The Spy by Sophie Lark

9

Nix

Ares Cirillo is a mystery to me.

When he looks at me, I feel like his stare could burn the flesh off my bones. His restrained, buttoned-up exterior doesn’t fool me. I see the intensity behind the facade, an actual living person peering through the eyes of a painting.

Sometimes he seems to be seeking me out.

Other times, I think he hates me.

My first thought, of course, is that there’s some dark history between our families. But from what I’ve heard, his father and grandfather left the mafia life. He has no grudge against me.

We part ways at the door of the Armory, each of us heading off to our respective dorms to shower.

I watch his tall frame loping off across the grass, moving with a fluidity not dissimilar to Leo Gallo.

I was surprised when I saw Ares in his swim trunks. Divested of his baggy school uniform, he’s more muscular than I would have guessed — with a much more interesting collection of tattoos.

Everything about him is subtle and understated. This interests me because I’m the opposite: too blunt, too loud, too obvious. Ares is a deep pool . . . I’m curious what’s under the water.

I wish it weren’t Sunday. As difficult as our classes can be, I’m not looking forward to long hours at loose ends. I could walk down to the village, but on such a mild and sunny day, it’s as likely to be stuffed with students as the castle grounds.

I need to call my father.

Sunday is the only day we’re allowed to call home. We have to use the banks of phones on the ground floor of the Keep, which offers little privacy.

I wait until lunch hour, when I know there will be fewer students around.

He picks up at once, as if he was waiting.

“There you are,” he says. “Having too much fun to remember your dad?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Something like that.”

“So . . . how has it been?”

I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I think I hear an edge of nerves in his question. He’s wary of what I might say but doesn’t want me to know it, in case I’m still blissfully ignorant.

“It’s been eye-opening,” I say flatly.

A long pause on the other end of the line.

“What does that mean?” my father says.

“What do you think it means, Dad?”

Another silence.

“I have no idea,” he says.

That pisses me off.

“You had no idea that half the people here seem to hate you, and me by extension?”

My father scoffs. “Come on,” he says. “You think Kingmakers is a congeniality contest?”

“That’s the real reason you didn’t want me to come here, isn’t it? You didn’t want me to know that we’re pariahs.”

“Bullshit,” he snorts. “You’re no pampered mafia princess, thinking her daddy owns a chain of hotels. You know how the sausage is made, my girl.”

Do I?

I’m not so certain anymore.

“If anyone there has shit to say about me, it’s because I don’t rub the right elbows or kiss the right rings,” he continues. “The Malina are independent—my men are loyal to me, and me alone. I don’t bend to some Don like the Italians, or share my money like some Bratva Pakhan. The Malina are the lone wolves of the mafia world. And that’s how I like it.”

I sigh.

Being a lone wolf is . . . lonely.

“They say things about you,” I tell him. “Things that upset me.”

“What things?” he growls.

My stomach clenches. I don’t want to tell him.

My father is a strange mix of brashness and oversensitivity. He’s as blunt as I am in telling other people how it is, but when it comes to himself, he’s quick to take offense, and he’ll hold a grudge till the end of time.

But I’ve never been able to hide what I feel.

“They say you’re duplicitous,” I tell him. “Even the other Ukrainians say it. The Odessa Mafia—”

He interrupts me, going into a rage as I knew he would.

“They’re JEALOUS!” he roars. “They want to cut me down any way that they can. They hate what I did on my own, without any of them! They’ll lie and slander and say whatever they can to try to hide their own weakness, their own failure . . .”

I grip the receiver, frustrated and confused.

I knew he’d react like this. He always does.

When my father is happy, there’s no one more charming, more engaging. But when he’s angry . . . the switch flips, and there’s no talking to him.

It’s why we fight so often.

Everything is black and white to him. You’re with him, or you’re against him.

And if you’re against him, you’re his enemy.

“You don’t believe any of it. Do you?” he demands. “You don’t believe their lies?”

“Of course not, Dad,” I say.

But I want to know. I want to know what happened with the Odessa Mafia.

“Do you know the Lomachenkos?” I ask him.

