Unlawful Lies (Balestra Family)

1. Edward

Edward

30 years before the events of His Deadly Lies

T hese business meetings are the bane of my goddamn existence. I go because I have to, not out of any enjoyment. Father insists.

That’s always been his name. Nothing as quaint as Papa or as disgustingly cute as Daddy. Father .

The goddamn head of the organization and the ruler of the family, the king in his castle, and right now, he’s standing beside me as straight as an arrow. His tie is done with the utmost precision, and even his handkerchief has been starched and ironed.

I’m a fucking slob in comparison.

He glances at me sideways, a quick and disapproving purse to his lips before he smooths out the wrinkles once more. It’s a silent urge to uncoil my spine, to look ahead and somehow tame my hair without moving a muscle.

Father asks for miracles like this all the time.

We’ve been standing in a sterile white-on-white office waiting for this meeting for a good fifteen minutes, which amounts to a slap in the face.

“A little longer,” my father murmurs under his breath. He clasps his hands tighter behind his back. “Then we will make a graceful exit.”

A power play. Of course. And one that is too on the nose to be respected on any level.

Father won’t allow either one of us to sit in the all-too-uncomfortable-looking lacquered chairs placed in front of Arden Salvatore’s desk while we waited for the man of the hour to show his face.

It’s all about grace and strength with Father. Old-school Italian from the swoop of his dark hair to the rigid posture and the golden glow of his skin. Looks of Father’s magnitude open doors where they might not necessarily be otherwise. I am lucky to follow in his footsteps.

Lucky.

Sometimes, I’ve got to remind myself when he grates on my last raw nerve. When nothing I do is ever good enough, and he removes his belt with a quick snap of leather, reminding me of my place even at twenty-five.

There is no place outside of his shadow. When the hell am I going to remember it? Do I have to carve it on the inside of my skull for the reminder to always be there?

I open my mouth to respond, to assure Father once again I understand the importance of carrying on the Balestra name, when the door to the office opens.

“My apologies for the tardiness.” Arden’s voice holds a bit of a Sicilian accent.

Whatever I’d been about to say died on my tongue, not at Arden’s swagger or the way his shoulders fill the doorjamb, but at the sight of the slender woman behind him. The singular bright spot of these arduous meetings: Arden’s daughter.

Nicola.

Whenever she decides it necessary, she swings those Sophia Loren hips into the room with such exaggerated motion I’m captivated in an instant.

She does it to tease me. I know it. She knows it.

Damn me but I’ve been waiting for her to show herself, one of the only reasons I haven’t started an argument with Father to liven up the dead space of silence.

Nicola glances my way before turning her nose out of joint, her sleek hair a wave of motion down to her shoulders.

It stops neither of us from playing these games, and a part of me wonders if it comes with the territory. We’re young adults groomed for a life of power, responsibility, and death. We’ve got to find the fun where we’re able to find it. Not to mention, she is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

She is the bright spot in this mausoleum. The place smells wrong. Stagnant, stale, lacking life despite the bodies shifting from room to room.

“You’ve kept us waiting long enough, so there is little time left to swallow excuses,” Father says. His voice is a cold whip of sound. “We have more important meetings this afternoon to remain here much longer.”

Arden holds his hands out wide in mock supplication. “Then perhaps you should schedule better.”

Father grunts, clicking his heels together as he straightens inhumanly, his posture perfect enough to make angels weep.

I can’t look away from Nicola. She hasn’t said a word, and her silence speaks novels into existence.

She follows her father to the desk and stands directly behind him with her hand on his shoulder once he situates himself comfortably. Her dark eyes flick over to mine and drop away just as quickly.

Maybe she teases me to make her daddy mad.

Either way…I drag my gaze along her curves, those wide, flaring hips and tiny waist. Her slender peach bosoms and the soft fall of hair. Her lower lip is larger than the top, and it is all I can do to keep myself from imagining how she’d taste if I bite her.

She knows it, too.

She counters my scrutiny and never takes her eyes off of me. The look is potent enough to stroke my skin in a way that brings goose bumps to life.

