CHAPTER NINE:
1884 Words
There is no curse greater than the one that is family.
EARL
By the time I get to the car, Carlos has gone to fetch her bag and minutes later Cameron appears, in her siren dress and bright red heels, wringing her fingers like she’s about to squeeze the life out of them.
“Relax” I grunt at her as I hold open the door of the glossy black Range Rover.
“Easy for you to say” she tosses back and I resist the urge to roll my eyes even though what I really want to do is chuckle in amusement.
It’s becoming clear to me that it doesn’t matter how scared she is, her mouth would work and it would run.
It’s…amusing.
And f*****g distracting.
I slam the door shut with more force than is necessary.
Carlos holds open the passenger door in front for me but I ignore it with a curt nod.
And when I go around to slide in through the other back door, I can feel his slightly surprised eyes on me.
I never sit in the back.
I also never force women into signing non-disclosure agreements against their will.
Okay that last part isn't technically true.
Every woman I have ever had in my bed was forced, sometimes at gunpoint and often without my knowledge, to sign one.
My father is a paranoid man.
And he doesn’t trust the women I stick my c**k in not to talk about anything they see while with me.
His words exactly.
I remember the first time he caught me with a girl.
I had just turned fifteen and she was the daughter of some normie office worker in Brooklyn.
My father did not say much when he caught her sneaking out of my room one night.
In fact he didn’t say anything at all.
But I never saw her again.
I would find out later that he had held a gun to her father’s head and made her entire family sign a document that they would keep their daughter as far away from me as possible or he would burn their house to the ground
Guess he never has to worry about that with my brother.
“Where’s Rose?" Cameron asks me the minute I slide into the car seat beside her.”
I close the door just as Carlos get into the driver seat.
“You know my sister better than I do.” I reply absentmindedly, tapping away at my phone. “The concept of staying put longer than a second is strange to her.”
In response to that she says nothing but when I glance at her I see her looking out the tinted window, biting her lip nervously.
“Sii Calma” I say again, telling her to be calm. “Despite the monster you think I am, I’m not going to hurt you Cameron.”
She doesn’t scoff like I expect her to.
Instead when she turns to look at me, her eyes are glistening with barely restrained tears and her lips are twisted into a sneer.
“And I’m just supposed to take your word for it, am I Earl? The same man who threatened to murder my parents?”
Dear god I f*****g love the sound of my name in her mouth.
I stare at her until it’s too hard to do so anymore.
“Yes.” I finally say as the car starts. “Besides, I have nothing to gain by killing you, at least not yet.”
This time she does scoff, sinking into her seat. “Oh isn’t that just the most reassuring statement ever.”
“You’re welcome.” I retort, glancing at her again. “And stop biting your lip or you’ll start bleeding.”
“What’s it to you?” She mumbles.
I undo my suit and lean back into the dark leather of my car.
“Absolutely nothing Pet. But if I look at your mouth one more time I’m going to end up kissing you and we can’t have that now can we?”
As expected, that shuts her up immediately.
The car picks up speed and beside me, her eyes remain fixed on the darkness outside.
Despite the sliver of space between us, I can feel the tension radiating off her in waves.
She’s sitting with her back ramrod straight, her hands clenched in her laps, body rigid with uncertainty.
I don’t blame her .
I forced her into this without so much as an explanation, without warning.
I would hate me too.
Carlos is a silent figure in the front, navigating the winding roads with ease and the only sound is the soft hum of the engine as we speed through the city and out of town.
Against my better judgment, I find myself from time to time watching Cameron, her profile illuminated by the faint light filtering through the windows.
As we blow past the last building and across a stretch of greenery she finally turns to me, her eyes searching mine.
"Where are we going?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
I meet her gaze, taking care to keep my expression as flat as possible.
"My father’s house," I say, my voice low and even.
“Where is that?”
I answer without looking at her.
“You’ll find out when we get there”
Cameron's eyes narrow and her jaw clenches.
She does not like it, does not like not knowing, not being in control.
I understand exactly what that feels like.
I haven’t been in control of my life now for many years, not since the day I came crawling on my knees back to my father ten years ago.
