the café his family had owned since we were children. Me? I came to check in on my mother and sister, Starlene, or Star, for short.
Shifting my big frame on one of the oxblood leather armchairs facing his desk, I crossed one leg over the other in a futile attempt to make myself fit and stuttered out, “W-what?”
I swung my head toward Luca, the second Lupu brother, sitting beside me, a look of shock on my face.
That was some bombshell he’d dropped in my lap.
I was the negotiator, the peacemaker, the fixer, and my automatic response to any of his requests was always yes.
The reason for this circled back to my last remaining secret. The one that could never come to light.
Not if I wanted to live to see another day. Not if I wanted my little sister, an innocent in this entire mess, to marry well. Not if I wanted my mother to remain in the only world she knew, the only world that mattered to her.
If anyone found out, I’d either forfeit my life or be banished from the Lupu clan.
Even if I was Alex’s best friend. Even if we loved each other like brothers and I was his second-in-command. Even if I was perfect…nothing could save me or my family if anyone got a whiff of my secret.
The only pure, untainted thing in my life was my sister, and I’d never let any harm come to her. Like every seventeen-year-old mafie girl, she dreamed of marrying an important clan member, or, at least, an up-and-coming one.
Her future made this secret an albatross hanging around my neck, dragging me down.
Strangling…always strangling me. It was the reason I walked around like a fragile vase, filled to the brim with filthy sludge, teetering on a pedestal.
One day, it would crash to the floor and spew waste everywhere.
I was that vase and its filth.
I worked every day to keep the looming chaos at bay. It was the reason I always said yes, always did a perfect job. For the first time, I found myself in the unenviable predicament of saying no.
I didn’t contradict Nicu when he’d come up with this insane scheme precisely because I wouldn’t have to deal with Clara. She tickled my dominance like no other. I had a sixth sense about these things, which meant she had a little subbie beneath that pain-in-the-ass mask she wore, and it was begging to come out to frolic and play.
The woman was impossible, and there was no way I could manage her without letting my dominant nature out, and once the beast was out, there was no stuffing it back in. It was imperative that I kept my distance.
Alex’s fingers halted in midair; the abrupt end to the clattering keys left a ringing silence. He raised his bright green eyes to me, curiosity and humor dancing in them. He knew Clara and I clashed, yet he was doing this to me? Then again, I’d never once countered his request. I’d trained him to lean on me in all things.
He clarified, “The Hagi woman, Clara. This is our chance to bring her over to our side. Wine her. Dine her. Charm her. I don’t have to warn you not to fuck her because you’d never cross that line, but anything else is on the table.”
For the first time, I shook my head at him.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea…,” I hedged.
I turned to Luca, catching his gray eyes with mine, and silently pleaded with him to come to my aid.
To the outside world, Alex and I were the closest. We were the same age and did everything together, from school to running the Lupu empire. Despite appearances, my true comrade-in-arms was Luca. I took him under my wing the day I found him cowering, bound and gagged, in the closet of his home during a game of hide-and-seek with Alex.
Luca once harbored an ugly secret. Little had I known I would soon join him in the exclusive club of sons who held the secrets of their fathers. I knew what being betrayed by a father felt like. I knew how it ruined the very foundation of one’s life.
Shrugging, Luca gave me a confused look, not understanding my distress.
Alex frowned. “Why not?”
“She’s…she’s impossible,” I pounced, throwing my hands up. “More importantly, she doesn’t like me. I don’t think it will help our case to have me look after her. She trusts me least of all, for some reason.”
Likely because my nature calls out to hers, and being a smart girl, she knows to run from a predator like me.
“Then, you’ll have to work harder because we need to put our best foot forward. Nicu doesn’t have the patience. There’s no way Luca can do it, with his wedding coming up in a couple of weeks. I certainly don’t have the time with the Bratva circling around us. We finally get the Popescu clan off our backs, thanks to Luca, look to expanding westward, and the Bratva come flexing their muscles. It’s never-ending.”