I react whenever she joins us. I fucking hate it.

“Perhaps it’s time someone taught you manners.”

Arden chuckles as if my father’s thinly veiled warning is a joke. “Oh, Giovanni, there’s that famous Balestra humor. And Edward, it’s good to see you again, young man. A chip off the old block if I’ve ever seen one.” He spreads his palms out flat against the desktop like he’s laying all his cards on the table.

“Let’s get straight to the point, Salvatore,” Father snaps.

Surnames only.

He hates being called by his first name, another thing he sees as a weakness. He is the helm of the Balestra crime family, and he has been since his father dragged him and his brother to the States in their teens.

Nicola’s father, on the other hand, has risen through the ranks over the past decade to establish himself as one of our city’s most notorious gang leaders. With a famously bad temper and a drinking problem to boot. Arden has been a thorn in my father’s side for years for establishing a rival operation to our drug smuggling.

And damn it, but the man is getting big enough to be a real threat, too. His son is groomed to take over the same way I’ve been shaped and molded into my father’s creature.

Thus, the meetings.

Arden blows a raspberry and reaches into the depths of the desk for a bottle. “Knock it off, Gio. We know you’re the big fish here, but that doesn’t mean I’ll allow you to determine the speed of these things. You’re in my house, after all. Sit.” He unscrews the silver cap and takes a long swig without offering. “Make yourself comfortable and take a load off. God knows you need it.”

My father stands up straight yet, his shoulders thrown so far back as to look inverted. “We’ll stand.”

The man is drunk already.

I gasp air into my lungs. It’s the middle of the day, and Arden is three sheets to the wind, forced to his chair out of necessity. Now that I’ve noticed, it’s impossible to ignore the stench of stale liquor in every inhalation. His breath is potent enough to light on fire.

Not to mention the pale set of Nicola’s face, the way her dark eyes are even wider, blacker, set further into her skull. She hasn’t said a word yet she’s scared beneath the layers of bravado. Scared to even be in the same room with the man.

My fingers clench into fists at my side, and I hurry to shove them between my back and hide them from view.

Arden has a lot of nerve showing up to a meeting shit-faced, even more nerve to drag his daughter along with him today and force that expression on her beautiful features.

Fury is a song in my blood, and I force my attention to remain on Arden and his ruddy cheeks. The silver flask clasped in his hand.

“We’re here because you’ve sent your men across our territory lines,” Father continues. “We came to an agreement, should you continue to pursue your avenue of shipping. Our contracts are in place for a reason. I’ve been lenient thus far. None of your people have been harmed, but the intrusion is jeopardizing our shipments.”

“We’re not hurting anyone,” Arden insists. His smirk, his chuckle, add up to grind my teeth together.

I expected him to offer up an excuse, not an admittance of guilt.

“So you aren’t choosing to deny my claim.”

Father isn’t playing around, and it doesn't take a genius to see the way his calm is nearing its shatter point. There is nothing he detests more than belligerence, especially when it accompanies a good drunk.

“You’re too high up on your pedestal to see the bigger picture here, Gio.” Arden leans forward and laces his fingers in a steeple in front of him. “It’s about expansion for all of us. We’ve come this far working together. What are territory lines but imaginary walls between us? Your contract is a choke collar.”

Nicola shaking her head catches my attention.

So this isn’t a new argument, then. Something her dad has harped on before. How many times has she heard it before?

Arden crosses his arms over his chest with the bottle pressed squarely against his heart.

His gaze settles on me, and I shiver at the intensity despite the dullness of liquor. An uneasy silence falls between us, making room for tension to crawl its way into my belly.

Nicola clears her throat. Her fingers twitch on her father’s shoulder. “Daddy, I don’t really think this is the time to get into such things,” she says softly. “Perhaps it would be best if we stuck to the agenda we agreed on before the meeting. They have valid concerns.”

She pats him, her fingers standing out like slender spiders against the dark of his button-up shirt.

