Page 20 of Dark Rivals

ARDEN

By the time the meeting is finished—Magnolia silently ushered off by an appointed bodyguard along with her brother and Jackson—the sun is beginning to rise over the buildings, creeping into the dark streets. Meetings like these aren’t social calls, so after I say a quick informal hello to Dorian and Jackson’s younger sister, Maren, to show them I’m not a stone-cold bitch, I’m lingering in the meeting room, my heart pulled in two directions.

Kenny, who showed up half-way through pretending like he didn’t know there was an all-leaders-assembled mafia meeting, raises an eyebrow, glancing at me curiously. Usually I’m quick to leave these things, I hate them, but not tonight. I’ve got too much to think about, both involving Grey and involving the girl who just left, sobered by the reality of a contract on her life.

“You need a ride home, baby?” Kenny asks, his lips twisting into a sad smile. He caught enough of the meeting to know that shit just got bad.

I find myself looking at Grey instead, whose eyes have narrowed in on Kenny, assessing him. I should go home, but instead I tell Kenny, “No. I took my own car here, I’ve gotta take it back.”

I have absolutely no intention of taking my car anywhere but Grey’s house, but Kenny seems to buy it. He gives me a small kiss on the cheek and leaves, following close behind Dorian. Even I don’t miss the way that Henri’s eyes stay on Kenny’s back, burning with hatred, but everyone knows that Dorian and Kenny never talk. Kenny isn’t interested in anyone’s business aside from mine, and that’s only because we grew up together. Henri can be kind of a prick to any guy who tries to show Dorian attention, and I think it has something to do with some shit they got themselves wrapped up in a couple years ago. It’s none of my business.

When it’s just Grey and me left, I turn on my heels and head out the door. The building we’re in is owned by the Calvos family, a bar and lounge with secret meeting rooms in the back known only to our families, and I’ve been here enough to know it well. At the end of the hall is an elevator that will take me down the parking garage, and I press the button, waiting for the doors to open. Grey is close behind, waiting with me silently, thoughtfully.

The doors open, we step in, and then they close. Not a word is said for the half a minute the ride takes, and when they’re open again, I find myself walking not to my car, but to Grey’s.

“Where are you going, Arden?” Grey says hesitantly, even though he knows where the fuck I’m going.

I’m done playing games.

Turning around, I want to be ashamed over the amount of raw vulnerability in my voice, but I can’t. “I’m going home with you,” I say quietly. “Where else could I go?”

I can’t go back home and face my mother. I can’t go back to my own bed, so cold and alone, without him. I can’t go back to my old life, the life of hating Grey Calvos, after knowing how damn right it felt to be with him.

I can’t.

He stares at me for a second, his gaze dark and stormy, but instead of saying anything, he unlocks the car and holds open the passenger door for me. I take my seat without hesitation, buckling in while he gets in on the other side and starts the car. I’ve got too much to fucking think about to be able to go home and he knows that, because he was there. He’s the cause for my fucked-up head, heart, body.

And I desperately hope he’s just as fucked up as I am.

As we drive out of the parking garage in silence and head back to his house, I’m not entirely sure what I want from him. All I know is that everything has changed, and my world has been rocked in more ways than one.

When he turns onto the highway, I finally break the silence. “I can’t believe it, Grey,” I say. “I can’t fucking believe it.”

He takes his eyes off the road for just a second. “Believe what?”

“Helio.” A lot of other things too, but the meeting is the safest topic right now. I’m not quite ready to talk about anything else.

He makes a noise from the back of his throat, his body going stiff with irritation. “That bastard needs to burn in hell already,” he says through gritted teeth.

“An understatement,” I say, glad he’s picked up on the topic change. It shouldn’t be strange, a syndicate leader and an heir talking business, but the lack of rivalry between us feels just that: strange. “He can’t even be worried about his own fucking daughter, thinking she’s not important enough to have a serious hit out on her. The absolute nerve of that man.”

“It’s no wonder he and your mother don’t get along,” he mutters. “Your mother is so… in-your-face about her position, and he’s the fucking opposite.”

It’s not a dig at my mother, even though it may sound like one. He’s right—my mother has always been very bold about the fact that her syndicate is led primarily by women, and the fact that even though I’m younger than Lawson by a good few years, I’m the next in line.

“Bastard is one way to put it,” I mutter under my breath.

But I don’t know what else to say for the rest of the drive home, and the car falls back into a lapse of silence. Not an awkward one by any means, but I try to keep my thoughts on the topic and not where I’m going. It isn’t hard.

I’ve always hated Helio, but tonight was something different. I don’t know Magnolia very well, other than she’s a sweet girl with a bit of a hidden edge to her when she’s actually allowed out of the house at mafia gatherings, but I hate Helio all the more for not caring about her, because I know what it’s like to not feel cared about, to feel like just another pawn in the scheme of things. Love isn’t something we do in the mafia, but sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could know what it felt like.

Do I? I glance over at Grey, not wanting to even think it.

“The poor girl looked fucking scared out of her wits when she heard,” I whisper as the car pulls into the driveway. “She walked into that meeting so triumphantly, like she was proud to finally be included… and then that happened. I wish we could do something more, Grey.”

I turn to look at him with pleading eyes, but he drops my gaze, flicking off the headlights as he stops the car, plunging us into an unnerving silence, everything black except the glow of buttons on the dash.

After a minute, Grey says softly, “She walked out with her head held high, Arden. There’s nothing more that we can do. The rest is up to her father.”

---