3. Helen
CHAPTER THREE
My thoughts blared louder than the thumping club music.
It vibrated across my skin and pulsed almost faster than my erratic heart, but I didn’t hear a word through the jumbled mess in my head.
Lights of all colors flared and whipped through the darkness, highlighting strangers grinding against one another and drinks spilling over the rims of glasses.
Banjo materialized in my periphery before sliding a drink across the table. The pale red liquid reflected an overhead light, gleaming like blood in my hands. I shot it back, enjoying the sweet tart flavor on my tongue and the slight burn in the back of my throat.
I cut my eyes up to Banjo, silently asking him to bring me another.
He shook his head, tapping the small earpiece he listened to.
He’d been keeping track of all the dangerously potent fruity drinks I’d gulped down in the past hour.
If he didn’t cut me off now, I’d be utterly sloshed by the time Mother summoned me.
A presence at my back alerted me to Gizmo’s return. He placed a heavy, meaty palm on my shoulder. I turned my head up, meeting his serious stare. “Your new braids look good, Giz.”
A wide smile split his face, which was almost unsettling on the stocky man. From all angles, he had the stature of someone who could crush a person like a bug (he could). So, the smile didn’t sit right for most who witnessed it.
I’d had the same guards since childhood. Banjo and Gizmo were like a silent, overprotective second set of parents. Always there, always watching, rarely talking to anyone save for one another. But I knew the secret language of their glances and silence. I knew his smile rang genuinely.
I tapped my finger against my empty glass and raised a brow.
His smile curved into a frown, and he shook his head as if saying flattery will get you nowhere. When I pouted, his expression grew stern, paternally so. You’ve had enough to drink, he glared.
“Well, if I have to see that absolute cretin again after ten years, I think I deserve a pleasant buzz, don’t you?” I snipped. My voice rang in my ears, a bit shrill and harried. Alright, perhaps I’d had one drink too many, but I wouldn’t admit it to them.
Banjo sighed, his expression apologetic. They’re almost done, he signaled when he tapped his watch face again.
A hefty breath blew past my lips, and I dramatically rolled my eyes.
Rising from my seat at the club booth in the back corner, I straightened non-existent wrinkles from my couture long-sleeved black dress.
It draped across my frame like a second skin, hugging in all the right places as well as the rest of my designer wardrobe.
Gizmo and Banjo stood on either side of me as we made our way to the secret staircase at the back of the club.
The music hid the click of my newest heels.
Did I buy a brand-new outfit for the meeting in case someone I loathed showed up? No. Shut up about it.
He was going to be there. I knew it without a doubt. The bastard was likely already upstairs with his contingent of bodyguards while his parents met with mine and the other family heads. The thought made my stomach lurch and twist into frayed knots, worsened by the alcohol I’d imbibed.
After the attack two weeks ago, plans for a meeting kicked off with vigor.
My parents were on the third floor with the other family heads, discussing the recent developments and sharing what they knew.
Were any of them responsible, or was it a new group rearing to life like a monster summoned from the darkness?
Hearing about a simultaneous attack on the Graham family settled my father’s speculations but didn’t soothe my rattled nerves.
He’d been targeted, they told me. Three masked assailants, just like our office.
Intel from one of our agents said he’d taken them down on his own.
With everything I remembered of the brute, surprise hadn’t overcome me. That pig-headed, overconfident bully?—
“Je m’en fous!” I hissed at myself. Because I didn’t. I didn’t give a fuck, or care, and I certainly hadn’t been thinking about him for the past two weeks. Not at all. That would be absurd.
My guards followed me up a second staircase, past the doors to the offices and kitchens.
Staff in neat black and white uniforms stepped out of the way as we passed, parting like a sea before me.
Several scurried into the back corridors where they served high-ranking members of society for secret dinners and meetings.
None of them were permitted on the third floor, which was reserved neutral ground for the five crime families to meet when extenuating circumstances rose—such as an anonymous group of masked motherfuckers popping up to attack multiple families.
On the third-floor landing, black walls, tasteful brown couches, and forest green and gold décor greeted me.
