The Spy by Sophie Lark

6

Nix

My first week at Kingmakers is not at all the scintillating hubbub of social expansion that I’d hoped. If anything, I’m even lonelier than I was at home.

The only Freshman who will talk to me is Sabrina Gallo.

Everybody else avoids me like I’m infected with the plague.

At first I didn’t want to believe what Sabrina said—that it was all because of my father and his reputation.

But by the tenth, or twentieth, or thirtieth brush-off, it was pretty fucking clear that my father is feared and loathed to an unusual degree, even by mafia standards.

It’s messing with my head.

I don’t understand how the man I love and respect more than anyone can be known as a monster.

“What did he do, exactly?” I demand of Sabrina, after yet another class where one of my fellow students hissed at me like a medieval villager warding off a demon.

“I don’t really know anything about it,” Sabrina says, keeping her steady pace across the commons as we walk from the Armory to the Keep.

Her tone is light, but I can’t help feeling that she’s lying. She doesn’t want to get into it. She’s willing to be my friend, but she wants nothing to do with my father and his sordid history.

It’s infuriating, feeling like everyone around me knows more about my own family than I do. Feeling like everyone is in on the secret but me.

I suppose I could ask Estas Lomachenko. He seems to think his family was wronged by mine. He’s certainly spreading that story to the very few people who weren’t already prejudiced against me.

And I’ll admit, it looks pretty fucking bad that I don’t have friends or allies even amongst the other Ukrainians. At Kingmakers, most of the cliques revolve around mafia groups: the New York Italians stick together, likewise the Taiwan Triads, and the Dublin Irish.

I have no friends from my father’s Malina. In fact, none of his men are allowed to marry or have children. Their loyalty is to him alone.

I’m starting to realize how odd that is compared to other mafia groups that center around family.

This is what really has me twisted up in a pretzel: my father told me that he didn’t want me coming to Kingmakers because it wasn’t safe. He said he had too many enemies.

Well, that fucking much was true. But I think the real issue is that he didn’t want me to know what everyone says about him: that he’s a snake, a backstabber. That he has no honor.

I tell myself it can’t be true.

After all, there’s bad blood between plenty of families. Grudges and feuds are as common as Swiss bank accounts amongst the mafia.

Still, I can’t shake this nagging feeling that my father hasn’t been completely open with me.

I’m his heir, his only child.

I thought I was his protégé. I thought he trusted me.

Now I worry that he only viewed me as a kid, feeding me the Disney version of his life and business.

My paradigm is cracking. It feels like my skull is splitting apart.

My only release is exercise.

Thank god we’re allowed to leave the campus grounds whenever we want. I’ve been tramping all over the island when class is done.

It makes me feel less alone to hike the paths along the cliffs or to run through the forest trails in the cool green shade of the river bottoms. There I’m surrounded by birds, butterflies, rabbits, and squirrels. Even the occasional deer.

I feel alive when I’m surrounded by living things.

Some people think that hunters don’t like animals—nothing could be further from the truth. I see myself as an animal. I only kill like a bear or a panther would do—to eat.

I run around like a wild thing until I’m scratched and filthy, until the sky is dark. Only then do I come back to Kingmakers, to the confinement of stone walls and cold stares.

I sleep like the dead, because I’m exhausted in body and brain.

Our classes are incredibly difficult. The Heirs are expected to learn most of what the students in the other divisions will know—everything from bribery and extortion to interrogation and foreign investment. After all, we’re the ones who have to run the whole operation. We can’t manage our people if we don’t know what they’re doing.

I thought I understood my father’s business. He’s taken me to every one of his properties. Every strip club, every casino, every safehouse, every warehouse. I know all his men, not just the inner circle who live on our compound.

Still, the complexity of criminal enterprise is only now becoming apparent to me in the endless lectures, charts, and textbooks meted out by our professors.

I’m drowning in work and classes have just started. I’m dreading exam season even more—thank god my father doesn’t particularly care about my grades, unlike the draconian parents who call every week to grill their children on their scores.

Sabrina and I head into our Extortion class, taught by the brilliant Professor Ito. He’s a small man, slight, well-dressed in impeccably-tailored black suits. He’s the only professor I’ve seen who wears a tie; his are hand-dyed silk. His lecture style is clear and methodical, which is the only reason I can keep up with the avalanche of information.