He’s quiet. I can still hear his heavy breathing from his rant. He’s put on weight the last few years—he’s not as fast as he once was, though I still wouldn’t get too close when he’s angry.

“Kyrylo Lomachenko was my cousin,” he replies at last.

“Was?”

“Someone cut his throat six years ago.”

“But it wasn’t you. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I won’t be questioned by you, girl,” my father snarls, his temper flaring up again like a fire hit by a blast from the bellows.

“Please, Dad,” I say desperately. “Just tell me what happened.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” he says. “I was sending him old Soviet guns in shipping crates. He was smuggling them in past the port authority. I was perfectly happy with our arrangement. Obviously, someone else was not.”

There’s no hint of a lie in my father’s voice. He sounds as honest and certain as ever.

I let out a sigh of relief. “Alright, Dad,” I say. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

“What are you letting them give you shit for, anyway?” my father demands, recovering his cheerful bluster. “I thought you were made of stronger stuff, Nix.”

Well . . . he’s right about that.

I’ve never been one to roll over in a fight.

“Don’t worry about me,” I tell him. “I know how to take care of myself.”

“That’s my girl,” he says.

I can almost see his grin, half-hidden by his red beard.

* * *

The second weekof school is better than the first. For one thing, the pace of our classes is only increasing, which means nobody has much time for hassling me.

Also, anytime anybody gives me a dirty look, I tell them to fuck off with enough vigor that it seems to dissuade the others.

Only Estas seems entrenched in his grudge against me. He mutters insults at me in the hallways and glowers at me everywhere I go.

I don’t care as much anymore—I believe my dad, not some random fucking idiot who thinks hoop earrings are a fashion statement. As long as Estas keeps his hands to himself, I’m just gonna ignore him.

At the same time, I pluck up the courage to join Sabrina for lunch again. While Bram Van Der Berg slouches at the far end of the table, seething and silent, only consenting to speak with Dean Yenin and Cat Romero, I still manage to have a reasonably pleasant conversation with Sabrina, Cara Wilk, Hedeon Gray, and Ares.

Well, it’s mostly Ares and me talking—Sabrina gets pulled into conversation with a couple of extremely friendly German boys at the next table over.

Cara is writing something in her notebook, her head bent over her pen and her dark hair pooled on the edge of the page. Her script is too cramped to read, but it looks like she’s working on a story.

Hedeon is glaring across the dining hall at a table containing several beefy Seniors, including one with the face and proportions of a silverback gorilla.

Hedeon has his hand pressed against his side. He’s slumped in the same direction, breathing shallowly.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask him. “You look like your ribs are broken.”

I’ve seen it before—several times in my father’s men, and I broke my own ribs once, the same day I ruined my dad’s favorite horse when the both of us took a tumble off a ridge ten miles from home. That was a fucking miserable hike back to the house, and not just because of the ribs—I knew my father would be furious that he’d have to shoot the horse.

“They might be,” Hedeon admits, wincing.

Cara glances up from her page, pen pressed against her lower lip. Her brows draw together in sympathy as she looks at the mottled purple and yellow bruises running down the side of Hedeon’s face.

“Why’s he always fighting with you?” Ares asks Hedeon, jerking his head in the direction of the silverback gorilla.

“He’s angry that I’m the Heir,” Hedeon says.

“That’s your brother?” I ask, finally understanding.

“In a manner of speaking,” Hedeon replies, as if it pains him to say it.

“That’s Silas Gray,” Ares explains to me. “The Grays adopted Silas and Hedeon at the same time. They’re almost the same age. So the Grays had to pick one son for Heir, and one to be his lieutenant.”

Cara absorbs this silently, pen still pressed to her lip and soft hazel eyes watching Hedeon’s face.

“How did they choose?” I ask.

For a minute, I don’t think Hedeon will answer. He’s obviously in pain, and never in the best of moods to begin with. I quickly learned that unlike the rest of the students, Hedeon’s foul mood and rude rebuffs have nothing to do with me—it’s how he behaves to everyone.

