Page 2 of Taming the Beast (Fairy Tales of New York)

Her parents were removing her? For ever?

No.

They couldn’t.

What would she do without her friends? They were everything to her. They’d been there for her from the moment she’d arrived – to begin with, brilliantly clever scholarship student, Dawn, an only child like her, and Faith, who’d arrived devastated by the death of her mother and who was only just beginning to get over it. And then, last year when she’d turned up in a whirl of color and glamor, wild and rebellious Zelda.

Together, they’d taken her under their wing, standing up to the girls who’d bullied her over her almost incomprehensible Argentinian accent, and then spending hours helping her with her English until it was flawless. They were the sisters she didn’t have. Her best friends. And now she’d never see them again. She’d never see Seb again. Her life was over. Oh, this was the worst thing ever.

“You can’t do this to me,” she said, her voice shaking horribly.

“Yes, we can,” said her father in a tone that brooked no argument.

“But why?”

“You grew up on a vineyard,” said her mother. “You took your first sip of wine at the age of two. You know to treat it with respect. Not only that, you begged to be sent away and after a lot of consideration, despite our reservations, we thought it would be good for you. We trusted you. And how do you repay us? By stealing some wine – communion wine at that – and abusing both it and our trust in you.”

Her mother raised her eyebrows as if in expectation, but if she thought Mercy was going to reveal who’d stolen the wine she could think again. All four girls were responsible – it wasn’t as if any one of them had protested when the idea had been mooted – and they’d made a pact never to tell. And anyway, it wasn’t like it had been consecrated communion wine. So the Mother Superior could stare all she liked and her parents could raise as many eyebrows as they liked; Mercy wouldn’t breathe a word.

“What will happen to me now?” she said instead, hating that she sounded so weak, so pathetic.

“You’ll finish your studies back home in Mendoza and then start working on the vineyard,” said her father. “You’ll learn your heritage. Learn to value it. Until you do.”

In the taut crackling silence Mercy felt herself begin to tremble inside as the enormity of what was happening hit her. She wasn’t just being ripped from her friends, with whom she was very much going to try and keep in touch; she was effectively being sent to prison. Once they got her home her parents would never let her out again. They’d barely take their eyes off her. It would be awful.

She cast a quick beseeching, desperate glance at the Mother Superior but there was no sympathy in

that quarter, and it was then that she realized with a sinking heart that she couldn’t fight this. She was sixteen. A minor. She didn’t have the option of telling them all to get lost. She had to obey. She had to leave. It was done.

Chapter One

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New York City, Upper East Side, ten years later

Right. Enough was enough.

Standing at the door to the apartment that occupied much of the top floor of the Madisons’ townhouse, Mercy pulled her shoulders back and blew out a long, steady breath.

She could do this.

She had to do this.

Or she had to at least try.

By all accounts Seb Madison hadn’t changed one bit in the last five years, let alone the last thirteen, but the anger and frustration and hurt she was simmering with on Zelda’s behalf meant that she couldn’t not. She really couldn’t. Not when it sounded as if he’d plumbed new depths of contemptibility earlier.

Ten minutes ago she and her friends, Dawn and Faith, had arrived at what Zel called the Madison Mausoleum where she’d been living in a self-contained apartment on the second floor for a few months now. They’d come to offer Zel their support, because since the crack of dawn this morning the paparazzi had been beseiging her over a story that wasn’t even true.

Mercy, Dawn and Faith had come laden with chocolate, sympathy and a flask filled with virgin mojito. However, they’d been there barely five minutes before details of the horrible confrontation Zel had had with her brother had spilled out.

Apparently, fed up with his emotional neglect of her, she’d challenged him on his lousy behavior towards her over the years and had then followed up with a few home truths, to which he’d responded with typical frostiness and stick-your-head-in-the-sand denial.

Zel was in pieces, clearly devastated that her brother still didn’t want to have anything to do with her, and that had been that as far as Mercy was concerned. Her friend had overcome so many demons to get where she was, but her shattered relationship with her brother was still one of them, and it killed Mercy to see her like this. Especially when it wasn’t Zel’s fault.

So if there was anything she – Mercy – could do to fix things, she’d do it, which was why she was here, at Seb’s door on a mild September Friday evening, burning with a sort of righteous anger and the need to put things right.

One last shot, she told herself, feeling adrenalin begin to flow through her veins as she knocked twice and bellowed, “Seb? Are you in there? Open up.” One last shot.

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