Sabrina tells me that he used to operate a Moriarty-level network of crime in Hamamatsu. It was immensely profitable until it attracted the attention of the Yakuza. After a long and bloody battle, Professor Ito sold his holdings for a boggling amount of money and retired to Kingmakers.

“I bet he only teaches here a couple of years,” Sabrina whispers to me as Professor Ito takes his place at the front of the classroom. “He’s probably waiting for the heat to cool off in Japan. Lots of professors do that. It’s a sanctuary here—nobody can attack you. By the time you go back to society, it’s all water under the bridge.”

I chuckle. “Depending how badly you pissed off your enemies . . .”

“Extortion,” Professor Ito says, hands clasped loosely in front of him, and jaw tilted up so his voice rings clear and melodious across the heads of the students. “It is the bedrock of our business. The lifeblood of mafia. The one tool you must always use . . .”

He gazes around at us, his eyes clear and piercing behind the round lenses of his glasses.

I’ve seen stupid-looking people turn out to be smart. But I’ve never seen a man with that bright and avian stare who was anything less than a raptor.

“Why is that, do you think?” he barks at us. “Why is extortion so necessary?”

“Well . . . you get money,” the pudgy boy sitting next to me says, with the confused expression of someone who knows his answer is too obvious to be correct.

“There are many ways to get money,” Professor Ito says. “None is more crucial than the others simply by nature of providing cash.”

He waits, the seconds stretching out agonizingly slow. His teaching method always involves questions to the class and torturous pauses afterward. I’m not sure if he’s trying to motivate us to learn by burning the memory of our ignorance into our brain, or he really believes we can figure out the answer on our own.

Instead of staring at the blank faces around me, I try to consider his question. What purpose does extortion serve besides money?

“Control,” I say aloud.

“That’s right,” Professor Ito inclines his head toward me. “It is essential that you control your entire territory on a fundamental level through its businesses and citizens. Everyone must pay you. Everyone must be involved. And in return—this is the crucial part, ladies and gentlemen! You must provide a service in return. Extortion is not robbery! They pay for protection, and you provide that protection to them. Mafia are, in effect, a professional security force. An army controlled by a king. You Heirs will be that king.”

I copy his words carefully into my notebook.

Sabrina sits on my other side, arms folded over the chest straining the bounds of a very tight blouse. Her top button is barely hanging on for dear life, a struggle observed with great interest by our male seatmates.

Sabrina never takes notes or reads the textbook. Yet she beats me on every quiz.

Professor Ito continues. “The people accept the rule of the king when the kingdom prospers. Businesses, neighborhoods, families: happy, safe, and thriving. You must never become greedy, demanding too much. And you must never fail to provide the benefit inherent in the extortion contract.”

Sabrina raises her hand.

“What about the cops?” she says. “They already consider themselves the ‘professional security force.’ ”

“The police are a rival gang,” Professor Ito says. “Never forget that. They don’t actually want to destroy you—then they themselves would cease to exist. But they want to be the most powerful gang in the city. If you intend to take that spot, you will have to force homage from them.”

He explains how to collaborate with the cops—how to punish rivals and disloyal employees within our own ranks by handing them over to the police as token sacrifices. How to bribe and blackmail officers, and how to liaise with the politicians that control the police force.

While Professor Ito is talking, I’m remembering instances when I saw my father take the actions described. I’m beginning to understand the theory, the process of what I had only known by sight.

It’s strangely addictive learning about the world I’ve always inhabited. Like a hand pulling back a gauze curtain so I can see clearly.

Sabrina seems equally fascinated. She keeps her cool gray stare fixed upon the professor wherever he walks in the room, instead of getting bored and gazing out the window as usual.

She’s been a good roommate so far—reasonably tidy, or at least willing to clean up her mess now and then. Communicative and cheerful. I’d say we’re becoming friends.

The only problem is that Sabrina already had a bunch of ready-made friends when she got to Kingmakers. I feel awkward horning in on their group when I know they probably don’t want me around.

“So remember,” Professor Ito says, wrapping up his lecture, “enforce the law of silence. This is the one point on which you must be ruthless: snitching is punished more harshly than non-payment. Silence is control. Silence is collaboration.”

He takes off his glasses, polishing them with a silk cloth drawn from his breast pocket. When he puts them on again, the lenses glint like diamond.

