Corrupt Knight: A Dark Mafia Romance (Corrupt Trilogy Book 1), page 5
It’s not until I find my phone out in the living room, the alarm that would have gone off hours ago ignored, that I even think about the time again.
Getting dressed could have been a totally pointless exercise.
“Lunchtime,” I mutter to myself as I stare down at my screen, ignoring all the notifications. Most are from our group chat, but there are also tons of social media and banking ones too. Putting it back to sleep to deal with later, I stuff it into my pocket and try to forget about its existence.
As tempting as it is to strip back out of my clothes, I don’t. The guilt that will hit me later for not even trying will be unbearable, so pocketing my phone, I grab my keys and my bag that I abandoned in the hallway when I got back yesterday.
I feel like death as I drive through the city. There’s a little nagging voice at the back of my head which tells me that I shouldn’t even be behind a wheel. But it’s too late now.
Pulling up at the Starbucks closest to school, I order myself the biggest, strongest coffee they have and two paninis before continuing toward Knight’s Ridge.
Despite being too hot, the coffee is long gone before I pull to a stop in the car park and stuff my face with both of the paninis.
It has little effect on the darkness and the pain that festers inside me, but at least my stomach is no longer growling to be filled with something other than vodka.
Students sit around the sixth form building before me, enjoying the sun. I watch them laughing with their friends, enjoying life. It’s as if everything is right in the world. I guess it is with theirs.
But how? How can something so life changing happen to me and yet it passes everyone else by? Why am I the only one who’s suffering right now?
Calli is… fuck. I scrub my hand down my face. The less I think about what Calli is doing, the better. She’s fucking Daemon. Daemon. Out of all of us, I never in a million years would have suspected that Daemon would have been the one to corrupt my little sister. Honestly, I thought it would have been Toby. But it turns out not even Alex, the life-long flirt, was the one to catch my sister’s eye. Oh no, that was the darkest, most dangerous and twisted one of the lot of us. Daemon fucking Deimos.
I’m pretty sure Calli needs her head testing. Alex I could understand. He’s a fucking puppy dog. I can actually picture them together. But his evil twin… nah. Honestly, I’m waiting for someone to tell me it’s a joke. Although right now, I think that’s about as likely as someone telling me that Dad isn’t really dead.
I didn’t have to be there that day to know it’s true. I felt it, the bone-crushing loss of him. I felt it right down to my fucking toes.
When people start moving, I figure my hiding time is up.
I only have one lesson left of the day. English lit.
It’s the subject I was most resistant to when I was forced to reconsider my options after I failed my first attempt at A levels quite spectacularly. Although, I don’t really think it had much to do with the subjects, more the alcohol, weed and pussy I spent more time focusing on. Studying took a back seat, something which I’m now severely regretting.
If I didn’t fuck that up, I’d have finished at this place last summer. I could have had a year working with Dad under my belt. I might have been in a better position for whatever is next for me.
Of course, it goes without saying that I want his job. I want to continue his legacy and fulfil the role that was allocated to me at birth.
But do I deserve it?
Fuck no. I’m far too young and inexperienced for the job, but right now, I’m anything but reliable. Damien would be a fucking idiot to trust me with anything other than keeping myself alive.
Everyone has disappeared by the time I finally summon myself to climb out of the car, the final lesson of the day having long started.
Ignoring the main entrance to the building, I walk around the side, toward the rear that will lead almost directly into my class. The fewer people I’m at risk of walking into the better right now. The bitches who walk these hallways would have a field day with the state of me.
I walk past the huge wall of windows that line the building, realising my mistake when more than a few heads from the classrooms inside turn my way.
Great plan, arsehole.
But it’s not until I get to the final one, my English class, that I actually look up. And I have no idea why I do but something—someone—forces me to look through the windows.
And the second I do, my eyes lock onto a person that I shouldn’t be seeing in this part of my life.
My legs stop dead on the spot as I stare at the woman sitting behind the teacher’s desk, watching intently as Mrs. Hendrix goes over something ready for our exam in a few weeks. I have no idea what that might be, because my eyes never leave her.
Brianna Andrews.
The light in all my darkness.
The angel in all of my dreams who takes me away from all this bullshit is sitting in my classroom.
Why?
“Bri’s a student teacher,” a familiar voice says in my head, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut and picture the moment Jodie told me that little nugget about her best friend.
“No,” I say out loud as I stumble back, slipping behind a thick old oak tree while my heart beats out of rhythm.
My hands tremble as I remain frozen, my eyes on her dark blonde curls.
Disbelief washes through me. This can’t be happening.
She can’t be my teacher. She just can’t.
I spent all night dreaming of being inside her, about sinking my teeth into her thigh so deep my mark will never ever leave her body.
Sh-she can’t be—
“FUCK OFF,” I bellow when the familiar beep of someone letting themselves into my flat hits my ears.
“Fuck you, prick.” The deep rumble of my best friend’s voice should probably be comforting, but the fact that he’s managed to get access again after I shut them all out… Well, all but Theo. That motherfucker is impossible to lose.
