Chapter 2
Genevieve
“ Y ou stupid fucking girl!” My father burst through the door of the apartment. “You thought you could seek protection from Blackmere and that I would never find you?”
My mother had sought protection from Rhys Marino, my uncle and Blackmere’s boss. He had moved us around from house to house every six months or so. He would tell Mother that Father was looking for us and every time he had come close, we moved.
My father storms closer to me, his eyes full of rage. This is the first time I have seen my father since we ran the night I was thirteen. I have nothing to say to him.
I have never seen him like this before. I just wish he would leave me alone. I don’t want to go back to the mansion. That’s not my life anymore, and it hasn’t been for a long time.
How did he even find me?
He is alone, a rare thing. My best guess is that he doesn’t want anyone to know that I even existed. He steps closer and stands over the top of me as I cower on the couch. The slap across my face stings and a tear runs down my cheek. “You will never be out of my sight again!” he spits at me.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” I bite back, finally finding my voice, as choked up as I may be. “I have a job and college and I have a fucking life away from you!”
The next slap echoes through the room, the sting lasting on my cheek. I can tell that it’s going to bruise. “Don’t you dare talk to me that way, young lady. You are still my daughter and you will do as I say. Your mother is finally dead, along with your protector.”
No, surely that can’t be true. I shake my head.
“Blackmere is going to be under new management soon and, if the rumours are true, the new boss will be worse than me. I am doing you a favour.” He grabs a handful of my hair, lifting me off the couch and dragging me outside to where his car is parked.
“You are weak like your mother!” He is rambling angrily now, but all I can focus on is the pain of my hair being yanked. “Blackmere will no longer protect you. You are coming back home whether you like it or not.”
He drags me out the door and down to the car, throwing me into the back seat before walking around and climbing into the driver’s seat. He slams the door shut and speeds off down the street and back to my new hell, Murwood.
* * *
I climb out of the shower, my silver hair dripping wet. I wipe the fog off the mirror and look at myself, even though every time I do, I remind myself of my mother.
When we went out we were always mistaken for sisters. High cheekbones, emerald green eyes and full, red lips.
She was promised to my father before she had even been born. Her own father was indebted to Murwood Mafia.
She wanted to disown them when she was old enough to leave, but by that point, she was already pregnant with me at the age of seventeen. I loved my mother with all my heart and I admired every single bit of her strength and power. Arranged marriages aren’t too common in the Underbelly unless you are indebted so much that it is the only way you could pay that debt or you were strengthening your family’s own organisation.
It has been a year since my mother passed and my world fell apart. Not only did I lose my caregiver, but I lost my best friend. We were inseparable. Now I feel like there’s no one I can trust.
The first few years after we ran from my father, I would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. My mother would come running into my room, looking around to make sure I was safe before sitting next to me on the bed, pulling me close to her and stroking my hair, whispering to me that it would all be okay. I was scared that father would come and take me away again.
The nightmares were constant. Every time I shut my eyes, my father was there. In the room with me, watching through the window.
Rhys always told us that my father was out there looking, but reassured us we were safe. Even with his protection, I still panicked when I was in the room alone. I knew my father was a man obsessed with his work and he would be relentless in trying to find us. It was not because he cared about our safety; it was because we were his property.
The day my mother passed, I fell into a depression. There was no one to soothe those nightmares anymore. I would wake up from one and, instead of her running into my room, I would be alone, trapped in my own thoughts. I would crawl out of bed and go into my mother’s room. The scent of her perfume there comforted me and made me feel less alone.
Those were also the nights that I would cry myself to sleep.
I am twenty-eight now. I can survive on my own, but my father still snatched me from our apartment, still makes me live with him, where he can keep me under his thumb.
I still work, much to my father’s disgust. I don’t have to work, but I’m not about to take any of his dirty money, so I still have my part-time job at Gravel and Grit, the dive bar on the outskirts of town. It’s usually full of frat boys, girls just wanting to get laid and the occasional day drunk that continues drinking into the night.
