3. Skye
SKYE
Two Weeks Later
H aving a crush sucked, but being full-blown obsessed with a boy sucked even more.
Nikola Nikolaev was the one I shouldn’t want, but there was no ordering my heart around.
To the world, Nikola was a scary motherfucker with connections to the Bratva. Covered in tats, ruthless, and unforgiving.
To me, he was the boy who always came through for me.
After spending a long weekend in New Orleans for Halloween, partly to visit Branka and Sasha and partly because I knew Nikola would be there, I’d returned to D’Arc in Connecticut.
Unfortunately, Nikola had been avoiding me ever since our run-in, and it was getting old fast. Our kiss on Halloween was proving detrimental to my health—and my heart. I wasn’t having it.
So I opted to trek through the woods to get a peek at the man taking up an unacceptable amount of space in my brain.
A cold November breeze tousled my hair, but I didn’t feel it as flames licked my skin at the memory of his mouth on me. Bonfires raged across the clearing, flames clawing skyward and flickering showers of embers that lit up the night.
I stood there, my eyes burning from the smoke and my body buzzing with anticipation as I scanned the painted faces of every criminal faction.
Legacy events took place at the very edge of Jean D’Arc’s boundary line, in a wide-open clearing surrounded by towering pines, their gnarled, skeletal branches twisted upward like grasping hands, clawing at the night sky and strangling every last thread of moonlight.
The trees loomed like silent sentinels, casting the clearing in a suffocating, ink-black darkness.
In other words: it kept curious eyes away.
Shadows spilled out thick and heavy along the edges, watching from the tree line like creepy predators. The air was dense with the scent of damp earth, smoke, and copper.
“Welcome to the freakshow,” Penelope uttered and signed at the same time. The skulls painted on people’s faces were a reminder to the legacies, and everyone connected to the mafia, of the skeletons our families had buried.
My girlfriends and I stood in the forest, watching the scene with the same uneasy feeling we experienced the first time we saw this happen. But instead of walking back to our dorm that was a mere walk away, we stayed glued to our spots.
Anya shot her a look. “We couldn’t let Skye come alone. What kind of friends would that make us?”
I flashed her a grateful look.
“Agreed, but those skulls… fire… it’s all just too much.”
Penelope stared at the skulls with rose thorns that represented the Omertàs.
And, given that she was arranged to marry Enzo Marchetti, who was practically Omertà royalty, I could see why they made her the most anxious.
Not that Enzo was present. He never attended D’Arc, but his minions could be present among us.
There were also the black-and-white skulls with golden crowns reserved for the kingpins, as well as masks with silver accents representing the mobsters who fought the Belles and Mobsters agreements two decades ago. The Yakuzas were my least favorite, with their ominous symbols and dark colors.
“ Would you rather we leave ?” I offered reluctantly.
“No, I’ll get over it.” She shook her head, but I knew Penelope hated any reminder of her impending marriage. “It’s not like he’s even here.”
I nodded in agreement.
“We could still kill him, you know,” Anya grumbled, picking up on our friend’s stress. “It would be easy.”
“I really wish I didn’t hate violence,” Penelope huffed. “But I might have to resort to it.”
“We,” Amara corrected her. “If it comes down to it, we’ll find a way to do it together.”
“ We go down together ,” I agreed, then gestured toward the clearing. “ Maybe we tie him up like that guy and torture him .”
Haunted expressions marred my friends’ faces, all eyes turning on the guy tied to a tree like he was about to be burned at the stake.
I’d seen a version of it play out half a dozen times—some freakish game of cat and mouse would be played until he was caught, and then he’d be killed.
“ Do we know who he is ?” I signed to my girlfriends.
Penelope shrugged. “Organ trafficker.”
I winced. There’d been more and more cases of attempted kidnapping and organ trafficking lately.
What happened to the Morrellis at the beginning of the semester had been a warning to us all. The group attacked Arianna and kidnapped Hannah, extracting an organ from her body. Thankfully her father had found her before she could be slaughtered for even more organs and left for dead.
