Rachel Dyken - Elect

I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been my fault in the first place. If I would have just stayed away like her grandfather had asked. She would have been safe. Instead, the pull she had on me was so magnetic I found myself falling. Before I knew it, I was ready to start an all-out family war against the Alfero boss in order to have his granddaughter. Hell, I was ready to kidnap her.

I groaned as I watched Chase run to Trace’s side and grab her hand. Okay, I could handle a lot of things. Guns, violence, people who didn’t know their place in this godforsaken world, but my best friend kissing my girlfriend’s hand? The same girl I’d been in love with my whole life? Yeah, I was going to freaking murder him if he did anything to mess that up.

She was the only thing I had going for me. I mean, I had my sister, but both my parents were gone. My mother died when I was younger—at the hands of my bastard of a father, and my father, well… I would dance on his grave if it wouldn’t make me look like a genuine ass. The fact was, I needed Trace; she wasn’t just a girl to me, she was my lifeline. I was terrified that if I lost her, I would lose myself—lose everything that keeps me grounded and sane.

“You okay with this?” Tex asked next to me as he ran his hands through his dark red hair and nodded toward the happy couple.

I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “Are you challenging my judgment?”

“Whoa.” Tex lifted up his hands in surrender. “I was just asking a question, Nixon, not challenging you. Take a sedative. Seriously.”

“Take a—” I bit down on my lower lip and sucked on the metal of my lip ring. “I’m fine.”

“Right. I’m fine, you’re fine, everything’s fine. Oh, look, I think a rainbow’s sprouting out of your ass.”

“Remind me why you’re here again?”

Tex grinned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Oh you know, to make your life miserable. That and because your hot sister promised she’d meet me before her first class.”

“Please don’t use ‘hot’ and ‘sister’ in the same sentence.”

“Sorry.” Tex cleared his throat. “I’m here because your sexy sister promised she’d meet me before her first class.”

“And I’m leaving.” I rolled my eyes. “Tell my not-sexy, not-hot sister that she needs to answer her damn phone.”

“Will do!” Tex saluted. “Don’t trip over the rainbow, sunshine!”

I flipped him off and jogged in the opposite direction to the business building. I was technically a senior in college, though I truly only had three credits left before I’d be able to leave. I’d enrolled in electives so I could stay a student for the rest of the fall semester. I was seriously thinking about failing my last few classes so I could stay spring semester, too. I had to do something—no way was I going to be the only one not at Eagle Elite, not with the Sicilians rowing their boats across the Atlantic at this very moment.

I’d only been given control of the school because my family owned it. Clearly it was all a front. I needed access to everything, and therefore the dean had looked the other way when I enrolled in certain classes and dropped others. I’d been working for four straight years trying to discover who had killed Trace’s parents when she was six. And after all those years of trying to clear my family name, it just seemed like now everything was going backward and spinning out of control. The last thing I needed was the Sicilians breathing down my neck for raising hell these past few weeks.

“Mr. Abandonato,” my senior seminar professor announced the minute I stepped foot into the classroom. It was a tiny class of only about fifteen students, all of them too engrossed in talking and texting to care that I was late. None of them even noticed that I looked like I’d just gotten back from visiting the seventh circle of Hell and had a meet-and-greet with Satan himself.

“Yes?” I tried not to appear as irritated as I felt. As it was, I knew I was only about five seconds away from losing my shit. “What can I do for you?”

My words held a double meaning. My asking what I could do for him. He knew who I was; he knew what my family did. I always chose my words carefully for that very reason. Most people asked for favors in public—not in private. So the art of deception was my specialty. If he answered that he needed something taken care of, then I’d know he wanted to deal with Nixon Abandonato, mafia boss. If he laughed and started spouting out nonsense instructions about school, then he just wanted to talk to plain old Nixon.

Sometimes I wondered what normal would be like. For example, what does it feel like to wear jeans without hiding a gun on your leg? Or not feeling leery about every single person that looks at you cross-eyed? Sleeping was overrated, and now I was running on pure adrenaline.

“We have a new student.” Mr. Ryan’s gaze flickered to the front of the room. My eyes followed his. Rage mixed with that very same adrenaline, making my hands shake as I balled them into fists.

