Clearing her throat, Amara looked up at the man she had been infatuated with since before she knew the word and accepted a healthy dose of reality. He might be nice enough to check in on her but he was also the man who owned this entire hill they were standing on, the man who had buried a girl he’d been intimate with. They existed in different planes. Guys like him didn’t have an interest in girls like her. They liked the daughters of their rich business partners, elegant beauties they could have on their arms and make soft, sensual love with while playing power games with their families.
She needed to get over this, whatever this was.
“If that’s all, Mr. Maroni?”
“Dante,” he corrected almost absently. “Seriously, why are you avoiding me?”
Amara shook her head, sighing. “I’m not.”
“Liar,” his eyes darkened, his gaze lasered on her. “It bothers me.”
Amara felt herself becoming surprised at that, but she stayed on track. “I don’t know what you want me to say. It’s very nice of you to check in on me, but unnecessary. Have a good day.”
With that, she left him standing there and simply walked to her door without looking back at him, her emotions in turmoil in her chest. She entered the house and closed the door behind her, leaning against it and taking a deep, long breath.
“Everything okay?” her mother asked, looking up at her from the dough she was kneading.
Amara nodded, taking the wrap off her shoulders.
“You want to talk about it?” her mother asked, voice gentle. Amara went around the counter and hugged her from the back, taller than her by a few inches. Burying her nose in her mother’s skin, she smelled the clean scent of the citrus soap she used, the moisturizer, and the sugar. She smelled of home.
Feeling something inside herself unknot at the scent, Amara reassured her. “There’s nothing to talk about, Ma.”
“Of course,” her mother chuckled, continuing to push the dough. “Not like you fancy him or anything.”
Amara pulled back, disbelieving. “Did Vin tell you that?” her voice came out a little too high for her comfort. Pitch control, her music teacher’s voice reprimanded in her head.
“He didn’t have to,” her ma shrugged, giving her a little look. “Pass the cinnamon.”
Amara absently took it out from the shelf, handing it over silently. “Then how did you know?”
“I’m your mother,” her ma stated, as though that was explanation enough. It was, in a way. Her mother saw too much where she was concerned.
“It’s just a crush, Ma,” Amara said casually. “It’ll pass.” She really, truly hoped so.
Her mother didn’t call her out on the fact that it hadn’t passed in five years, and for that, Amara loved her a little bit more.
A few days later, she came out the back door of the mansion with some supplies for the gardener when she saw him sitting with his usually absent brother in the gazebo, playing chess of all things. She started to spin on her heels when suddenly he called her out.
“Amara, come meet my brother.”
Amara sighed. While she really kind of didn’t want to stay in his space, it would have been very impolite, outright rude, to his brother whom she’d never met. Pasting a smile on her face, she walked forward towards the gazebo and immediately noticed the similarities between the two boys – the same dark hair, the same tall build, the same cut of the jaw. They were brothers, alright.
She also noticed that his brother hunched over slightly, keeping his gaze super focused on the chessboard.
“This is Damien,” Dante said in that voice that sent butterflies rolling in her tummy. “Damien, this is Amara.”
“Green Eye Girl,” Damien said in an almost toneless voice.
Dante chuckled, turning to the side, casually leaning against the marble pillar. “Yeah, Green Eye Girl.”
“Hello, Green Eye Girl,” Damien said in that same toneless voice, moving a piece. “Are her eyes really the color of forests?”
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Dante dared him and looked at the board.
Damien glanced up at her, his dark eyes fleetingly coming to hers for two seconds, before he looked back at the board again, tapping his foot on the ground in sets of three.
Dante looked at him in surprise, before glancing at her. “He looked you in the eye.”
Amara felt a little awkward but amused. Before she could say anything, the gardener called her from the back. She said her goodbyes and ran back, happy for the escape from his company.
It was the noise that made her do it.
There was a party at the mansion celebrating something, and it was an all-hands-on-deck kind of event. Since it was the weekend, she had pitched in to help out her mother and run around getting everything organized. Parties were the worst to execute. It left her mother so tired afterward, and the idiot Maronis didn’t have the bright idea of hiring someone to split duties with her mother. Not like they couldn’t afford it.
Amara walked down the mansion’s corridor, her hands full of crisp, white, freshly laundered, and ironed sheets when she heard the noise.
After the last time she’d seen something she shouldn’t have, Amara really didn’t want to investigate. There was no sense borrowing trouble, and the mansion was creepy enough as it was when it was empty.
Determined to ignore it, Amara started on her way when the noise came again, halting her in her tracks. It came from behind one of the closed doors.
Amara looked up and down the corridor, trying to see if anyone was coming that way. It was the third floor and it was deserted.
Taking a deep breath, she put the clothes on a table by the wall, nudging a crystal vase aside. Who the hell kept a crystal vase on the third floor in an abandoned corridor? Crazy rich people.
Hushed voices came from behind the door, and Amara tiptoed forward, bending down to peek inside the keyhole.
Mr. Maroni, the older Mr. Maroni, stood over a man, a gun held to his temple.
“Will you give your masters the message or should I send one with your body?” he asked quietly as the man in the chair whimpered. That was the noise she’d heard. Whimpering.
Amara felt her heartbeat in her throat as she cast a quick look around the corridor again, ensuring it was empty, before watching what was happening inside. She saw Mr. Maroni’s brother – or was he the cousin? – come into view, his back to Amara’s vantage.
“I think we should talk to them ourselves, Lorenzo,” he spoke in a gravelly voice that sent a shiver down Amara’s spine. “The Syndicate won’t care if this cunt goes missing, not if they get their delivery on time.”
“I want in, Leo,” Lorenzo Maroni said. “It’s been years since they stopped us. X says we can try again and I want it to be a powerful message. Would he deliver that message alive or dead?”
“I think you should talk to X,” Leo suggested.
The man in the chair cried out. “You know that’s not how they do things. After what happened with your first shipment, they won’t let you. You messed up and now rumors say your son…”
“…is out of the picture,” Lorenzo Maroni stated with finality. “Dante can never know about this.”