There’s one thing, though: my father’s second-in-command shows up at that bar on occasion, so I try to avoid working late nights. It’s not that I don’t want to be around him; I just don’t want him to figure out who I am. At least not yet.
When I am not there working, I am at college studying or cooped up in my room because my father doesn’t trust the men he lives with. Sometimes I wonder if my own father doesn’t want to look at me because he always tells me that I remind him of Mum and I have a feeling that he resents her for leaving.
He controls all aspects of my life. He hates that I work because he can’t keep an eye on me, but he also doesn’t trust his men to keep an eye on me either. He’s scared away all of my friends so that he can have more control over me. The one friend I do have is an old drunk at the bar. Gary is a sweet old man and is usually there when I arrive at work. He always starts drinking early in the day, as soon as the bar opens at noon. His excuse is, “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” while downing one beer with another full one in his hand.
A soft bark sounds from my room. After I dry my hair and wrap a towel around myself, I open the ensuite door to my room. “It’s okay girl, I’ll let you out in a moment.” For a doberman, Mia panics a lot when I’m not near her. She never leaves my side and the only time I lock her in the crate is when I am out of the mansion or in the shower. The rest of the time she is with me, at the foot of my bed or on the floor next to my desk while I study. She is as calming for me as I am for her. And God knows I need to stay calm while I am locked up in this room.
Mia is also the last thing I have left of my mother. She was given to me as a twenty-third birthday present; my mother told me that she wants me to be protected at all times.
I walk over to my closet and pull out a black, pleated skirt with a low-cut, white tank top. I add a leather bomber jacket and my black Timberland heels. The less clothing you wore at the bar, the better the tips were.
I release Mia from her crate, and she launches herself onto my bed, her head tilted, looking at me.
“Oh, come on girl.” I rub the top of her head. “You know better than anyone that I can’t be cooped up in this house twenty-four-seven.”
She huffs out a breath of air and puts her head down on her paws. “Yeah, I know, girl. We will get out of here one day. It’s only a matter of when.”
I pull my hair back into a messy pony before grabbing my helmet off my desk. It’s two in the afternoon and my shift starts at three. I am always early to work.
Mum taught me that, if you want to get ahead in life, you have to make your own path, and working at the bar is only the start of my plan. The next step is to get closer to Mason, my father’s second. The only way I am going to be free of Sal is to take him out myself, but I need help; I need someone close to him.
I place my hand on the door handle to my room, listening for any steps in the hall. Everyone is usually out of the mansion or in meetings when I leave for work, but Frederick, my father’s butler, has a special exit for me, close enough to my room that I can sneak out without anyone detecting me. It’s a short passage and it leads directly to my personal garage.
Glancing back at Mia, I point down to her crate. She licks her lips and huffs at me before jumping off the bed and sitting in her crate.
“Just make sure you finish the job.” It’s my father’s voice, calling out to someone. I quickly secure the door to Mia’s crate. “I don’t need that piece of shit still walking around this town.” A door slams.
The clicking of dress shoes hitting the tiled floor moving past my door has me frozen in place. I wait for it to pass, taking deep breaths to calm myself and stop my heart from beating out of my chest. Some of the men in this place scare the shit out of me and I don’t want to open the door to anything bad.
As the sound moves further away, I crack open my door slightly to see who it is. The slight squeak of the hinges causes him to turn around and, for a moment, it feels like he’s staring right at me. I am hidden in the shadows of the room, so I’m ninety percent sure he can’t see me. He blinks slowly and a threatening smile crosses his features.
Mason Hawthorne, my childhood crush and now an assassin for my father. Is he still the kind and caring boy that I grew up with?
I know by the yelling echoing down the hallway that my father is unhappy, but why would he be unhappy with Mason? I’m certain that he is the golden boy, the son my father never had, and that he does everything he is told to.