It was no wonder the legacies took torturing of the organ traffickers to the extreme, as was evidenced by the man howling in pain and terror, his skin rubbed raw from his restraints.
I wasn’t sure what it said about me, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to protest the cruelty of what was about to happen.
In fact, I was glad for it. Maybe because I grew up in this mafia world or maybe because it was the lesser of two evils. Our families fought fire with fire when it came to human and organ trafficking, knowing that at any moment the world surrounding us could be burned to ash because of it.
So yes, I understood that our friends and families were fighting the battles law enforcement couldn’t.
I suspected my friends felt the same, especially because of how close we were to the Morrelli twins, neither of whom would be returning to D’Arc. Instead, they’d opted to finish their degrees from the comfort of their homes.
Arianna married Matteo, and Hannah was still recovering. Gianna, their younger sister, had been coming and going, focused on spending more time with her family.
“Has anyone heard from Hannah?” Amara asked. When nobody answered, she pinned Francesca with a stare. Her family and the Morrellis were tighter than ever, and she was usually more than eager to dish out gossip. “Any updates, Francesca?”
Matteo’s sister just shrugged. “All I know is that she’s in Ireland, recovering.”
“We should ask Gianna when she’s back,” Penelope added, catching the grimace I shared with Amara. “You’re probably right. It would upset her.”
“Doesn’t it seem odd that of all the places in the world, she went to Ireland?” Francesca questioned.
“ She has some family there, no? ” The many limbs of our respective family trees were beyond complicated, and sometimes it was hard to keep track of everyone’s relations.
Penelope, who was also Hannah’s cousin, shook her head. “My uncles—Mama’s brothers—have a place there. But Hannah isn’t related to them. Not by blood anyhow.”
We waited for her to elaborate, but she remained silent.
“So she’s staying with them?” Francesca questioned with a puzzled expression.
“What’s with all the questions?” Penelope retorted wryly.
Francesca let out a sigh. “I kind of miss her crazy ass. Arianna’s hitched. Gianna is barely here. Which, same goes for you, by the way.”
“Who?” everyone asked at the same time, but Francesca didn’t look away from Penelope.
“You guys haven’t noticed her slipping in and out of campus?” She crossed her arms, not seeming affected by the way our friend was squirming.
Penelope’s cheeks flushed a deep red as she muttered, “Blabbering ass.”
“ Where have you been going ?” I signed, then frowned. “ I hope you’re being safe. ” She didn’t need me saying the words “organ traffickers” to know how serious the situation was. Especially not with what had brought us here tonight.
“I am,” Penelope signed, her shoulders slumping. “I’ve been… doing some research.”
“Research?” Francesca repeated.
Penelope looked uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other, her mouth opening and closing.
Deciding to step in and help her, I waved over my head to capture everyone’s attention before I signed, “ I kissed Nikola .”
As expected, three sets of eyes turned my way and I caught Penelope’s mouthed “ Thank you .”
“Why would you do that?” Amara asked in shock.
“Yeah, why? He’s…” Francesca apparently struggled to find adequate words to describe him. “He’s just so fucking nuts.”
I shrugged. “ He’s a good kisser. ”
There was so much more to Nikola than they could see.
He was more than just the crazy and wild person everyone thought he was.
I knew who he really was and saw past all his Russian craziness.
Or I could tell them about the pleasure that Nikola’s hands could bring, but I didn’t think the girls could handle me telling them about his expert mouth and magic touch.
So I kept all that for myself. There was one thing I knew for certain though: I would have Nikola’s lips on me again.
“Ah, it looks like your good kisser is up for the chase,” Amara said, her mouth moving slowly for my benefit.
I whipped my head around to find the man in question standing in the middle of the woods. The painted face of a ruthless mobster, ready to hunt.
“Tonight we show what happens to human traffickers,” Penelope signed Nikola’s words for me.
Everyone’s attention was on him, his upper body bare despite the chilly November temperature. And call me silly, but I wanted to stomp my way over to him and demand he put his shirt on.
Only I was allowed to admire the inked canvas of his chiseled abs.