Still, he likes to associate with Sabrina’s group, probably because none of them pester him with annoying questions like the one I just asked.

To my surprise, he takes another shallow breath and says, through gritted teeth, “They pitted us against one another. From the time we were small. They forced us to compete, over and over and over again. All kinds of challenges. When we would lose, they’d punish us. I often lost. Silas was always bigger than me, and stronger.”

Ares looks startled by Hedeon’s answer. I’m guessing this is new information for him, too. Cara’s pale pink lips have opened in dismay, the pen dropping to the table.

“The competitions were brutal,” Hedeon says. “The punishments for losing even worse. They whipped us. Burned us. Cut us. Made us hold our hands in buckets of ice water until we cried. We were only four when it started. And it went on for . . .” He sighs. “Until we came to Kingmakers.”

The dark shadows under Hedeon’s blue eyes make them look large in his face, like he’s a small boy still, forced to compete against an opponent he knows he can’t beat, with the specter of torture always in front of him.

Now I see the scars crawling up the back of his neck, beneath the collar of his white dress shirt. I see the marks on his forearms where his sleeves are rolled up: round, shiny scars from cigarette burns. Long white cuts from the blade of a knife.

My mouth is too dry to speak.

When I look at Ares, his face is frozen in shock and horror, his tan all but bleached away.

“Kenneth Gray wanted Silas to be Heir,” Hedeon says, his eyes still fixed on his brother’s hulking form. “Silas was faster, stronger, more brutal. I was smarter, but it didn’t matter. The tests were never designed for intelligence. Margaret Gray . . . she favored me. Not in the way you would think, not with kindness. I think only to oppose her husband. She drove me on again and again and again, demanding that I win, ordering me to prove myself. Her punishments were worse than his. Because she was angry when I lost.”

I notice he calls his adoptive parents by their first names, never calling them “mother” or “father.”

Cara holds her hands pressed tight against her mouth. A tear leaks from the corner of her wide eyes, slipping down her cheek.

“You might think it would bring us together, having a mutual enemy,” Hedeon says, watching his hulking brother methodically bring food to his mouth. “Children are too young, too easily manipulated. We hated each other exactly as they wanted us to. We fought and clawed and tried to kill each other, just as they wanted. Because really, they only needed one son. The heir and the spare.”

Ares, Cara, and I are all transfixed by the horror of what we’re hearing. None of us seem able to speak.

I blurt out the only thing I can think to say:

“They picked you in the end?”

“No.” Hedeon shakes his head slowly, his dark blue eyes finally coming to land on my face. “I don’t think they did. The night our letters came from Kingmakers, Kenneth and Margaret were screaming at each other. You could hear it all over the house. And in the morning, they told me I was accepted to the Heirs division. But neither of them looked happy.”

I frown, confused.

“Hedeon,” Cara says, softly, laying her hand over the back of his hand.

Hedeon jumps as if he’s not used to being touched. But he doesn’t pull his hand away.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she says, looking up into his face. Dampness sparkles in her lashes like tiny gems.

“I’m sorry, too,” Ares says, in a choked voice.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hedeon replies, the dark veil of anger sweeping back over his features. He takes his hand back from Cara, sitting up straight despite the broken ribs. His jaw is fixed, his teeth bared. “The people responsible will get what they deserve.”

He’s glaring at Silas once more.

But I get the feeling he’s not talking about his brother, or the Grays.

I turn my head, catching sight of Cat Romero at the far end of the table.

Dean Yenin has his arm around her shoulders, and Bram is muttering something to them both. Cat is sitting still, her keen dark eyes fixed upon our group. Though she’s so far away, I can’t help thinking that she was listening to every word Hedeon said.

Ares follows my gaze, likewise locking eyes with Cat, then quickly looking away.

“They’re an interesting couple,” I say.

Dean is tall, ferocious, and barely any more polite than Hedeon, while Cat is diminutive, soft-spoken, and much more friendly.

“Don’t be fooled,” Ares tells me. “Cat is clever. She’s no little kitten.”

“I would never think that,” I say to Ares. “Women are always more than they seem.”

* * *