Tainted Snow (Tainted Princess #1)

1. Snow

Chapter one

Snow

With a heavy sigh and heart, I haul the mop bucket toward the backdoor of the kitchens and then pour the dirty water onto the flagstones.

I'm the only maid at the mansion. All thirteen rooms and en suites are mine to clean and mine alone.

That's because my stepmother, Regina, hates me.

So, every day, I get up at five a.m. to do my chores. I scrub the floors until they shine, while she tends to the family business.

My stepmother is the queen of my late father's empire. After he died, his entire estate and assets went to her, and she has made my life a living hell ever since.

She even made me move out of my old room, the one with the perfect view of our gardens, and now I sleep in the attic.

Now my old room is her 'vanity' room. There's nothing in there but a full-length mirror, but that's all Her Majesty needs. Regina White truly is a shallow woman.

Beautiful beyond comparison and fierce to boot; she runs my late father's criminal empire with an iron fist.

Even now, as I head toward the gardens to find my favorite wishing well, one of her eagle-eyed guards watches me.

Another guard is monitoring the east wall, and another monitors the west.

They're big, scary men who carry all manner of guns, and if Regina gave the order, then she would have them kill me on the spot.

Men who were once loyal to my father.

But now, they are loyal to her.

Daddy never did tell me the true nature of his business. I just knew that it involved a lot of people dying.

As a result, he had many enemies, yet regardless of his nefarious deeds, he was still respected amongst his peers.

Sometimes, Daddy would come home in the dead of night with a grave expression on his face, and on those nights, he always had a coppery tang clinging to his clothes that I later learned was blood.

The thought transports me back, and I’m seven years old again. I’d been eavesdropping after having a nightmare and had sought my parents out, and that was when I overheard them in the kitchen.

“Snow can never know, Lily… she can never know. I couldn’t stand the way she’d look at me…”

“She won’t, Leroy, I promise. But regardless, she would never stop loving you. You will always be her father.”

“ Yeah, a father responsible for countless deaths… She’s too sweet and pure for this world, Lily. You must promise me that when times get tough, you take her far, far from here… far from my enemies. You never know who to trust.”

“Snow would miss you, Leroy. I couldn’t take her away from her father.”

“Just promise me, Lily. Promise…”

Mama takes a deep breath, then says, “I promise.”

“I love you, Lily.”

“I love you too, Leroy.”

Mama never got to uphold her promise in the end. She died a few months later.

Daddy never did tell me how she died, but it didn’t take me long to figure it out.

Mama was killed by one of his enemies. The ones he feared would come after me, but instead, they took away my mother.

One of the most caring women I have ever met, Mama was the glue that held our family together, and without her, we simply fell apart.

Even though Daddy did terrible things, Mama stayed by his side, always reminding him that he was loved.

Daddy changed after she died. He hardly laughed or smiled. The love of his life had been cruelly taken from him, and I know he did what he needed to seek revenge.

For he came home another night smelling of blood. Yet Mama wasn’t there to console him that time.

I was all he had left in the world, and he became obsessed with keeping me safe.

One of my favorite nannies stopped turning up one day; I think Daddy learned that she had betrayed the family, so she had to go.

I like to think that he merely dismissed her, and she went on her way to work for another child and another family, but I know how men like my father work.

They don’t show mercy.

Daddy had to become the monster he feared in the end in order to keep me safe—his sweet little Snow—and I have lived a sheltered life since.

I’ve barely left the confines of the family estate since Mama’s death. Daddy even had me home-schooled by a woman he vetted and trusted.

I have no friends as a result of my upbringing.

I’ve never even had a boyfriend.

Despite those lonely years after Mama’s death, we were happy. We may have lost our family matriarch, yet we still found a way to go on.

Daddy and I found some semblance of peace.

Until the day he met her…

Regina.

The devil herself.

Regina never had any qualms about getting her hands dirty for the sake of the family, and she never had trouble sleeping, whereas Daddy had constant night terrors and took all manner of drugs to switch his mind off.

Regina simply took over, and Daddy was able to take a backseat while she saw to directing and working with his many associates.

She handled everything with a fearless, ruthless grace, a true queen, just as her own mother and father had taught her to be.

They wanted their daughter to marry well, and she had done so.

