Chapter 1 Chi
Chapter 1
Chi
My father’s mansion is beautiful, with every amenity money can buy. I’m always happy and cozy here in my bed, in this grand suite with my bedroom, a kitchenette and a sitting area. I have this entire space all to myself.
Last year, I upgraded to a Kluft Royal Sovereign mattress, one of the best money can buy, which perfectly molds to my body to ensure I get my full uninterrupted 7.5 hours of sleep per night without any stiffness in my limbs or cricks in my neck. It’s always at my preferred temperature setting so that I don’t get a chill in the night. It’s so comfortable and soft, with a weighted blanket that hugs me tight. I revel in the silken sheets against my face as I turn over to wake up for the day.
The first thing I’m aware of is that this is not that mattress or those sheets. Whatever I’m lying on right now is hard as a rock, and the sheets are cold and smell like cheap perfume.
I go to lift my face up off the pillows and get a murky, underwater feeling. It seems I have bigger problems than an uncomfortable mattress. Suddenly, I feel the throbbing, like my head is being slowly squeezed by a vice, let go, then squeezed again.
“There she is.” I know his voice immediately: Andy. Even though my eyes are still closed, I easily picture him in my head: the solid physique, the curve of his bottom lip, and his dark, smoky eyes. There’s something so reassuring about having this thirsty guy who is far too obvious about wanting to fuck me sitting next to me here. I sink back into the awful mattress and crack my eyes open, feeling the pain in my head intensify, but enjoying the view.
Intensely deep set, rounded eyes and short-cropped curls of brown hair greet me. The perpetual upturn of Andy’s full upper lip tips up further at my wince of pain when the light fully hits my eyes, but he tones the gesture of possible callousness down by smoothing my hair out of my face. It feels good, but just a split second before leaning into the touch, I remember where I am and who he is to me, and fall back.
“Heyyy, good morning, sunshine,” he says. “Or, good afternoon, I guess. You’ve been out for twelve hours. Do you remember what happened?”
A doctor comes in to take my vitals as I try to find my voice and process all the words that Andy just said. It feels like he’s talking so fast.
I answer groggily, my hoarse voice filled with sleep and pain. “Something bad,” I say, trying to get my lips to work after what must have been a long night.
Andy nods, holding out a cup of water. “You got a bump on the head. A big one, like, the size of a fucking golf ball. But don’t worry, we’re at the hospital. Your father is down the hall. He’s out of the ICU.”
I’m still feeling weird and hazy while I consider this. My father is down the hall, but for something else. Some other shitty thing that has happened to us over the course of the past few weeks. Giardi, the same person whose men just left me with this horrible headache, sent men who nearly killed my father to my home. They held me at gunpoint. My best friend, Mara; her man, Cas; and Andy, Cas’s cousin; came to my rescue. My father was shot in this incident, but I have to really think about what has happened to me…
Once I do, just enough comes back to me about the night before for me to begin piecing it together: a parking lot, a party, the whip of a tree branch. “Giardi,” I whisper. “That fucker.” I don’t remember details, but I remember that one of my family’s biggest rivals, and the man whose soldiers shot my father just a week ago, is the one responsible for my current state.
Andy laughs while pushing my hair back gently, presumably to check the bandage I now feel encircling my head. “Yeah, one of his guys whacked you with a gun. The guy who hit you is dead, and once I get my hands on Giardi, he’ll be dead too; don’t worry.”
My eyes dart to his to see if he’s kidding, but his face is a stone slate. Before I can attempt to read him, I jolt in bed. “Mara? Is Mara okay?” Mara is my best friend — the only other friend I have in this billionaire life we both live who seems to actually get that it’s all just a game. A game that isn’t always so fun to play. She doesn’t quite know how deeply entrenched in this world I actually am and hasn’t ever really asked. But she’s starting to figure it out, little by little. It seems that everyone is.
“She’s fine, Chi. She and Cas had to go off the grid for a few days.” I breathe a sigh of relief. He’ll keep her safe. Technically, Cas is the head honcho of the mafia-like organization Andy works for, but I personally think Andy does as much work as his cousin does and is just as important. Cas is also Mara’s… well, in my mind, he’s her epic love, if they can get their shit together. This life we live, that our families live, tends to keep us from finding true happiness. Because of the circumstances surrounding my future, I don’t have the luxury of an epic love story, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy for them.
“So we all survived… but you’re still planning to kill Giardi, huh?” I ask, trying to get my bearings back. Andy just puts his palms out and shrugs: an “Obviously, Chi,” without words.
My father taught me how to read people — how to use their discomfort against them — but most of the time, I can’t read Andy at all. I pride myself on my people-reading skills, so this is more than a little unsettling. And if I’m being honest, intriguing.
