Bargains and Betrayals Read Free

month is not so long.”
    “Not to you,” he said, cocking his head to examine her heart-shaped face. “Not now.”
    Did she seem different to him since she’d taken the cure? Was she somehow less now she had more years to her life span? To me, she was still and always Ekaterina— Cat —beautiful and troublesome as ever. A danger to young men’s hearts … and anyone willing to try her cooking. Was there something about her my simple human senses overlooked? Something in her complexion, her carriage, her gait, her scent?
    I drew back, slinking around the banister to head to the rear of the Queen Anne house we still called home, and the solitude of the back porch.
    Each child in a family had a role to play; the eldest was often the leader—the alpha. For a while the role was mine. When it was necessary I shouldered the heaviest responsibility, took the greatest risks. I learned the ins and outs of the dark side of commerce. I sold my soul as much as anything on the black market to make ends meet once our parents were gone and our safety was at risk.
    Everything I did, I did for them . My brothers. My sister. My family .
    But the night of the twins’ seventeenth birthday—the night the Mafia came for them—they learned the truth behind all my years of deception: Although I was their brother in name, I was never their brother in blood. Therefore my usefulness was limited and officially at an end except as their legal guardian. That usefulness might yet conclude when Maximilian turned eighteen.
    I froze at the back door, my hand upon the knob; the lace of the small window’s curtain teased across my fingers like an ant traipsing over the mountains my knuckles formed.
    Seated on the porch, Max hung his right leg over the edge, his left tucked beneath him, so he sat near enough to shadow Amy. Her feet swung back and forth, beating an angry rhythm into the cool air, her fingers curled around the edge of the decking. Beneath the thin gloves she wore I imagined her knuckles were white in frustration.
    In the yard beyond them, leaves flew and splintered in the snapping wind of approaching winter. No snow had fallen yet, but the clouds threatened daily. The earth was brown and crisp, the bright colors of autumn’s leaves dulled.
    Max spoke. Amy heard, her head nodding at appropriate intervals. Max believed she was listening, but I knew better.
    From her closed body language I realized he was back to the same words that had so recently made her storm away and slam the basement door in his face.
    It was the discussion survivors of abuse dreaded. A discussion Max tried to have with the very best of intentions, but … how could he understand? He was the hero. She was the victim. There could be no even footing between them until she found her place in the story of her own life. Stood on her own.
    Max was new; she and her abuser, Marvin Broderick, shared a past. Max had chosen to give her an option beyond her abusive boyfriend: him . She had taken it, but still she and Marvin had a connection: They shared a town, a school, and acquaintances. Her life was a daily mix of stressful decisions.
    Max had difficulty understanding that. He made his choice. He did not realize she had to continue making choices moment by moment and day by day.
    I considered leaving my spot inside the back door, knowing well the ground being retread.
    A breeze snatched at Amy’s auburn hair, lifting it up and away from her face in snapping angles. Her eyes closed and she turned to face Max, her mouth opening to bite off a reply just as her hair struck out and blinded him.
    He choked, flailed.
    And made a greater ass of himself.
    From the door I nearly made my presence known by snickering at him—my idiotic little brother.
    Amy laughed, seeing him so off balance. She gave him a little shove, her hands flying up and shaking between them as if to say, If you weren’t sitting on top of me, you gigantic oaf  …
    Or perhaps that was merely my