“I’m going to fucking kill Theo,” I sulk, knowing full well that he’s granted Toby access despite me revoking it.
“I’d like to see you try,” he teases as he emerges around the corner, still wearing his Knight’s Ridge uniform. He dumps his bag beside the sofa and falls down onto it. “What’s this? You got dressed then changed your mind?” he asks, his eyes taking in my matching clothes.
“Something like that,” I sulk, lifting my bottle to my lips.
“Ah, decided to spend your day with your new friend the Goose instead of us, huh?”
“Fuck off.”
“Nope.” He grins at me, and if I weren’t so attached to the oblivion the bottle in my hand can offer me, I might throw it at his head. “You remember that it was Alex, Daemon, and your little sister’s birthdays this week, right?”
“I gave them all cards,” I grunt, remembering poking them all under their front doors and running away like a pussy earlier in the week.
“Oh yes, how could I forget the monumental effort you made with those.”
I narrow my eyes at his sarcasm, seriously unimpressed by the fact he clearly only turned up to make my life worse.
Un-fucking-lucky for him, I’m pretty sure that’s impossible right now.
My father is dead, my mother is a selfish cunt, and my… my… fuck… my no one is now what… my fucking teacher?
“Did you come here for a reason, or just to piss me off?”
“We’re having a party at Theo’s later. All of us.” He pins me with a look that makes me want to curl up into the sofa and never come out again.
“No one wants me there,” I point out.
“You’re wrong,” he states, sitting forward and holding my stare with his serious eyes. “We all want you there.”
I can’t help but scoff at that.
Before all of this, I’d have believed him. I was the life of the fucking party. But it seems that fun side of me died right alongside my dad.
“Nico, we’re all worried about you. Locking yourself in here and only letting Brianna in when she offers sexual favours isn’t going to make any of this better.”
“You sure? You haven’t felt the thing she can do with her—”
“I’m sure. Her skills might be out of this world, but they’re still not good enough to fix any of this shit. To fix you.”
“No? So what will?”
His eyes soften in a way I fucking hate.
“Nothing will, Nico. Nothing can erase what happened or how much it hurts. But as hard as it is to hear, life has to go on. You’ve got too much to live for to let it all pass you by.”
“Oh yeah, like what?”
“Like all the women out there who don’t know they need a piece of you. The Family who are yet to fully experience what a fucking epic underboss you’re going to make one day. And…” He pauses to build the tension like an arsehole. His eyes darken, fire burning through them. “The fucking Italians. They need to know exactly what you, what we, are capable of as we unleash all kinds of hell on them for what they’ve done to us.”
The need for vengeance runs red hot through my veins, turning my blood to poison. The bitter taste of retaliation, of retribution fills my mouth, making my muscles ache with the need to shed their blood and make them pay.
“That’s better,” Toby says, watching as his words fire me up in the way he was hoping.
“Do we have a plan yet?”
He shrugs, playing it cool. “I guess you’ll need to drag your arse out of your flat and go and see the boss to find out.”
“I have left my flat,” I sulk.
“So where did you go today after dressing up like you might attempt to attend a class or two? To the shop for more vodka?”
“So what if I did?”
“Bro,” he sighs, dropping his head into his hands as if he’s running out of patience.
I get it. I ran out of that shit with myself days ago.
“Calli needs you, man. She needs her big brother now more than ever.”
“She’s got Daemon. She doesn’t need me.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re not the only one who’s lost their dad, man. She has too. And her mother, from what I’ve heard.”
“What’s Mum done?”
“Nothing, that’s the point. Calli moved out and she just… didn’t care.”
“She’s a dick. I can’t believe I didn’t realise how big of one she was before all this.”
“Your dad was too good for her,” Toby muses. “She must have been a stellar lay.”
“You fucking cunt,” I bark launching a cushion at his head. “What?” I snap when a wide, shit-eating smile curls at his lips.
“I fucking miss you, man.”
“Fuck’s sake,” I hiss, aware that he’s never going to leave this flat until I’ve agreed to this fucking party.
It’s the right thing to do, I know it is, but fuck. Spending a night partying like everything is okay is the last thing I want right now.
Closing my eyes, I fall back on the sofa, an image of a young, carefree Calli filling my head. She was always so sweet, so calm and kind. Fuck knows what Daemon has done to deserve her. Fuck, maybe he doesn’t and I’m going to have to kill him sometime soon for breaking her heart.
But Toby is right. She needs me too. No matter how hard it might seem right now, I need to be there for her.
I’m not the only one suffering…
6
BRIANNA
“I think you’re going to fit in really well here,” Melissa says after the year thirteens have left the room, allowing me to breathe for what I’m pretty sure is the first time in the past two hours.
He was meant to be here. The second Melissa opened the register up, my eyes found his name and my stomach plummeted into my feet. My stomach knotted with anxiety and that mark on my thigh throbbed like he’d just done it.
Thankfully, I didn’t recognise any of the other names on the short list. But that didn’t really matter. The only one who did was him.
