The Contract: A Mafia Vows Prequel Read online

  Copyright Skye Jones writing as SR Jones – 2019

  This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to people real or imagined is entirely coincidental.

  This work contains adult themes and is only suitable for people aged eighteen and over.

  The series does contain dark themes, and therefore, trigger warnings apply.

  Thanks to my editor, Ansley Blackstock

  Proofreader, beta, and all round star, Silla Webb

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  I know where you live, you and your slut daughter, and I’ll carve you both new faces when I get my hands on you. The best thing for you to do is leave. Leave Athens, go and live somewhere safe and quiet. You’re nothing but cheap whores. Go to one of the Islands and never come back.

  Mother’s hands are shaking as she reads the note she found stuck to our front door. It has a photograph of her pasted to it, and it’s clearly a picture taken of her recently. This is getting much worse. We’ve had a few of these, but this one ups the ante.

  How did someone get it there? We are related to the infamous Stamatis Kantos; we are part of his mafia clan. We have security cameras and men who protect us, and yet this still got here. Who would threaten a Kantos this way?

  I feel sick. My hands are trembling too. This is the third note this week. They’re getting more regular, and whilst no one has actually done anything to us, the threats are getting nastier each time.

  “Shit, I’m going to have to go and speak with Stamatis. We don’t want any sort of scandal to derail the wedding,” my father says. “Your uncle can help out by loaning us some of his men, maybe Alesso and Damen. They’re highly trained, and it seems mine are so obviously lacking.” He gives a filthy look to the guy meant to be guarding Mother and me.

  No wonder he’s not highly trained, he’s basically just a kid who works for my father now and again.

  “All that matters is that we keep this quiet so your wedding isn’t put in any jeopardy. Keep your mouth shut,” he warns me.

  I put my hands on my hips and give him what I hope is a deadly glare.

  Oh, no. God forbid anything gets in the way of the wedding. Never mind that Mother and I might be carved into tiny pieces, it’s only the wedding he thinks about.

  My wedding.

  To a rival mob family, the even-more-infamous-than-us Pappas family. A ruse dreamed up by Daddy Dearest as a way to cement peace between our families. For my father it is also a way to cement his position within my uncle’s family, and ultimately, the crazy plan was accepted by Uncle Stamatis because he has two sons, so he can hardly marry them off. I suppose Uncle will probably loan us some men to ensure everything goes to plan and the wedding happens. More’s the pity.

  Still, my uncle’s men are scary and bad ass, so it might be exciting having some of them around for a while. Three of them in particular strike fear into anyone who might consider messing with my uncle or his allies.

  Damen, Alesso, and Markos.

  I shiver a little at the thought of Damen being here in our home. He’s a very scary man, and I know because I once saw him in action. I suppress the thought because I don’t need more stress right now.

  Alesso, though, he’s kind of dreamy. If I’m honest, I’ve nurtured a crush on him for a few years.

  My father drags my attention back to the moment with his dramatic sigh as he takes the note down from the door and tears it into tiny pieces, his jaw set. “No one gets away with threatening my family this way,” he roars. “You have to stop your work at the homeless shelter,” he orders me.

  My heart sinks. I love the volunteer work I do there. It makes me feel like I have something to offer, and I’m genuinely fond of a lot of the people.

  “Oh, Daddy, really?” I put on my best little girl voice. Not that it ever sways him, nothing I say does.

  “Really. You’re about to be guarded twenty-four-seven, and for now you’re restricted to the house, or the safer areas of the city … and even then, only under guard.”

  It doesn’t make me feel any safer. Having to be followed everywhere by armed guards makes me insecure as hell.

  Someone is out to get me and Mother, and it sends another shiver down my spine as I glance around the grounds to our house.

  They could be lurking out there right this minute. I don’t know what we did to get on someone’s radar, but we are. The author of the note isn’t playing around, they seem to mean business.

  Being in a mafia family just got horribly real.