I realize that he’s doing to me what I wish I could do to him, simply by withholding his feelings from me. Well, if he’s going to unsettle me, I’ll have to do it right back. “KillingGiardi.” I reach up with my hand and push the corners of his lips up. “Does that make you happy?” Now I push his lips down in the corners. “Or sad?”
He opens his mouth and bites my finger so quickly and unexpectedly that I shriek and knock the water on the bedside table over.
Andy grins, but still grabs my finger to make sure he didn’t bite too hard. “For you, baby? It’ll be my pleasure.”
*****
I hate hospitals. I have always hated them, but I despise them even more now. Just over a week ago, a few bullets were shot through the window of my father’s study and nearly killed him in the incident that forced Mara, Cas, and Andy to bring me along with them. My father has been in this hospital ever since, trying to recuperate. Visiting him when he was half-alive was torture.
Now I just remember that horrible event, which made this already somewhat traumatizing life I live even worse. I knew bad things happened to other people, but thought with all the security I have surrounding me, none of it could touch me. After a handful of men come into your home and hold a gun to your head, then put their disgusting hands all over your body, before your best friend and her boyfriend shoot them off of you, it definitely changes your outlook on your own safety and mortality.
Even though they are for recuperation, hospitals now just give me such uneasy vibes. Just because I can only count the times I’ve been a patient or a visitor on one hand doesn’t mean it isn’t terrible each time.
“Go to sleep,” Andy mumbles in the darkness as I try to find a good position for the umpteenth time. Of course, with the doctors coming in and out every hour or two, it's easier said than done.
“I’m trying,” I say, elbowing my pillow. I’m exhausted, but I’m itchy and achy and so fucking uncomfortable.
“This is one of the best rooms in this hospital, Chi,” Andy says, with more than a little testiness in his tone. I've noticed that he gets cranky when he’s tired. I file that away for later. I didn’t think anything could disturb his calm and cool composure.
“Doesn’t mean it’s comfortable,” I mutter back, throwing the pillow off the side of the bed and using my arm instead.
“Comfort is different for some people than others,” Andy says, a smirk evident in his tone. “Maybe if you stopped comparing it to your state-of-the-art mattress at the mansion…”
He trails off, which is good because I’m about to interrupt the son-of-a-bitch anyway. If he wants to get laid, he’s certainly not going to get it with that attitude. “Listen,” I say with some exasperation, “I’m not trying to tell you that I’m ungrateful here, but this hospital uses detergent with perfumes. It messes with my eyes and my skin is sensitive. You want to see the rash on my—”
Now Andy interrupts me by turning the lamp on and allowing pale yellow light to spill through the room. “You have a rash? Where?” He grabs my arm and searches before he sees the tiny red bumps. I think he’s about to make fun of me, but he hits the call button instead.
“You should have told me!” he says, shaking his head. “Jesus, if you have a rash from the bedding, we can get you different sheets. I’ll get you whatever you need.”
I open my mouth to speak, but for once, I’m at a loss for words. It’s not that I’ve never had people jump up and do things for me when I ask them to, but I guess I never really thought of Andy like this. I don’t hate it.
“Thanks?” I say uncertainly. I’m exhausted, but in truth, I probably would benefit from a change of sheets. My skin sensitivities haven’t ever really been a problem since my father is rich as sin.
When the orderlies barge into the room, I look away the entire time they change my sheets so as not to show my embarrassment. It annoys me that I’m embarrassed in the first place. My father has always told me not to apologize for my wealth and lifestyle. It’s not my fault that I’m rich.
When they’re done, I lie down and bite my lip. I hate feeling grateful to someone for doing something I wouldn’t normally have to be grateful for.But I sigh into the crisp, cool sheets that don’t smell like cheap detergent and pull the pillow to my face.
Andy smirks, giving himself a huge pat on the back, I’m sure — one step closer to his goal of nailing me. I’ll let him think it’s a game, even though I decided a week ago that he’d be getting lucky as soon as my father was feeling better.
With that in mind, I decide to play with him a little. “Tell me a bedtime story,” I say, batting my own long lashes. I’ve found the best way to keep men on the hook is to act meek and coy, and then strike when they think they have me all buttoned up and ready.
He smirks that devilish grin at me that I’ve come to know so well. He’s definitely practiced it in the mirror — it looks too good to be natural. I love it when men put in the extra effort, even if it does make them a bit arrogant and overbearing. It’s almost funny how obvious it is that he’s trying to lure me, just like I am him. “A bedtime story? Like what? I’m pretty sure anything I have to tell you will give you nightmares.”
I smile back, breathing in deeply and sighing out. “You’d be surprised by how much I can take. I don’t scare so easily. Why do you think I went with you, Mara, and Cas to a party where an enemy of my family could have killed me?”