“Nicola, I swear to fucking god.” Arden’s hand closes around his bottle and squeezes until his knuckles go white. Even my father isn’t ignorant of the violence in the gesture. “Get the fuck out of my sight and keep your mouth shut. Get out of this room. Now .”

Things are going to get heated in seconds, and I have half a mind to ask the rest of the guards we’ve brought to stay here with Father in case things go south. Judging from current circumstances and the pressure crawling its way along my limbs?—

We and our people always leave our weapons at the door, metaphorically speaking, when these meetings commence. But you don’t need a gun to kill a man. Only desire.

Nicola flushes and looks like she’s got more to say but eventually bobs her head in acknowledgment and saunters out of the room, pausing only at the door to look over her shoulder at me in a clear demand.

I wait for her to disappear before turning to Father. “Will you be okay without me?”

He doesn’t drag his attention from Arden but lifts a hand to gesture for me to get the fuck out as well. The men are speaking .

I look him up and down and bow my head, earning a barely swallowed chuckle from Arden. The walls of the room press in around me with every beat of my heart jerking against my ribcage.

Nicola has a head start on me but it’s a small matter to catch up, my strides longer than hers, and we walk side by side silently out the rear patio doors. We’ve only spoken to each other a handful of times over the past six months like words are currency, and we’re both low on funds.

Between the towering mights of our respective rulers, the only time we’re able to speak freely is the moments before and after meetings.

She’s made herself scarce, coy, a flirtation.

I’ve made myself a fortress.

I rub my throbbing temple, my shoulders hunching forward and mussing my hair even more. Nicola pushes the door open as wide as it will go in desperation for fresh air.

The backyard of her compound is a mess of roses and winding trails. Something I highly doubt Arden had any part in creating.

Only when we’re alone, and I’m sure of it, once I’ve motioned for my personal guards to hang back, do I brave speaking. “It was getting bad in there.”

She turns to me with wide-eyed curiosity. “Does it scare you?”

“That’s where you go? Right out of the gate with a parting shot?” I smile at her. “No, I’m not scared.” Only for her.

She shrugs, wholly unconcerned, and stops to trail her fingers along the soft petals of a sunrise-yellow rose. “There’s no shame in being nervous. My father punches like an ox. Especially when he is deep in the bottle.”

“If an ox had hands,” I add.

Her eyebrows knit as she stares at me. Her nostrils flare, torn between laughing and reprimanding me for adding insult against her father only she is qualified to make. “I really didn’t need an escort for my own gardens, Edward. It’s fine.”

Edward. She’s never used my name before. The way it falls from her tongue like we've been friends for years rather than casual strangers eases a bit of the emptiness in my depleted system.

“Has he ever used those hands on you?”

I’m not sure why it bothers me, but it does. The thought of anyone touching Nicola, out of anger or lust or anything in between, has me seeing red.

“Oh, wow.” Much to my surprise, her head tips back, and she laughs uproariously, her hands shifting to her hips. “You’re more conceited than I thought.”

My eyes bulge. “Conceited?”

“I’m not your concern, hot stuff.” She’s close enough to slap my chest, and I bare my teeth, showing more emotion than I’m comfortable showing. “Stop worrying about something that is none of your business.”

She’s not only gorgeous, but she’s smart. So fucking smart it makes me feel about three inches tall.

“If your father is planning on poaching on our territory, then that makes you my business. You and everything else that falls under his family name. It’s a matter of honor.”

Her hand scalds where she touched.

“It seems to me that’s something for you to discuss with your own daddy.” She sniffs delicately. “Maybe you would have been better served staying inside rather than following me.” She snaps her fingers together. “Come on, then, since you’d rather sniff at my heels than work on your business. We’ll take a walk.”

She leads the way deeper into the garden, and I linger near the rosebush, staring at several unopened buds. I’ve got a gut feeling Nicola Salvatore will be a thorn in our side, just like her father with his secrets and his fat purse.

Unless I’m willing to do something about it. And the best thing to do is get her on her back underneath me, with her legs open, and remind her who we’re supposed to be.

But I still follow her.