I have never heard my father yell this much before. Even though his mental state has been on the decline before, I am certain it is diminishing at a more rapid rate. He has even called me Marie a few times when he’s come to talk to me.
He doesn’t come into my room often anymore.
My bedroom is on the first level, which is the same level as my father’s office and sits adjacent to his bedroom. I hate that I am so close to him; this mansion is big enough for him to give me my own wing. He claims he just wants to keep an eye on me and make sure no one here tries to hurt me, but I know he just wants to control me.
I wait for the footsteps to fade away before quickly leaving my room and running to the access door only used by the staff. The staff do all they can to make it more appealing to walk through all the time but it still has that damp feeling to it.
I nod at the cleaners and cooks as I head towards the garage. They are all preparing for dinner, but I am never allowed to eat with anyone else, even my father. His rules are never to be seen around the house, which is also why, if I want to go anywhere, I have to sneak out. The bonus is that I’m not recognisable to anyone else in the mansion. The staff just knows me as Viv and none of the men in this house know I am even here.
That is how I like it.
I only have two vehicles in my garage. My Ducati and my Corvette Stingray. Daddy dearest never skimps on the cost of the vehicles. The Ducati sits over in the back corner. I have a Phantom Purple vinyl wrap on it with matte black accents.
Sliding my helmet onto my head, I walk over to the bike. Grabbing my riding gloves off the seat, I slide them on my hands before throwing my leg over the bike and putting up the kickstand. I flick the kill switch and hit the ignition. The bike roars to life. I press the button on my keys that lifts the garage door. I know the gates to the mansion will be open already, so I hit the accelerator, speeding down the driveway and out of the gates.
Sitting on top of the steel horse is a feeling of its own. Two-hundred-and-forty horsepower between my legs.
With the speed that I am travelling, it doesn’t take me long to get to the bar. There is something about racing through the streets, weaving in and out of traffic on my bike, that gives me a sense of freedom.
I park my bike out the back of the bar near the bins and lock it behind the cage.
“Well, if it isn’t little Viv!” I heard a slurred voice call from the bar.
“Hi Gary.” It looks like my shift is off to a good start. I always enjoy talking to him; he is harmless and just wants someone who will listen to him. “I hope you haven’t been drinking too much now, I don’t want to have to kick you out again.”
He smiles at me and that smile tells me that he has indeed been drinking already and he will most likely be getting kicked out before my shift is over. Gary is a good man though, he treats me like his own daughter and if she hadn’t died alongside his wife in a car accident, I know that we would have been great friends. I feel like I know his daughter personally because Gary spends all his time gushing over how beautiful she was and how smart she was. I felt sorry for him and I just want to keep an eye on him.
Turning around, I remove my apron off the shelf of the back counter. It is black to show fewer stains if idiots on a night out throw up over me, and Lord only knows it is bound to happen. It is a Friday night and that’s when all the dickheads come out. It is quiet at the moment but people don’t start coming in until about nine at night, which means I only have to put up with jocks and sleaze bags for two hours before my shift ends, which suits me fine.
The next few hours pass uneventfully. Just me cleaning glasses and talking to Gary. He is still gushing over how amazing his daughter was and that we would have been the best of friends. Every time he mentions her, his eyes well up with tears and he swallows another mouthful of whatever it is he is drinking at the time. I know by the amount he has already drunk that I am going to have to throw him out early. And it isn’t long before I hear the crash of glass on the ground and a slurred curse come from his direction.
“All right Gary, I think that’s you done for the night,” I sigh as I make my way over to him. His eyes are glassy and bloodshot as he looks up at me. “Shit Gary, let’s call you a cab.”
I pick up the phone and call a cab for him. The phone rings twice before an unamused, gruff voice answers. “Hi, I would li—” I start before I’m cut off.
“Cab for you or someone else?” the voice asks.
“Someone else,” I respond, letting this guy get through his questions.
“Name?” he asks.