And he didn’t show.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. From what Jodie has said, he’s barely shown his face in Knight’s Ridge recently. But there’s a part of me that hoped he would have just turned up and got the inevitable over with.
He’d have found me here, the truth would have been out, and I’d have already seen his reaction.
But as it is, I’m still sitting here fighting with the tight knot in my stomach that’s threatening to make me vomit all over the ridiculously clean carpet beneath my feet. Seriously, since when did classrooms have floors that resembled hotel rooms? Since the little darlings’ parents have more money than sense, I guess.
I can’t help but wonder how much of the Cirillo blood money has paid for this place. I might not know all that much about the Family’s businesses, but it’s no secret they hold huge power over this place. And power means money, so…
“Is that okay?” Melissa asks, dragging me back to reality.
“Umm.” I stare up at her with a wince.
“I’m sorry, I’m sure today has been more than overwhelming and here I am, throwing more at you. Forget about it.” She shakes her head. Curiosity burns through me, but I keep my lips sealed in case I really don’t like whatever her suggestion was. “Is there anything you need to prepare for next week?”
“N-no, I don’t think so.” Reaching for my folder, I flip it open to my new timetable.
“Okay, next week, you can meet the staff whose lessons you’ll be in, and I’ll ensure they’ll get you up to speed with where they are.”
“Thank you, I really appreciate everything you’ve done. I know I was kinda dropped on you last minute.”
“It’s really nothing. I’m excited to have you here. And not just because you can take over a few of my classes in the rundown to summer.” She winks. “Do you think you’ll be able to find your way back to the car park from here?”
“I’m sure I can manage,” I say, gathering up my things, more than ready to escape for the weekend.
I all but run from the room, and the second I turn down the hallway, I collide with a brick wall—well, not literally.
“Oh my God, I’m so—”
“Anyone would think you’re trying to escape, Miss Andrews,” Toby says as he steadies me with his hands on my upper arms.
“Anyone would be right,” I mutter under my breath. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Thought you might like a lift home. Must have been a hell of a journey this morning.” His brow quirks knowingly.
“It was fine. Gave me time to think.”
“Sounds dangerous,” he mutters, gesturing for me to walk with him.
“You’re telling me. But you really don’t need to take me home. I’m more than capable of—”
“Brianna,” he chastises. “The walk off the grounds is longer than necessary, let alone what, the bus and three tubes you need to get here.”
“Four,” I whisper.
“Fucking hell, come on.” Taking my heavy bag from my shoulder, he throws it over his own and continues forward as if nothing just happened.
“Flirt like this with all the teachers, Tobes?” I tease. If I’ve learned anything about these boys, it’s that one way or another they’ll get what they want and really, it’s just easier not to fight.
Unless it’s Nico. Then I have full intentions of fighting until the bitter end, because I know the kind of benefits my defiance can be rewarded with.
Shit.
I shake my head.
I can’t. I can’t be thinking about that kind of shit while I’m working here. While he’s still a student.
Jesus. He could lose me the only job I’ve wanted in my life before I’ve even started it.
The orgasms were good. But they weren’t that fucking good.
“Nah, only the really hot ones.”
“Careful, from what I’ve heard, your girl is having MMA lessons from the biggest bad-arse in town. I’d hate for her to ruin this pretty face.”
He laughs at my response and the sound immediately relaxes me—that and we finally spill out of the building, allowing me to suck in some much needed fresh air.
No more words are said between us as we walk toward his BMW.
It doesn’t matter how many times I might slide into one of their cars, disbelief always slams into me.
These annoyingly handsome and terrifyingly dangerous boys have the most insane cars. I don’t want to think just how much it is to insure them, let alone how much they cost to buy. It’s utterly mind-boggling.
“So, how was your first day at Knight’s Ridge College, Miss Andrews?” he asks after dumping my bag in the boot and joining me.
“Do you have to call me that?”
“Why? Is it what Nico uses in the bedroom?” His brows wiggle and I groan. “Sorry, sorry. Bad joke. He’ll be okay with this, you know,” he assures me.
“No offence, Tobes, but I don’t think any of us can predict how he’s going to react to anything right now.”
“You should have just told him last night.”
“He was wasted. He never would have remembered.”
“He’s a prick.”
“Something we can agree on.”
Folding my arms over my chest, I let out a heavy sigh.
“Today was okay though, right? This place is going to give you everything you need to finish your training?”
I twist around to look at him, reality slamming into me.
“It was you.”
He glances at me, his face a mask of innocence, which we both know is total bullshit. I’ve seen exactly what this boy is capable of, and there isn’t an innocent bone in his body.
“Oh, don’t give me that butter-wouldn’t-melt look, Tobias Doukas. The reason I’m even here right now is down to you, isn’t it?”
He clucks his tongue. “I just pulled in a few favours. I didn’t know if it was even a possibility.”
“Toby,” I sigh.
“It was nothing, Bri. Just helping out a friend.”
There are so many things I want to say to him, to chastise him for going out on a limb for me. It’s not like anyone other than Jodie ever does it for me. But in the end, I swallow those words and go with the most important.
