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She looks at me under her lashes. I feel a pang in my gut. “Why did you come here, Lucian? You always make me cry, so…”
She leaves it hanging, and so do I. She’s a smart one, but I’m not going to touch that question.
“It’s not good to cry alone,” I reply, wrapping an arm around her slight shoulders.
The cherry vanilla scent from her hair drifts over me, making me feel warm all over. Cherry vanilla is the fragrance of ice creams and lotions that girls lather over their skin when they get out of a bubble bath. A bath with too many bubbles.
“We’re Romanians. We should never cry alone.” I release her hand and stand up, giving her a stern look. “But that doesn’t mean when we leave this room, we’re friends or nothin’.”
There are rules for a reason. Might not know what those reasons are, but rules are rules. This is just a moment suspended in space and time, but when we get back to the real world, we return to what we were.
Later, back in the classroom, the glossy blond braids call to me again. I snake out my hand and tweak one.
She angles her head slightly in my direction, eyeing me from the side, giving me the attention I want.
From now on, I will tease and bug her and she will get mad at me, but I will make sure to do just enough to make her mad. Only mad, not sad. I can control this and make it work, like I make everything else work.
I’ll do it for her, not just for me. And that makes me feel better.
CHAPTER1
LUCIAN
“Atutor?” I spit out.
Irritation thrums through me and I flick my wrist, repositioning the cuff links of my shirt to align with the button of my jacket.
Anton, sitting on the red couch, snorts. Marku lounges back in his chair, the brown leather creaking under his hefty weight. He gives me that classic smirk of his.
Cristo, my cousin and the second-in-command of my clan, asked us to stay once the weekly meeting was over and all the other soldiers and officers cleared out. We sat back down and he dropped this bombshell.
I must’ve heard wrong because…Hell no.
Anton chuckles and I have the urge to cuff him upside the head. Of course, he’d never abide such disrespect and we’d end up in a scuffle. Eyeing the fancy Persian rug dubiously, I wonder how Nelu would handle us breaking shit up in his office. Not well, I imagine.
Suddenly, my fantasies of revenge are overtaken by another thought.
“There’s a fucking war about to explode with the Russians and you’re worried about my high school grades?”
“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Cristo grumbled half-heartedly.
I wave off his complaint. “It was inevitable and you know it.”
“That’s beside the point. You’re failing, you dumbass runt, so you can’t talk yourself out of this. Graduating is nonnegotiable, Lucian, and at this point, you’re not going to,” Cristo warns. “How are you gonna marry Roxie, knowing the kind of family she comes, without a high school degree? She’s sure as hell gonna have one. That’s not a good look for anyone, but especially not you.”
Leveling me a hard stare, he threatens, “You either comply or I break every bone in your body, get me?”
He gives a shrug as he lights a cigarette. “If it’s any consolation she’s pretty to look at.”
I don’t give a shit about what she looks like. Me and my boys have single-handedly taken over the Jersey shore’s drug routes from the Bratva, and now I’m gonna get tutored by some loser girl?
Nah, that’s straight-up embarrassing.
Marku’s one-sided smirk spreads into a full-on grin.
Bastard.
“A girl? And a Lupu one at that. Are you trying to humiliate me?” I sputter out, shifting the seat I’m sitting on so that the outside leg lines up with the side of Cristo’s desk.