The club music on the ground level became little more than a sporadic thumping vibration in the floor.
Dim lighting set a dark, cozy ambience over the waiting area.
Across the spacious room stood a set of heavy, black double doors meant to keep sounds from escaping or entering, flanked by two men in suits I didn’t recognize.
Bodyguards provided by the host, I wagered.
Mother welcomed me to join her side at the meeting—encouraged it even.
It was important that I joined her at such events to learn from her: her manners, her posture, the inner workings of her mind.
Years and years of shadowing my mother, observing her, and learning to carry myself as she did until her expectations and my duties were drilled into me.
She was the mold, and I was the product she bore in her desired shape.
I hadn’t wanted to take a seat at the table, not for this, not with him present, but if Charlotte Montgomery ordered it, I would. Obedience was the only option.
The door clicked, and the two guards moved into action.
One opened the right door, and the other gestured for leaving parties to swiftly head to the stairs.
My guards and I stepped to the side of the waiting room, partially bowing as the family heads exited, walled in by their own protection.
I held my breath as the first three family patriarchs passed, keeping my eyes glued to the dark hardwood.
A gentle hand fell on my arm. Mother stood before me, wearing a white silk dress with a cream coat hanging off her shoulders.
Her outfit, perfectly coiffed hair, and impeccable makeup gave her a glow; a pearl shining in the dark seas I found myself adrift in.
Her poised elegance clashed against the black suits of the men she faced, all the male heads of our rival families. She was a true queen among kings.
And my father trailed behind her, her ever present, loyal devotee. The besotted Frenchman who left everything behind for the love of his life. He’d even taken her last name when they married. If only everyone could find the same level of adoration, maybe the world would be a brighter place.
My eyes flicked over Mother’s shoulder to the descending head of the last bodyguard.
The other families were leaving, and I hadn’t seen him once.
My parent’s paused in the waiting area outside the meeting room with me.
Momentary relief blanketed my head and shoulders like a cold rag pressed on a fever.
“Anything new?”
Mother’s lips thinned, the closest she’d get to a grimace. Her smooth expression hardly flinched when voices in the meeting room sent a jolt up my spine.
Not everyone had left.
I narrowed my eyes on my mother.
“Did you know she bit me once?” A gruff scoff echoing from the room gripped me by throat and throttled me into the past. Years of memories attached to that voice punctured a hole in my skull and filled my head with angry, buzzing bees.
My stomach revolted, sending its contents into the back of my throat. I swallowed down my sudden nausea and internally berated my heart for its silly fluttering.
I shouldn’t have had that last drink.
The guard at the door pushed it closed as I whipped around, hiding the face of that hauntingly familiar voice. Another deeper, older man’s voice began to reply, but the door shut before I heard the response.
My neck almost broke at the rate I jerked around to my mother. My breath shuddered out of me, and I willed my heart to slow. After a steadying beat passed, I plastered on a composed mask.
“Is that… is that Drake Graham?” I gave voice to the unease slithering between my ribs. Mother nodded, but my eyes were zeroed in on her glittering diamond earrings swaying against her neck. I couldn’t look her in the eyes without giving myself away.
“Tu l’as mordu?” my father asked, having clearly heard the bastard’s statement.
“Well,” I said, “we were nine years old, and he deserved it.”
It had been a meeting very much like this one almost two decades ago. Nearly twenty years since the first time I met the spoiled brat turned arrogant bully. Perhaps he deserved to get bit again.
Not that I’d offer my mouth for the punishment—or for anything else. I wasn’t thinking about putting my mouth on any part of him. And I wouldn’t put my mouth on him—or think about it!
Mother lifted a hand to halt that conversation before it could take shape.
My father winked at me over her shoulder, giving his silent blessing for whatever childish retribution I’d sought ages ago.
He’d always accepted my temper on the odd occasion it flared.
It was justified in his eyes, and a mirror to one of the things he cherished about my mother.
She was as calm and cool as a pane of glass, but if it shattered, she unleashed the storm hiding beneath the surface.