However, Daddy’s mental health declined as soon as she joined the family. Even though he no longer had to dirty his hands with his enemies’ blood, he still regressed, and that was around the time I lost him.

And I mean truly, truly lost him.

Everything Regina did in the name of ‘family’ broke him.

He never quite recovered, and I think it was the guilt that killed him in the end.

Daddy soon followed in Mama’s footsteps. He took his own life, and I have been lost ever since.

Losing my mother had been hard enough, but nothing could have prepared me for Daddy’s death.

He was all the family I had left. My one anchor in this cruel, merciless world, and now… I have no one.

No one to hug me and hold me close.

No one to wipe away the tears when the nightmares take ahold.

Regina keeps me at arm's length and makes me hide whenever one of Daddy’s old associates comes to visit.

After all, they work for her now. The new queen of Daddy's empire.

And I'm just the helpless princess.

My wishing well looms into view, and I close my eyes, remembering all the times I spent here as a child.

All the precious times with Daddy and Mama.

However, the sweet memory shatters the moment I sense those glacial eyes.

She’s watching me.

Up in her vanity room, my former bedroom, she contemplates her beautiful reflection while she dreams up ways to get back at her enemies.

We had fewer enemies when Daddy was in charge. But now, we have twice as many.

Despite the alarming growth of our enemies, Regina is still untouchable. She’s carved a name for herself in the criminal underground, and you would have to be a fool to go up against Regina White.

Her reputation truly precedes her.

She has everything she could want and more. Money, an empire, beauty and brains, yet she still despises me.

She's perfect. Flawless. Supermodel good looks, while I'm gangly and childish.

Even though I’m twenty-four years old, I have never grown beyond five feet.

My stepmother is tall and still young at forty years of age; I’ve always seen her more as a hateful, vengeful older sister than a mother figure.

Don’t look up, don’t look up , I tell myself.

If I meet her gaze without permission, she will punish me.

She may take away my meal privileges again next week. The hunger last time had been unbearable.

Quite frankly, this distance suits me just fine.

Regina terrifies me.

Instead, I let my eyes fall on her orchard. She grows apples, and she’s practically obsessed with them.

It’s almost like she plucked them straight from the Garden of Eden, and now all her decor in the house features apples or snakes.

The forbidden fruit.

I make sure to stay far away from her fruit.

However, when I see that baby blue jay falling out of its nest, I rush over, despite how much she will punish me later. I’m not about to let some helpless creature suffer.

It's a fledging. Barely old enough to leave the nest.

The poor thing is not safe out here. There are buzzards in the sky, after all.

"It's okay, I got you."

The young bird shakes in my palms, and I look up at a low-hanging branch, finally spying its nest.

I'm too short to reach the nest, but I climb the tree, regardless, using a knoll in the bark to elevate myself.

All the while, the bird sits snugly in my hand, safe from the prying eyes of predators.

Finally, I reach the branch, placing the bird back with its nest mates.

They open their beaks upon my approach, thinking I’m their mother, but I'm just a friendly giant returning their brother or sister.

"There you go." I pet the bird and its fluffy siblings.

Climbing back down the tree, I wipe the leaves and dirt from my dress, and that’s the moment the hair rises at the back of my neck.

I’m not alone.

Quickly, I turn toward the other end of the yard and gasp.

A young, handsome man gazes straight back at me, tilting his head sideways as he gets a good look at me.

How long was he standing there? Long enough to see me return the bird to its nest, I bet.

My heart pounds and then my mouth dries as we just stare at each other for some time.

I haven’t seen a guy my age in years. Most of Daddy’s old associates were around his age, if not older.

Yet this guy… He is incredibly young, incredibly handsome…

Even from this humble distance, there’s no missing the square line of his jaw and the intense blue of his eyes.

What do I do? Should I introduce myself?

He just continues to stare at me, his piercing gaze sweeping me up and down, from my head to my shoes, and that’s when the smile grows on his face.

My heart thumps faster at the expression.

Finally, he turns away and walks straight toward the house, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

I've no idea who he is, but there's one thing I do know for certain.

He’s dangerous.

A man just like my late father…

A corrupt man. I spied the guns on his belt, detected that ruthless grace with which he walked, as if even the grass bowed down to him.

I make a mental note to stay far, far away.

Besides, Stepmother would be most displeased. I’m not allowed to interact with her business partners.

Especially one so dangerously handsome.