“Extortion controls your territory. Other schemes layer on top: drug trafficking, gun running, gambling . . . always remembering that the frosting must not cause the cake to collapse. Never let your city become a war zone. Keep profit and quality of life in balance.”

The professor dismisses us.

Sabrina chuckles as she snatches up her school bag.

“What?” I say.

“He almost makes us sound altruistic,” she says. “I do intend to be a benevolent queen. Unless somebody fucks with me.”

She slings her bag over her shoulder, heading down the deep stone staircase of the Keep.

The hallways are crowded with students. That was the last class of the day—now everybody’s heading to the dining hall.

I’ve got no complaint about the food at Kingmakers. My dad likes to eat, but he has no taste, so none of the chefs at our compound have ever been good.

Also, I’m fucking starving all the time so I’m hardly picky.

I follow Sabrina out into the late-afternoon sunshine. The light turns her skin from tan to gold. It makes every male head in a half-mile radius twist toward us. Only five seconds pass before we’re joined by Hedeon Gray, Leo Gallo, and Leo’s tall friend who I’ve seen at a distance but not yet met. The boys are lured in to Sabrina like bees to honey.

“How’s class, kiddo?” Leo says, reaching out a long-fingered hand to ruffle Sabrina’s hair.

She nimbly slips his grasp, falling into pace next to Hedeon instead. Hedeon pretends not to notice, but pulls his shoulders back all of a sudden, standing taller.

“Class is great,” Sabrina replies. “I knew you guys were exaggerating when you said Kingmakers was hard.”

“Or you’re just smarter than us, is that what you’re saying?” Leo laughs, shaking a finger at her.

“I dunno.” Sabrina grins at him wickedly, “Can the same cousin be the smartest ANDthe best looking?”

“No fucking way are you the best-looking cousin!” Leo scoffs, genuinely offended.

“You don’t care if I’m the smartest, though,” Sabrina snorts.

“Fuck no,” Leo says. “That’s why I’ve got Anna here, in case I need to fill out a crossword puzzle.”

Anna Wilk has just caught up with us, her fair hair twisted up in a knot on top of her head, and her tights artfully shredded beneath the hem of her black plaid skirt.

Leo grabs her hand and pulls her close so he can kiss her.

They make a striking couple: Leo tall and tan, with a dazzling smile and the easy grace of an athlete, Anna stark and pale, her ice-blue eyes cutting straight to the soul.

This is the other reason I’ve been nervous to join Sabrina’s table in the dining hall—every damn person she associates with is gorgeous. They all have this glamor around them, even Hedeon with his perpetual scowl, and Leo’s tall friend in his shabby uniforms and cheap shoes—Ares, I think he’s called.

I fall into step by Ares, noticing that our strides are almost exactly the same length. I look up at his face—it’s nice to look up to someone again. Makes me miss my dad.

He’s got a lean, tanned face. A dark thatch of hair with streaks of sun in it. His eyes are mostly blue with a little green in them. I think Sabrina said he was Greek—he must be, with that name.

“I’m Ares,” he confirms.

“Nix,” I hold out my hand.

I’d stopped doing that, with the reception I’d been getting from my fellow students. But I forgot, and now I have to watch the shudder of repulsion that crosses his features before he forces himself to take my hand and give it a brief shake.

His hand is warm. I can feel the bones shifting beneath the muscle and skin, like deep tectonic plates.

“You’re Sabrina’s roommate?” he asks.

“That’s right.”

“I room with Leo.” He nods toward Leo Gallo, who’s now whispering something in Anna Wilk’s ear, to which Anna grins and agrees.

Ares has a deep and resonating voice. It vibrates across my skin, like a bass speaker set too close.

His eyes, as beautiful a color as they may be, are not pacific in any sense of the word. They’re fixed on me with frightful intensity. I’m becoming too used to this to care, but I get the sense that he loathes me. That he hates me on sight, when I’ve only spoken three words to him.

After we’ve all filled our trays at the dining hall, I’m surprised that Ares voluntarily sits next to me on the long wooden bench. Sabrina drops down on my other side, Hedeon Gray directly across from her, and Anna Wilk and Leo next to Hedeon.

Cara Wilk arrives a few minutes later, squeezing in beside Anna.