  They say family is everything, and that blood is thicker than water, but is it really? My family sees me as an asset, a thing, to be bid on and bound up in contracts. With them I am trapped, some might say enslaved, but without them, who would I be?

  If I found myself free to lead my own life, on my terms, what would that even look like?

  I don’t know, and the thought terrifies me.

  Due to this anxiety about the future, torn between two versions of myself—one where I accept my arranged marriage and be a good girl, or the one where I finally rebel, and refuse—I chicken out and avoid all thoughts of the future by ruthlessly pushing them to one side. Instead, I live in the here and now. I take my pleasures as I find them and try to tell myself the future will be fine. Trouble is, it’s approaching fast, and I’m tied down on the tracks and out of options.

  Still, when life gives me lemons, I like to add a little sugar by spending the family money on extortionate high-end items I don’t really need. It’s a little fuck you to my father. Not much of one, granted, but it’s all the power I have.

  “Maya, are you getting those?”

  My bestie, Stella, is watching me, her dark eyes amused as I zone out. I’m looking beyond the sandals dangling from my hand to the man outside the glitzy storefront. He’s tall, dark, and oh-so-handsome.

  We are guarded by my uncle’s three best men: the weird Markos, terrifying Damen, and gorgeous Alesso—my crush and my new hobby.

  I’ve been doing something so out there that I scare myself. Alesso and his pretty face have driven me to become a very naughty girl.

  I look back to the shoes as Alesso watches the door to the shop like a hawk. They’re Dolce and Gabbana, and they have a rose on the heel. Seriously, a rose carved into the heel. They’re gorgeous, sexy, and expensive. Just how I like them.

  “I’m getting them,” I say.

  Stella points to the sunny day outside, where Alesso is shifting his weight from one foot to the other. I like to think he’s shifting about in discomfort because of a raging hard-on that, the latest installment in my new hobby gave him, but of course, that’s mere conjecture on my part. I don’t know because he’s inscrutable. Friendly, but casually so. Polite. Professional. Despite what I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks, he hasn’t said a thing. I want to break all that buttoned up perfection apart and make him anything but professional.

  “He’s so hot.” She licks her lips.

  Oh, yes, he is. So very pretty and hot. I turn to her, grin, and spill my secret.

  “You know we now have these new bodyguards because of the threats?” She nods. “Also, because of the threats, Daddy is now so paranoid that there are cameras all over the house, except for inside the bedrooms. And those cameras link to a guardroom—Daddy’s old study.”

  Stella raises her perfect dark brows but doesn’t say anything other than an elongated yeeees.

  I go on. “During the day, one of the three amigos my uncle loaned us watches the monitors in the guardroom. At night, one of them sits in the hallw
ay outside the bedrooms. Always the same pattern. Nighttime hallway, daytime one of them is in the study, which is now a guardroom, watching the cameras. The cameras that cover all the communal rooms in the house.”

  “Right.”

  I can see she has no clue where I am going with this. I smirk. “So . when it’s pretty-boy’s turn to watch the house in the day, I know he’s going to be in the guardroom, right? Watching the monitors. All my father’s men are now demoted to guarding the outside of the house. None of them step foot inside, except for the utility room and the downstairs loo, so they can grab a drink and use the facilities. The guardroom, it’s strictly for Alesso, Damen, and Markos, and normally there’s only whichever one of them is on shift in there. And I have a copy of their rota.”

  “Yeah?” Stella flicks her gaze to Alesso then back to me. “So?”

  “So sometimes when Alesso is on duty, if my parents are out, and I am sure they won’t be back for a while, I give him a show.”

  Her eyes widen. Bingo, got her interest. “What do you mean? Give him a show?”

  I see the sales girl trying to listen in and tun away from her. I lower my voice and switch from Greek to English, which both Stella and I speak perfectly thanks to our expensive educations. “Take yesterday for example. I went for ten minutes in the sauna. I laid out on one of the benches, and I finger fucked myself under my pretty little swimsuit.”

