The Queen’s Denial

Chapter 5 Chi

Chapter 5

Chi

He’s gone the next day when I wake up. I look around the grounds for him and realize he’s either really busy today or he’s hiding from me. I’m getting sick of that shit. I know I gave him a hard time at the beginning — acted like the coy, evasive girl-next-door — but I’ve never actually had a guy do the hot and cold thing back at me before, and I don’t fucking like it.

But at least two can play this game, and I’m fantastic at it. Around lunchtime, I call up Mara and decide to break out of this place. If Andy really wanted me to take it easy, he’d make sure he was around to ensure I do, instead of using his guards to do it.

I pick her up in my Corvette, and we tell the guards that not only won’t Cas mind a woman recovering from a mild concussion driving around his seriously injured girlfriend, but their bosses will actually be angry about them trying to keep us here. Mara even reminds one of them of Cas’s “special punishment” if they touch her, and I don’t think I want to know what he does to them when they lay a finger on her.

We go for cheesy tots. I know they are one of Mara’s favorites because I called her out for not eating any of the food at a party I threw once but then caught her stealing a handful of potato puffs from one of the hot plates and shoveling them into her mouth in a dark corner. I order and pay before she can protest, and I smile as she licks the cheesy goodness off her fingers.

We catch up on our lives for a while, talking about the new gash she has through her thigh, and the annoying side-effects of the concussion I’ve been feeling. We graze the topic of my father, who is just about to be discharged from the hospital, but I know that Mara won’t ever push further than asking about him and his recovery.

Even though she was the friend who saved me from being raped on the floor of my own mansion, she’ll never bring it up or expect any sort of appreciation. In fact, it would just make her embarrassed. She would help me through anything, and when I approach her with the need to talk, I know she’ll always be there for me, no matter how awkward it makes her feel. That’s the type of friend she is, which is why I love her so much. To both of us, this is just the everyday life of two daughters of billionaire criminal masterminds. But at least we can find some solace in having each other.

Finally, she’s done with the small talk and wants to get down to the good stuff. “So? Andy?” She asks me with a sharp smirk and a dot of cheese above her lip.

“Nope, nothing to tell about that,” I say with a smile. “You’ve got some cheese right here.” I use my face as a map for her to figure out where to wipe her own.

She reaches up with her tongue to get it. “Nothing yet?” Her smirk widens into a devilish smile.

I usually love talking about my extracurricular activities in the sack. I have fucked some very hot, super average, big and small guys. I’ve been through multiple different ethnicities. Every one of them had plenty to offer and plenty to joke about in equal measure, and I had a lot of fun dissecting my time with them.

But with Andy, I just don’t want to discuss it. I’m sure he’ll be great when it finally happens, and I definitely want it to happen, but with him it feels different somehow. It feels like something to be private about. I don’t want my thoughts running away with me, and with Andy I feel like they could.

“No, nothing yet.” I shrug and feel obligated to say something more. “He’s super hot.”

Mara seems to be weighing this observation. “I guess he’s good-looking in that classic dark Italian bad boy type of way. All mysterious. Dark hair, eyes, stubble, and skin.”

“Yeah, anytime he holds a gun, I’m like… ‘Hello, Mr. Luciano.’”

Mara thinks for a moment, a slight crease in her forehead.

“Lucky Luciano? The famous Italian mobster?” I prompt, trying to jumpstart something in her brain.

She looks at me sheepishly, and I have to laugh. For all of her bluster and insistence on playing the dangerous games that Cas and Andy play, she’s still incredibly ignorant to many of the facts of this life. Probably because she’s never really tried to understand it. Maybe she’s been too busy and doesn’t watch as many History Channel documentaries as I do, but I’m always shocked by how little she knows.

She’s also told me that she got her first gun from Cas just weeks ago. Although I’ve seen her skills firsthand, she just started learning how to shoot. I’ve known how to shoot since I was a teenager, and I study other methods of self-defense and hobbies.

I let it go for now; she never really wants to talk about it anyway. I ask about how Cas is doing and she seems uncertain.

“What? Isn’t he, like, basically a bull? Whatever, he got stabbed in the shoulder, it’s good. He’ll just keep running around the ring, swinging the matador in circles for fun.”

Mara’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Well, he definitely thinks of himself that way. So does everyone else, I guess.” She puts down her tots and looks up at me, taking a deep breath, and then exhaling in one long sigh. “But he’s just a man, Chi.”

I smile and cock my head. “I know. Maybe you should remind him once in a while that he’s not Superman.”

“Well, I think everyone knows he’s not Superman. Maybe… what’s his name? The Punisher?”

I smile at the analogy. “You’re right — antihero. How’d I miss that?” I peek at her and smirk. “Someone’s been brushing up on their Marvel trivia.” She smiles back but says nothing.

I consider her assessment of her huge, violent, homicidal boyfriend. “Even if he were The Punisher, that guy is just a man, too. He cried about his wife and kids being killed. He gets hurt. He can be killed.” I give a genuine smile now. “Actually, maybe you guys should start having a Netflix and chill night where you watch that show. It’s so fucking good.”

Mara laughs. “Only you would suggest something like that while we’re in the middle of a mafia war and one of us is recovering from a bullet rip in her leg, while the other is still having migraines from the concussion she got last week.”

“When is a better time to watch great TV than when you’re recovering from wounds you got fighting mafia criminal masterminds?” We both laugh. This is what I love about Mara: our biggest similarity is our ability to turn huge, traumatic events into hearty comedy.