And this, the woman sitting beside me about to become my wife, is even more proof of that.
The car ride lasts for what feels like an eternity, but eventually, I see the cobbled roofs of Il Paradiso start to rise as we turn onto the private drive.
“Rose said something about him forcing you all to live together to make up for your childhood.”
Her voice pulls me back into the car and I turn my face from the window to look at her.
“Did she now?”
Cameron nods. “She did.”
I adjust the sleeves of my shirt through my jacket. “Well, Rosalind has always been a bit of a naive dreamer.”
“You mean optimistic?” She quips wryly frowning at me and I shrug.
“Same difference.”
“But is it true?”
A dry chuckle escapes me before I can stop it. “Like the old man would care. It’s more like he’s worried we’ll try to sell the family business out from under him so he wants us where he can see us. “
Confusion causes a line to appear in the center of her head, a tiny squeeze between her eyes.
“Us? Rose doesn’t care about your…business.”
“I meant, Me and my brother.”
She looks at me fully then, her brows arching upwards.
“There’s more of you?”
I feel my jaw jerk. “Unfortunately.”
She must hear the bitterness in my tone because she glances at me again.
“I take it you don’t get along with him or your father do you?”
Understatement of the century.
I look past the driver’s headrest and to the mansion coming into view up ahead. “Let’s just say, if either one of them were dying, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to give them any of my organs.”
Besides, even if I did give them my organs to save their lives, my old man would probably throw it back in my face and my brother Nikolas would die anyway just to spite me.
I don’t say any of that.
But she isn’t done.
“Would you do it though?”
“Would I do what?” I ask slowly, turning back to her again.
In the darkness of the car, her narrow eyes are the sexiest thing I have seen in a long time.
She stares at me, utterly oblivious to the nonsense in my head.
“Would you sell out the family business?”
I don’t answer that.
I frown hard at her and turn my face away.
“You ask too many questions for a pet. When we meet the rest of La mia famiglia, it would be in your best interest not to do that if you value your head.”
By My family, I mean the rest of the Sicilian Mafia and like I knew it would, a curtain falls over her eyes and she clams up immediately, becoming stiff and silent beside me once again.
I almost regret saying it, but not by much.
This is already more than I intended to share.
She’s inquisitive and intuitive.
Two traits that the Mafia or as we call it, La Cosa Nostra will work to break out of her.
She may not see it but I am protecting her.
Outside the car and on both sides of us the vast fields of my father’s private estate and vineyards stretch out for miles and miles.
The landscape is dotted with other smaller buildings for staff and the made men or soldiers of my father’s Mafia army who lived closest to us.
Beside me Cameron's grip on her seat tightens.
The road narrows and the trees seem to close in around us, their gnarled branches form tangled arches that block out the sun and cast long, ominous shadows on the ground.
I can feel her fear, her uncertainty.
The car takes a sharp bend and the speed of it forces her to come sliding towards me, pushing her against my body.
She catches herself at the last minute but the space between us is gone now.
My leg is brushing up against hers.
She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t react.
Before I can think about what I’m doing and why it’s insane. I shift even closer, pressing my leg more firmly to hers.
Maybe it’s crazy but I want to reassure her, to tell her everything would be okay, but I can’t.
Not yet.
The car stops before my house, the soft limestone lines and dark windows looming above us.
The home I grew up in.
The home I couldn’t wait to escape as a boy.
The home that saved me ten years later, when I thought my life was over and came crawling back.
Cameron's gaze flickers to mine, her eyes wide with apprehension.
I nod as if to answer the unspoken question in her eyes, my expression still neutral. "We're here."
The driver opens the door, and I step out, Cameron following close behind.
I can feel her eyes on me, her body tense with anticipation.
I place my hand on the small of her back.
“Welcome to your new home, Pet.”
Besides me Cameron is silent for a moment.
Then she frowns, turning and squinting when she looks up at me. “The contract didn’t say anything about nicknames.”
“Oh for Santa Maria’s sake Cameron.”
And this time I actually do roll my eyes.
- Writer
