I guess this life twists everyone, eventually.
It’s better that she’s not the same person. It makes my job easier.
Chapter Two
Mira
My father has a black cellphone that he never uses, but it’s always on, always charged, and always within reach, full of dark threat, just like his gun. He’s had it for years, and I never heard it ring.
I hear it the week after my twenty-eighth birthday.
It’s a Saturday afternoon. We’re out on the porch. I came back for a ribbon-cutting ceremony where I put in a rare cameo as mafia princess Mira Nikolla in Oscar de la Renta and Manolo Blahnik. I was so proud that he’d funded the research wing of the local hospital where Mom died—a research wing in her name. Not a lot will bring me back home these days, but a wing in Mom’s name? I’m there.
Missing Mom is one of the few things we have in common anymore.
The cynical part of me wonders if he funded the wing just to get a visit out of me. Maybe he did. It doesn’t even touch the debt he owes to society.
Do I sound pissed at my own father? I am. Do I still love him? Always.
We’re all each other has left. We’ve had each other’s backs since the day Mom died. The day he fixed me with that intense gaze of his and said, “It’s us two now, Kitten. It’s us two. Two against everything, alright?”
I should be packing—the limo is coming in a few hours to take me to the airport. I’ll be back in New York at the advocacy center where I work, back to being the lawyer in jeans and Target tops, like some kind of reverse Wonder Woman—I spin around and turn into a girl you’d forget two minutes after you pass her by.
Which is exactly how I like it. It makes it easier for me to do my job, fighting for kids and families.
We have people thinking I’ve spent these past years on worldwide shopping sprees, which is embarrassing, but better than having bodyguards follow me around—that would not work at the advocacy center. PR people maintain a fake life for me. A sad social media construct that keeps me hidden under the radar. And mostly it keeps Dad safe. I’m his Achilles’ heel.
There’s a type of bird that lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. Sometimes I feel like I ended up in the wrong nest like that. But we’re family—that’s the bottom line.
Dad did terrible things coming up like he did, but we have each other’s backs. Even at the age of ten, I understood. Me and Dad against the world. It still means everything that he said that.
So we’re out on the porch of the lake residence, me still in my mafia princess pink, when the chirp sounds out. I have no idea that it’s that second cellphone. I guess I never imagined it would have the bird-chirp type of ring. I always thought it would be something more ominous. Like a blaring horn.
But the chirp is ominous to my father. His face goes white.
He answers it, and I can tell it’s Lazarus. In addition to being Dad’s enforcer, Bloody Lazarus is pretty much the worst psycho I’ve ever met. Even across the large, lavish porch table laden with feta and olives and strong Turkish coffee in priceless china, even with my dad pressing that phone to his ear, I can hear the psycho.
It takes exactly two seconds for Dad to pull me inside and call out for the house staff guys.
“What’s going on?”
He just shakes his head and resumes his conversation. “Put Jetmir on it. Fuck! Fuck! Where’s Leke? Fuck.”
Dad’s voice is higher, not in volume, but octave. It’s a bad sign.
But here’s the really bad sign: Nobody comes. Dad called for staff, and none have arrived. They always appear instantly. “Staff,” in this case, is a euphemism for soldiers whose job is to hang around the house and not be seen or heard unless they’re needed.
I never see Dad worried. I never see the world not bending to his every whim. My blood races.
There’s only one reason dozens of soldiers wouldn’t come running when my father yells for them.
He gets his go bag out of the front closet, grabs his headset, and sticks his Luger into his belt. He hands me a small revolver. Mother-of-pearl handle. Loaded. “Down to the seaplane. Now.”
“Dad.” I hold it like a dead thing, looking up at him, like, really? I don’t do firearms, and he knows it. But he’s completely freaked out. And I’m thinking about his bad heart. I shouldn’t add to his stress.
“Fine.” I put it in a proper grip like I learned in shooting lessons. Like a dog, fake sitting down.
I’ll ditch it later.
He throws me the boat and seaplane keychain. The keys are attached to a little buoy that floats if you drop it in the water. “Get that plane out of the boathouse. Now! I’ll meet you.”
“We’re going in the seaplane?” The seaplane is a fun-time thing. It’s a recreational vehicle, not a getaway vehicle.
He tips his head up at the ceiling, a movement that tells me everything. We’re going in the seaplane because somebody might be on the roof, expecting him to go in the helicopter.
It’s a takeover.
Shit.
I grab my purse, kick off my heels, and take the stairs to the lower level. I head through the ornate rooms and back through the servant areas, and burst out the side delivery door.
It’s a cool autumn afternoon. Nice. Or at least, a few minutes ago it was nice.
I run along the perimeter of the estate, where it’s shaded by trees and the limestone wall. Less obvious if you’re on the roof.
The first few minutes I jog stealthily, grass cool on my bare feet, but then something builds up in me and I’m just running like hell, shoes and satchel in one hand, gun in the other.
Dad always says having to shoot just means your threats didn’t work. As if I’ll even make threats.
I round a tree, keeping to the shadows. I get down to the seawall and run along it, heart thundering, up to the boathouse door. I punch in the combo and pull it open.
It’s dark and gloomy inside the boathouse; Just a few high windows let in the sun.
I scurry around the slips past the speedboats to the seaplane at the end. I unlock the lift with the key that hangs from a string, and then I hit the button to start lowering it to the water. Usually the grounds guy does this. Where is everybody?
The motor whines as it lowers the plane, white with blue stripes and blue pontoons. While I’m waiting for that, I go to the corner, lift a panel, and slam my palm onto a button. One of the boathouse doors jerks and squeals as it begins to rise up like a garage door, unveiling the sparkling blue water of Lake Geneva.
Inch by inch, the light slants in.
Movement from the dark side. I’m not alone. A man.
My heart skips a beat as he pushes off the wall, his face in the shadows, dark curls catching the light. His suit jacket hangs open to reveal a white shirt and a black slash of a tie. Slacks cup and kiss his thighs as he moves. Do I know him? I can’t make out his features in the gloom.
“Hello?”
He continues toward me, silent as a panther. Power rolls off him, even in the dark.
Then he strolls past a dim slant of light coming in from a high window, like strolling through a hazy spotlight.
It’s then that the full force of his dark beauty crashes through me. Sharp hit of a cheekbone. Generous lips that look softer than sin. Predator eyes so dangerous and beautiful, you might get lost in them.