Page 20 of Wicked Mafia Beast
Rafael cocks a brow. “Worth looking.”
“Da.”
If Onyx was at Scarlet Thorn last night, if she made it past the VIP floor, if she found the wish room...
I reach for the bundle. Break the wax seal Damaris secures the wish package with, the brittle snap loud in the quiet room. While the other brothers talk through security details, I sift through the envelopes with hands that are steadier now that they have a task. The wishes blur together after a while. Money problems. Cheating husbands. A woman who wants her mother's nursinghome bills to disappear. Standard fare. I sort them into piles, yes and no and maybe, while the others watch and wait.
I pause when I come to an envelope slightly crumpled, like it was written in a hurry by hands that weren't entirely steady. I pull out the paper inside and something in my chest goes still.
The handwriting is shaky, the letters pressed hard into the paper like the writer was afraid they might disappear if she didn't carve them deep enough. The paper itself is heavy, expensive, the cream-colored stock we provide in the wish room. I can smell the faint ghost of perfume clinging to the fibers, something light and clean beneath the heavier scent of fear.
I read the words once. Read them again. Feel something crack open in my chest, a fissure running through ice I didn't know was there.
Take my virginity and grant me protection from my uncle, Seamus Malone. In exchange, I will give you one secret about the Malones for every day you keep me alive.
The signature at the bottom: Onyx Rose Malone.
My hands tighten on the paper. "Rowan." My voice doesn't sound like mine. Too rough. Too raw. "Pull up the wish room cameras from last night. Show me everyone who dropped an envelope."
He doesn't ask why. Just pulls up the footage while doing something else on his phone.
He hands it to me a few seconds later and says, “So you know the face to look for.”
I look at his phone to see a candid shot of Onyx Malone taken by some reporter for an article that reads: DAUGHTER OF CRIME LORD DINING ON BLOOD MONEY
Whatever. I flick past the headline and fill the screen with her picture. She’s in jeans, boots and a leather jacket with a familiar bag slung over her shoulder. She’s at some corner restaurant and looks nothing like a stuck up daughter living off daddy’s dirty money.
From this angle I can’t see her eyes, but her heart shaped face and jet black hair will sit in my memory forever.
“Here.” Rowan pulls my attention back to the screen on the wall.
The wish room fills the screen, candlelight flickering against walls painted black and scarlet.
Dark hair catches the candlelight and turns it to blue-black silk. He jumps to another angle from a different camera. One that shows her face. Blue eyes are visible even through the grainy footage, sharp and defiant all at once.
“That’s her for sure.”
That’s Massimo stating the obvious.
“Da,” I agree and hold up the wish. “That is her and this is her wish.”
The brothers continue talking but I tune them out and pay attention to the screen.
She's scared. I can see it in the way she holds herself, shoulders curved inward like she's bracing for a blow. In the way her hand trembles as she picks up the pen and in the way she glances overher shoulder at the closed door, checking for threats that haven't materialized yet.
But she writes anyway. Her hand moves across the paper with determination, pressing hard, each stroke deliberate. I trace my fingers over the wish in my hand, feeling the indentations of each letter.
Seething anger boils through my veins for a woman I’ve never met. Her uncle will pay for the fear he’s caused her with every drop of his blood.
Heat spreads through my chest, unfamiliar and unsettling, pooling behind my ribs and too damn close to my heart for comfort. My pulse picks up, and my fingers tighten on the paper hard enough to crease it. I force myself to loosen my grip. I don't know this woman. But my body is responding like I do. Like she's already mine to protect.
She folds the paper, slides it into the red envelope with shaky fingers and then drops it through the slot in the wish box.
Then she stands there. Palm pressed flat against the dark wood and gold filigree. Eyes closed. Lips moving in what might be a prayer.
I find myself leaning forward, trying to read those silent words on her lips. Trying to understand what she asked for in that moment when she thought no one was watching.
She stays like that for a long moment bargaining with monsters she's never met.