  Stella startles and begins to cough. She coughs so much she goes red. When she’s finally stopped and sucked in a few breaths, she turns to me and punches my arm. “Fuck, bitch. If you’re going to make me choke on my own spit, warn me next time. God. You’re the dirtiest.”

  Yes, I am. Dirty as hell, and I love it. I’m also a virgin.

  I’m only a virgin because Daddy Dearest demands it for this stupid upcoming wedding, and I’m dirty because I hate being kept pristine, only to be given away in marriage to a guy who has fucked half the women under the age of thirty in Athens.

  I don’t want to get into a ton of trouble at home, so, ostensibly, I do as Daddy says. My father has a temper.

  Daddy does all the financial stuff for Uncle Stamatis, but he never really made himself invaluable in a way that would keep our family safe. Not until he had me at least. Then I became the golden goose for he and Mother.

  My birth meant that the Kantos and Pappas families could consolidate their power in the old-fashioned form of an arranged marriage. From the day of my birth, my father had mapped out my future, and my uncle went right along with it.

  So, I rebel whenever I can in my little passive-aggressive ways. It seems these days, as that train approaching me gets nearer and nearer, I’ve upped the ante with my rebellions.

  I’m playing a very dangerous game with my bodyguard, and it somehow only makes it more exciting. Maybe I crave danger more than I ever truly understood.

  If Alesso decides to go and tell my uncle, or worse, my betrothed, that I give him pornographic shows on a regular basis, the wedding will be off, and my future will be fucked up beyond all recognition. And maybe I’m strong enough to handle it. Maybe not.

  The thought of Alesso alone in the small guardroom, watching me and getting so turned on he has to take himself out and fuck his own fist for relief is sublime. Too addicting for me to stop, despite the danger.

  Maybe Stella is right. Maybe I am the dirtiest virgin in the whole world. I’m definitely the most fucked up.

  I head to the till, sandals in hand, annoyed we haven’t been served by now. The girl at the cash desk waves over another young woman. I ask for the shoes in my size, and she scurries off into the back to fetch them. After having a quick try on to make sure they fit, I buy them and leave the store.

  Stella trails me, and we head to our favorite coffee shop here in Kolonaki, Da Kapo. As we walk heads turn our way. It’s not surprising—we’re young, hot, and rich. I get more attention than Stella, not because I’m better looking, but because my looks are more unusual here.

  I have naturally reddish hair and green eyes. Most of my friends have dark hair and olive skin, so I stand out. If any of the people glancing our way and letting their gazes rest on me gave Stella the same amount of attention, they’d see she has cheekbones to cut glass and huge almond shaped eyes. I’m okay, but I know I’m no classical beauty.

  Stella is tall and willowy, whereas I’m tall and curvy. Mom hates my figure, she’s always telling me to diet, but she doesn’t know that these days thick-thin, or thin-thick, I don’t know which way around it goes, is all the rage.

  I’m like a Greek Kardashian, all hips and bum, and with boobs too. All natural. I flick my hair slightly as a particularly handsome young man gives me a leer as he walks on by. I hope Alesso is seeing all the attention we’re getting as he trails us two steps behind. I’m sure he does, being on alert all the time as he is. Does it make him jealous? Do my shows make his dick ache? Again, I hope so.

  Sometimes, I wonder if I should widen my repertoire, and maybe give one of the other two a show, but Marko is weird, and Damen is terrifying, so I never do.

  Alesso, Damen, and Markos.

  Men who aren’t part of the family, but whose names instill fear amongst anyone who knows about our world. Marko has a habit of taking out his worry beads and swinging and clicking them like some old Greek man playing Backgammon and drinking ouzo. He also rarely speaks, and his silent gaze can sear your very soul. It puts me off him totally. Damen is blunt, to the point of rudeness. He’s also hard faced, moody, and scary as fuck. Deeply so. In the end, all my raging hormones become focused on the man trailing us.

  I glance back at my dreamy bodyguard and have to face front before he sees my stupid smile. He’s so gorgeous. Blue eyes, dark hair, tan skin and dimples, with the body of a highly-trained athlete. Jesus, he could be a movie star.

