Page 78 of Vicious Little Games

“Good. Thank you.”

He heads for the kitchen, and I say to his back, “But you can't keep me caged up forever either.”

He shifts to face me again. “I know that now. You're all grown up. The past few weeks that much has become abundantly clear, even though I wish you were still a little girl I could keep close.”

“You make it sound like I'm up and leaving.”

“Won't you? If I make Cole my heir?”

“Are you going to make him your heir?” I ask, holding my breath.

“I'm still giving you both time to prove yourselves to me. I haven't made up my mind. While at first, I may have thought Cole would be a good fit, now I really can't decide which of you would do a better job of running things.”

I want to beg him to send Cole back to New York. He can’t win. He can’t stay here. If he does, the Russians may kill him for being a traitor and siding with my father. Cole’s about to finish his business degree. He could live a normal, legitimate life, away from the crime and violence. He would be so much safer. Vanessa was right to keep him in the dark about her family.

“Everything okay?” my dad asks.

“Yes, fine. I, um, I was just thinking that you should find me another man to date since I didn’t feel a romantic connection with Alistair.”

Tilting his head at me, he asks, “What's the rush, Cass? I didn't think you would want to settle down for years once you had a small taste of freedom.”

“I'm growing up. Having someone to always be there for me...it doesn't sound so awful.”

“Then I'll talk to Vanessa, and we'll decide who to set you up with next.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Is Cole giving you a hard time?” he asks before I can escape out the door to the patio.

“What do you mean?”

“I know he’s probably just as competitive as his mother.”

“No shit,” I remark with a chuckle.

“I just don't want him taking things too far to try and win, like convince you that you aren't up for all this.”

Shaking my head, I tell him honestly, “No, he's never made me feel like that. He'll be good at the business side of things. And at understanding regular people, even if the Russians won’t accept him.”

“You mean the working class? Of course he's better with them,” Daddy says. “Cole has had twenty years of being poor, scraping by to make ends meet. With one word, Vanessa could have changed that. He could've grown up living in a mansion, being waited on by servants, going to the best schools money could buy. And while he may not appreciate Vanessa's sacrifices, the sacrifices he also had to make, one day he'll be thankful to have experienced what he did because he'll never take anything for granted.”

“And you think me, Sophie, and Madison do?”

“Sophie never cared much for material things. And Madison, by now, the money she took from me must be running low. She'll learn plenty of lessons from having to earn a living to get by. You, however, still don't know what that's like. Not that I do either. I'm not saying that as a criticism. It’s simply an aspect of life that we hopefully won't ever have to experience. Just remember that one day, everything you know and love could disappear as fast as your mother did. There are some things out of our control, things that no amount of money can buy. So, I guess it's good that you're ready for a relationship, to find the things that are more important in life than money and power.”

“If you say so, Daddy,” I tell him, needing to end this conversation before he sees the tears welling up in my eyes.

26

Cole

“Ihave a new assignment for you two,” Dante says when Cass and I report to his office one Monday a few days after Cass’s date with Alistair.

The mafia king’s words are a big damn relief too.

Every time I get a text from him, ordering us to come down to his office, I worry that he’s found out we’ve been fucking. Or that we were fucking.

“What do you need us to do?” Cass asks, as if ready to take on the world in her black slacks and…pretty blue blazer? Guess she’s moved on from the casual athletic gear and is ready to look the part of a mafia princess.

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