Andy drives up as we laugh, and I give Mara a flat look. We’re not stupid — we have Massimo with us today. We know it’s a good idea to have backup and guards if necessary. Mara even has the little gun Cas gave her just a couple weeks ago, and I know from watching her shoot that she can use it if necessary. But still, the men feel this ridiculous obligation to follow us and watch us everywhere we go.

“Party time’s over,” she says with a smile.

“Seriously, these men are starting to grate on my last nerve.”

Mara laughs. “Try being thrown over The Punisher’s shoulder and locked in a room in his house for a week.”

I raise my eyebrow and smirk. “Oooh, kinky.”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head at me, but just laughs.

“Seriously, though, they treat us like we have no idea what we’re doing.”

Mara’s smile falters, and her gaze wanders. “Yeah, I’ve considered that. There are two different ways to think about it, though. You can think of it as them using their expertise the best way they know how to protect the things they care about. Or you can think about it as them not trusting us enough to help out or take care of others and ourselves in any way. It feels like a balancing act.”

Now it’s my turn to look off and think. “I guess that’s true. Andy is so flippant, though. I can never tell if he really thinks I’m incapable of anything or if he’s just making a joke. And I’m going to be head of the fucking Yakuza. I’m not just a delicate ornament. I’m going to be the Queen of it all one day.”

Mara looks at me in a way she never has before. “Honestly Chi, I knew that but… I never really thought about it like that.”

I already realized that Mara doesn’t think of me as head of the Yakuza or head of anything in this life we live. She also treats me like I don’t know things a lot of the time, even though she likely knows far less than I do. I’ve always been interested in this lifestyle, while she has always wanted out. She just started learning secrets a month ago when she met Cas, which led directly to her getting shot at every five minutes. At least, that’s the story her internet persona told, but I always knew there was more to her. I guess my internet persona doesn’t scream, “Capable Yakuza princess destined to be queen,” either, come to think of it.

We both decide to move onto more mundane things: what’s going on in the social media world, our bitchy-frenemy’s last post explaining without using Mara’s name why some people just can’t handle the pressures of billionaire life, and her ex-boyfriend Derrick’s pending engagement. Andy doesn’t give us very long before he’s at the car, coercing me out of the driver’s seat.

“I know how to drive,” I say, rolling my eyes as he opens the passenger’s side door for me.

“Should a girl recovering from a concussion drive, or should the capable, sinfully handsome bodyguard who has sped his way through multiple car chases with no loss of life drive? Hmmm. Let me really think hard about that one.”

I clench my hands into fists to stop from smacking him upside the head. Mara laughs before he pulls her to Massimo’s car. “Don’t kill him, Chi. He’s probably not really this much of an asshole. Just trying to impress you in all the wrong ways.”

“I don’t need to impress anyone, Mara. I’m a fucking Scutari. My name does that for me.”

I pretend to gag, although I agree from what I know of the Scutari organization that the name is impressive. They were rich and well-known, although not affiliated with mob life. I’m still surprised that Cas took his mother’s last name, because his father’s name carries even more fame and power, but he and Andy have made it just as formidable as his father’s once was.

Andy gets back to the car and looks at me, his eyes glittering, and cites the gagging noises I made earlier at his display of arrogance over his family name. “You pretend you don’t think my background is hot, but you do. The princess always wants the knight but gets stuck with the prince instead.”

I sigh again as he puts the car into gear, this time in frustration. He’s fucking right, and he’s said it so eloquently, too. I do want the knight. I want the capable badass, not the sheltered, rich, pretty boy. I feel the need to pretend this isn’t true, but in my heart, I know he realizes I feel this way, too. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

I might as well just accept the circumstances. We sit in silence for a while as he drives, until we’re crawling up the driveway to the mansion. I adopt my best meek yet coy gaze. “You know what, Mr. Scutari, sir? You seem to just have it all figured out. You might as well just take whatever you want from your innocent little Chee-chee while you can.”

He jerks to a stop in the expansive garage attached to the mansion and hops out of my car without even putting the top up or opening the door. I watch him with a smirk as he strides over to my door to open it. He unbuckles my seat belt and wrenches the door open, pulling me out and nearly carrying me into the house. “I’ve been planning on it, Chi. You have no idea what I have in store for you.”

Finally, this is going to happen. We can wipe away all this tension between us that has been building for days.

He yanks me toward him as he inputs the code to open the mansion door and pulls me in by my waist. I giggle into him, at his enthusiasm and haste. He so rarely shows these emotions that it’s fun to think he feels them with me. That he needs it right now and can’t wait another minute.

Just as we get to the stairwell, his phone rings. “Fuck!” he curses, but digs it out of his pocket, his grip on me loosening when he sees the caller ID. “Mara?”

I hear Mara’s voice on the other line, sounding panicked. I know he’s going to have to leave again before he says it. I drop my arms and hold myself back from grabbing his phone and throwing it out the window.

“Shit. Are you sure? Yeah, he looked like hell the last time I saw him. Well, that’s fucking Cas for you. I’ll be there in 20 minutes. Call Doc Kane.”

He clicks his phone off and looks up at me, dark brown eyes swirling with cloudy black worry. “I have to go, Chee-chee.”

“I know,” I say, turning around and walking up the stairs by myself. “But ya know what, Mr. Scutari, sir? I’m sick and tired of playing games.”

I keep walking without turning around, leaving Andy to suck on those words for a while and see how he likes the taste.