  We arrive at Da Capo and take a seat right on the front near the square, so we can see and be seen. We sit at our chosen table, and as usual, Alesso sits at the one next to us. He’d take the one behind, I’m sure, if it wasn’t full. All the better to watch us from.

  I order an iced coffee, medium sweet. Stella does too. Alesso orders an espresso and a glass of water. He always takes his coffee strong and black, same as Damen. Never seen them go within fifty feet of a cappuccino. I once ordered a mocha to-go from somewhere, with extra whipped cream, and that day I had Damen with me. I clocked him rolling his eyes when he thought I wasn’t looking, as if there’s something wrong with liking a mocha frap with extra whip. Jesus.

  Something about Damen annoys me and gets under my skin. He has an arrogance that, frankly, a hired gun shouldn’t possess. I’m so much higher on the totem pole than him it’s not even funny, but despite working for me, in a roundabout way, he never gives me the respect I think I deserve. If he didn’t terrify me, I’d say something to bring him down a peg or two.

  Alesso’s phone goes, and he answers it. “Just in Kolonaki,” he says. “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  Sir. He must be talking to my uncle. My uncle who only lent these men to us to keep me safe and intact for my upcoming marriage. I wonder if he even cares about me at all? The real me, beyond the girl he and my father arranged a whole future for without any consultation on my part.

  I let my mind wander to think about my fiancé. He’s not particularly good looking—light brown hair, sallow skin, muddy brown eyes with rings under them, but he’s extremely wealthy, and even more powerful. Some say he’s going to get into politics one of these days and might be the next Prime Minister. He’s a fucking mob boss, so that sort of talk seems strange to me, but then again, with the state of Greek politics nothing would surprise me.

  Alesso finishes his call and hangs up.

  “Oh, no. Here comes the other one, the moody but maybe even hotter one,” Stella whispers in my ear, and I turn in surprise to see Damen heading Alesso’s way.

  A shiver creeps down my spine at the hard set of his jaw and even harder expression in his dark eyes.

  Why is he
here? Has something happened?

  I relax when Damen approaches Alesso with an easy smile, a rare expression for him, and one he should use more. Clearly there’s nothing majorly wrong.

  “Yasu malaka.” Alesso says hello wanker to his friend, who returns the greeting.

  I roll my eyes. Men, they never grow up.

  “What are you doing here?” Alesso asks as Damen takes the seat opposite.

  He’s even bigger these days than when I first saw him working for my uncle as a teenage girl, and I’d thought him huge then. He’s massive now. Today he’s wearing a suit, which is a new look; he’s normally in jeans. The suit looks good on him, I have to admit. Dark trousers, white shirt, no tie, the very top button undone showing his tan throat, and a dark fitted jacket. Nice.

  “Been to see the lawyer about the estate planning,” he says.

  “I’m sorry,” Alesso replies. “Fucking sucks.”

  “Yeah, but she was old and sick. I’ll miss her, but it was her time.”

  Shit, Damen must have lost someone.

  I think he’s from Corfu originally, same as Alesso, and maybe he’s been left a house or a bit of land there if he’s sorting out an estate. It might mean he needs to go home for a while, and I won’t have to put up with his scary big self looming around the place.

  The odd days when I’ve had him trail me when I’ve gone out have been strange because part of me found his presence oddly soothing. He’s always quiet, takes me where I want to go, and blends into the background as much as someone of his stature can, but I’m always super aware of him. I think there’s a sense of disapproval and derision emanating from him, but it makes no sense. I mean nothing to him. Why would he waste energy disapproving of me? Plus, I’ve never done anything to make him feel that way.

  Oh, God. Unless Alesso told him? Does he know about what I do? The naughty shows?

  The thought scares me and weirdly titillates me in equal measure. If he does, then my game is even more dangerous … and exciting. Damen is not a man you mess with in any way whatsoever. He’d kill a person without blinking, and I know it for a fact.