“Shit.” A few students looked in my direction, then gazed back at their phones as my eyes slowly took in the new student. I could probably scream “fire!” and their asses would still be firmly planted in their seats. Idiots, all of them.

“Pardon?” Mr. Ryan said. “Do you know one another?”

“Oh,” a hiss of air escaped my lips as I marched over to the desk. “You could say that.”

“Well,” Mr. Ryan said from behind me. “If you could show him around, it would be much appreciated. After all, you are senior class president.”

“That I am,” I answered. I stopped in front of the new student’s desk and whispered. “How the hell did you get in?” I was so close to his face that I could see the faint bruising across his nose—telling me one thing. He wasn’t there by choice—he’d been forced; not that he’d ever admit defeat. My nostrils flared as he licked his lips, taking his time in answering.

He leaned back in his chair, his long dark hair covering part of his face, “You think you’re the only one with connections, Abandonato?”

“Of course not.” I gripped the sides of his desk and leaned in until my face was inches from his. “I just didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to pick a side.”

“I didn’t pick. I was chosen. They want someone to investigate. Somebody trustworthy needs to be on the inside. It’s not like they can enroll in college.”

“Really?” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my knife, sliding it across the desk toward his stomach. “And I’m not?” I tilted my head to the side. “Careful how you answer, Faust. I wouldn’t hesitate to slice you open where you sit.”

Ever since Faust had accused Trace of asking for it, when she was nearly raped, he’d been on my shit list. He was from one of the Original Sicilian families and a big giant pain in my ass.

He leaned in so that my blade was literally poking a hole through his white cotton shirt. “Do it. Then Trace won’t have anyone protecting her, or her grandfather. The Alferos are officially at war with the rest of us. Pick a side, Nixon, or I’ll pick for you.”

“Class!” Mr. Ryan clapped his hands. “Everyone take their seats.”

I pulled the knife back and hid it in my hand. “This isn’t over.”

“Of course not.” Faust smiled, his eyes darkening with smug satisfaction as he nodded toward me and answered, “It’s just begun.”

The minute class was over I walked over to Faust’s desk. I should have seen this one coming—which was another reason Chase was Tracey’s bodyguard instead of me. I wasn’t thinking clearly—and it was all because of her. My focus was on protecting her but in the process I was losing my touch.

Which meant only one thing.

I needed to put the fear of God into Faust before he went back and reported to whatever family the Sicilians had sent.

The door shut. I slowly turned the lock on it. I removed a poster from the wall and used it to cover the small window in the middle of the door, then turned back to face Faust.

He was leaning against his desk. “You can’t kill me.”

I smiled as adrenaline pumped through my system. I clenched my hands into tight fists and relished the feeling of blood soaring through my veins. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Faust’s smile fell from his face as I charged him from the side and slammed his body against the brick wall. His arms came up to stop me but I had him pinned with the weight of my body. Knife in hand I held it to his throat. “Who did they send?”

Faust swallowed against my metal blade, causing his skin to catch slightly on the edge. A trickle of blood fell from the small cut his movement had made. He stilled.

Faust wasn’t answering.

Fine. I’d play.

I threw the knife behind me and punched him across the jaw. His head made a cracking noise as it slammed against the brick wall. I didn’t want to knock the guy out, so I pulled him away from the wall and threw him into the desks. Cursing, he fell to the ground and then got up.

“Is that all you got, Nixon? Losing your touch?”

Oh, hell no. I lunged for him. Just as he moved out of the way, I caught his foot. He tripped, slamming his body against the floor. I dragged him by his heel to the closest window I could find and opened it.

We were on the second floor. The fall probably would do a lot of damage; maybe if he landed on his feet we’d be lucky and he’d break both legs on his own. Either way, I just hoped nobody was on this side of campus. I figured most people would already be in their next classes.

With a grunt I lifted him onto the windowsill and grabbed the front of his shirt. “Here’s how this is gonna work.” I smirked. “You either tell me who sent you, or we participate in a physics lesson. How fast would you fall from twenty feet, you think? And how many bones would you break, if you survived the fall and all that.”