He leans back without turning off the light and studies me. He looks off at the wall and bites his lip in thought. “Okay,” he says with finality. Then he turns his dark eyes back to me, and I see them swirling in thought: black coffee with a touch of cream.
“When I was younger, before I got into this life, I left for the army right after graduation. Cas tried to recruit me into his dad’s mafia family, but he knew I didn’t want that at the time. I was young, and I had an out: I wasn’t a super high commodity, being his cousin on his mom’s side who never had a part in the mafia at all. So, he understood why I bounced as soon as I got through high school, which was a hard line for my mom.
It was good too, I guess, because, after the army, I ended up in college, even though I really hated school. The government paid for everything, and Cas insisted I go. He said having a degree would be good for the business, but I think he wanted to keep me out of the real trouble for a while. I finished quickly, but I never stopped craving that rush of danger I felt while deployed.”
He breathes in as I wonder where this is going. After a long moment, he continues: “I was eighteen years old when I joined the military. I had a big head on my shoulders, thinking I could conquer the world with a gun and a rucksack. Throughout my training, I showed some kind of tenacity that my superiors liked, because after a year, I found myself in Special Operations. At one point, I was sent to infiltrate a prominent terrorist group. I was chosen to go in, I think, because of how resilient I was to the torture I was put under by my own handlers. I’ve always had a high pain tolerance. After the torture sessions they put me through, it’s even higher now.”
He looks off at the wall, as if studying the memory in his mind. “One thing you learn when you’re sent into a sting operation is that the people you need to find out about aren’t just ruthless killers. In some ways, they are just regular people like you and me. The group I infiltrated has done fucked up, deplorable shit. But the people that make up that group had families they loved, went to their kid’s soccer games, organized neighborhood food drives. Honestly, I was shocked by how normal they were as I moved through their organization as a young recruit.”
He takes a long, dramatic breath. “Anyway, I met some of the kids. The families were super tight, always sharing everything with each other. And then… well, then it was time for us to blow the entire cell up and get my new friends thrown into max-security prison. And I did it. I turned on all of the people I’d spent a year getting close to.”
Andy stares right at me, a hard look on his face, no regret for what he did whatsoever. “Of course, the fact that they planned to blow up a luxury high-rise in the heart of downtown Chicago made it a whole lot easier.” He looks off at the wall again and gives another dramatic sigh, peeking back at me from the corner of his eye.
“One little girl, though… she ended up an orphan. So, I took her in for a few months.” He gives me the same smirk he always does when he’s telling me something he expects will impress me. “She was sharp. Ten years old. Super sassy. I was only about 10 years older than her, so more like a big brother than anything. I made sure she got adopted by a nice family in the end. I still think about her sometimes. I actually still have the phone I used back then. I don’t turn it on much, but I always have a few texts from her when I do.”
His face contorts slightly into a different kind of rehearsed smile than he usually gives me. Is he serious? I think. Did he really believe that would work? I burst out laughing.
He narrows his eyes on me. “Hey, what’s so funny?”
“Is that a true story? I know why you told it, but please tell me that it was at least true!” I break into a fit of giggles again.
Andy bites his lip to keep his smile at bay. “What do you mean? That was from the heart!”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, Jean Val Jean. That’s very sweet, but I don’t want some affected, warm and gooey story designed to make me swoon into bed with you.”
Andy looks scandalized as he puts a hand on his chest. “You don’t realize how your words injure me, little Chee-Chee.” I roll my eyes; every time Andy is sarcastic with me, he exaggerates the Americanized insertion of the “e” sound in my name.
“Seriously!” I say, wanting to hear a real story about the military now, even though all of this started with me trying to get him to think I was adorable. My insistence is all bluster now, though. I’m quite exhausted and doubt I even have time for more than another quick, feel-good Charlie Brown story.
“Okay, okay,” he says, accepting the challenge. “Grenades are super fucked up. We got one thrown at us once in the Humvee. We weren’t expecting trouble, and then, out of nowhere, a literal tiny bomb dropped from the sky. The driver saw it first and swerved out of the way, so only three of the five of us were killed. I was the only one who walked away. I carried the other guy that was still alive.”
For some reason, despite the subject matter, his voice makes me feel good — less restless. “Did that happen a lot?”
He turns the light off, but I still see his dark gaze burning into me. “What do you consider a lot? I ended up having a pretty close relationship with bombs, so it definitely wasn’t the last time I had a close encounter with one.”
I sigh. I’ve heard sad stories about shootings, torture, and killings a hundred times before, but perhaps sitting here with Andy, I’ve bitten off slightly more than I can chew. “Oh gosh. I’m sorry, Andy.”
He smirks again — that ever-present smirk. “You asked for it.”
I nod my head, trying to keep my eyes open. “You have to tell me more about it.”
But I don’t hear if there’s anything more to this story or how many more he has as I drift off. I guess he’ll have to stick around to tell me some other time.