The sisters are a fascinating lesson in genetics: their coloring completely different, but their features almost identical. As if they were formed from the same mold but painted in alternate shades. If they were fairies, Anna would be the ice queen, and Cara the woodland sprite. Cara’s dark hair and hazel eyes were made for the green of the school uniforms.

“How are you doing, Nix?” Cara says to me cheerfully.

I haven’t seen much of her since the ship ride over. The Accountants and the Heirs only share a few classes.

“I’m great,” I say. And then, more honestly, “Pretty good, at least.”

“Kingmakers is an adjustment,” Anna Wilk says in her low, clear voice.

She’s watching me without the same level of friendliness as her sister. Hedeon likewise seems to find my presence unpleasant. Only Sabrina seems completely relaxed—I guess she figures if I were gonna shank her in her sleep, I would have done it already.

I hate this pariah feeling. It makes me anxious and aggressive, when usually I’m cheerful and aggressive.

How am I supposed to prove I’m a decent person when I feel ready to snap at any moment?

The more I try to act “normal,” the more unnatural everything feels. I hardly remember how to hold my fork.

“Have you met everybody?” Sabrina says, looking around the table.

“I think so,” I say.

Even as she’s asking, a tall blond boy, a petite girl, and a black-haired guy with a scar across his right eye all crowd onto our table.

“We’re running out of seats!” the blond boy complains.

“I’m not sitting back over there with Valon,” the black-haired one says, jerking his head toward a table on the opposite side of the room. “He chews so fucking loud.”

“That’s Dean Yenin, Cat Romero, and Bram Van Der Berg,” Sabrina helpfully informs me.

Her introduction draws three pairs of eyes in my direction. Bram scowls until the scar across his eye forms one solid line.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” he says.

“She’s my guest,” Sabrina informs him icily.

I’ve had enough of this shit.

“What do you care where I sit?” I snap. “I don’t even fucking know you.”

Bram’s face fills with blood, his skin flushing red and the scar turning white. He leans across the table, his nails digging into the wood.

“Oh, you don’t know me?” he says softly. “You’ve never heard the name Bram Van Der Berg before?”

“No,” I say, frowning.

“What about Frans Van Der Berg? He was my uncle. He taught me how to fight and how to drive. Then he made a deal with your father. And somehow he ended up upside down in a vat of acid, with all his fuckin’ teeth pulled out. Does that sound familiar to you?”

My stomach feels like it had a rock shoved down inside of it. I can feel everyone at the table watching me.

“I don’t know what happened to your uncle,” I say stiffly. “And I don’t think you know the whole story, either.”

“I know what your father did,” Bram hisses.

His teeth are bared, his hands trembling like he’d like to wrap them around my throat.

Everyone else at the table is silent, staring at us like Bram is the judge and they’re the jury.

To my surprise, it’s Ares who intervenes.

“She’s not her father,” he says. “We all have violent histories. The point of Kingmakers is that you’re supposed to leave the grudges at the door.”

“Fuck that!” Bram spits, thrusting his tray away from him and standing up. “And fuck you,” he snarls at me, before turning and stalking out of the dining hall.

Dean Yenin stands up as well. “I’ll go talk to him,” he says, resting his hand on Cat’s shoulder. “Stay and enjoy your dinner, my love.”

Cat’s cheeks flush pink, drowning out her freckles. She squeezes the hand on her shoulder before letting him go.

I can hardly stand the awkward silence that follows.

“I can leave, too,” I say, looking around at them all with a defiant pride I don’t really feel.

“Nix,” Leo says, the kindness of his voice almost unbearable to me—I’m afraid it’s going to make me crack. “You wouldn’t believe the shit that’s gone down just in our own families. Remember, I’ve been here three years already. Dean and I wanted to kill each other first year. Now we’re friends. Bram will come around . . . and so will everybody else.”

Anna looks less convinced, but she nods slowly.

“You’ll find your place here,” she says to me. “Everyone does.”

I don’t know if she intends that place to be at her table.

I eat my food silently, while everyone else tries to return to normal conversation.

Though Bram left the dining hall, I can still feel the angry glares and the barely-suppressed mutters of other students.

And I know, I just fucking know, if I look across the dining hall to the Odessa Mafia’s table, Estas Lomachenko will be smiling in delight.

Regardless of what Leo said, there doesn’t seem to be anything normal about how much everyone hates my family.

* * *