“Gary Michaels.” I am about to just tell him where but he cuts me off again.
“Pick up point?” The phone creaks on the other end like he has squeezed it a little too hard.
“Gravel instead, it is a tall, dark shadow. He blocks the light coming from outside. He pauses for a moment before making his way across the room and sits over in a booth along the back wall.
Amber walks over to give him his usual drink but I put my hand over it. She raises a brow at me and I just give a small nod before taking the glass over to him. He is staring in the direction of the group of frat boys that came in just after he did. Placing his drink on the table, I lean forward. “Didn’t your mother tell you it is rude to stare?”
All I get is a grunt, not even bothering to turn his head in my direction. “Aren’t you a talkative one tonight?” I say, trying to get his attention again.
His head turns and I find myself frozen in an icy blue stare. I know this stare though, those eyes are hard to forget, even though I last saw them ten years ago. Those eyes have haunted me ever since that day.
I used to follow him around when our mothers had lunch. He hated that I clung to him.
Now, he’s my father’s second. If my father isn’t around, then it is Mason they listen to.
“My name is Viv, what’s yours?” I step back slightly so that I can see him a little better. Will he recognise who I am?
I remember him as a boy. He was skinny and always getting into trouble, but when he was put in charge of looking after me he took his job seriously. By the time my mother left my father, Mason was seventeen and was already being sent out on jobs as part of his training. The day that we left, he was nowhere to be seen. I never even got the chance to say goodbye to him.
The sound of a glass breaking makes my head whip around. I don’t even know if he responded to me asking his name but it didn’t matter because I already know it.
When I turn around to see who broke the glass, I see Amber running from the table full of cheering frat boys.
“Which one of you cunts did that?” My voice rises as I storm across the floor.
They freeze in place, not expecting someone as delicate-looking as myself to confront them. “Come on baby,” one of them says.
“It is all a little harmless fun,” another scoffs.
“Harmless fun?” I growl low enough so only they can hear me. “You think a crying woman is harmless fun?” They look at me a little dumbfounded and before I have the chance to say anything further, one of them reaches out and tries to get a handful of my ass.
Without warning, I ball up my fist and swing it towards the nearest face in reach. It just so happens to be the one who tried to grab me. I have my rings on so it will definitely leave a mark on his cheek. I clench my teeth. “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. Bar,” I grind out.
They all hurriedly collect their things off the tables around them and make their way to the door. One of them turns to face me, mouth hanging open, like he is about to say something but then quickly closes his mouth like he’s reconsidered before following his buddies out the door.
I close the door behind them and make my way back over to Mason. His eyes were on me the whole time. He raises his glass at me with a slight grin on his face. “Not bad,” he says as he downs his drink.
I just glare at him, but a dark spot under his eye catches my attention. I lean in a little closer to see what it is and pick up a napkin from the table. As my hand instinctively moves closer to his face, he flinches and grabs my wrist. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t bruise.
He releases his grip and I move the napkin closer to the dark spot. With a little dab the spot is gone, but when I look down at the napkin there is a little red smear of blood on it. He doesn’t look hurt, so it can’t have been his blood, it has to be the person my father sent him after earlier.
“Uhh, here,” I stumble on my words.
“Thanks, I should probably go clean up.” He looks at me and nods before sliding out of his seat and making his way to the bathroom.
Now is my time to get out of here. I walk back to the bar, remove my apron and put it under the counter. “Are you going to be okay here now?” I look over at Amber, who is wiping down the counter.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” She half-smiles at me. “As long as I don’t get another frat party coming in.”
I place my hand on her shoulder and give it a little squeeze. “My shift ended twenty minutes ago, but if you need anything just give me a call and I will be here as fast as I can.” She nods and goes back to cleaning the bar.
I make my way out the back and round to where I left my bike. I mount the bike and ride away from the bar as fast as I can go. Weaving in and out of traffic, I’m not caring how fast I am travelling. I just need to get home.