Hunter - Blaire Drake Page 0,1

was the only choice I had.

Darien bundled me into the back seat with Mamma and carefully shut the door behind me. I shook, not out of fear, out of relief. I was glad she knew. I was glad she was my mother. I was glad for her unwavering protection.

She was taking me to safety.

Twelve hours before, when I was supposed to be doing schoolwork, I’d heard the argument.

Where Mamma went crazy because he—the man who dared to call himself my father—had sold my body. As if I were nothing but a ragdoll in a toy store, free to be used and tossed around. As if a spin in the washing machine would wash away the dirt from what he had planned for me.

As if I were… nothing.

He was stupid. He knew nothing. Mamma would never let that fly. She’d never let her daughter be used as a pawn in his desperate power game.

I closed my eyes tightly as Darien started the car and pulled away from the car. There were no lights, nothing to illuminate our way. I had no idea where we were headed. I didn’t know what lay ahead.

I just knew I had what I needed. Mamma.

And that she’d saved me from a fate possibly worth from death: rape. She’d saved me from a lifetime of horrifying flashbacks and struggles.

But… Hunter, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. Carlo ‘Hunter’ Rosso. My best friend as long as I’d been alive and the guy I was sure I would marry. The guy I loved without question or deliberation, although I was sure I didn’t exactly know what love was. What I did know of it, I adored him with.

He would be hurt. So hurt.

Memories flashed before my eyes. Theme parks. Gun ranges. Sleepovers. His arms around me as someone we loved died. Cotton candy in the lights of a local fair. Hugging him as his older brother was pronounced dead on sight. My uncle arrested. His mother disappearing. My mother protecting us. His father contesting her choices.

My mother holding a knife to his father’s throat, as though he could argue her choices. As though he could blame her, the queen, for something she had no hand in. For something someone else had orchestrated.

The kidnapping I’d survived because of Darien. Because Hunter was so obsessed with my safety his teenaged old self followed me to the ends of the earth and into the devil’s lair.

I took a deep breath, and although I was barely thirteen, I promised myself something as the chill from the leather seats spread through my shirt and across my back.

My name, Adriana, was dark.

My nickname, scuro, was dark.

My life, a mafia princess, was dark.

My father had no idea what he’d done.

One day, he would pay.

He would atone for his sins.

I would make sure of it.

Chapter One – Adriana

“I don’t care, Rossi, you’re not having the tuna.”

Rossi mewed at me, winding his black and white body around my ankles. I could hear his cat-speak, that relentless meowing that pleaded, “Please, Mommy.”

“Oh, fine.” I grabbed a fork, bent over, and pulled the tuna flakes out into his bowl. He made a happy sound and abandoned his ankle circling to devour the fishy snack.

There went my lunch.

I'd long determined that if I ever fell in love and had children, they'd be the world's most spoiled brats. If I couldn't say no to my loving, two year old cat, I stood no chance against tiny humans that would be ten times louder and more annoying.

As it was, Rossi was my baby, and damn. He knew it. I hated it.

It was my own fault. I knew better than to open tuna without checking the house to see if he was around. Or the yard, come to think of it. The damn animal had the nose of a rottweiler and could smell fish a mile away.

I'm not kidding when I say that three weeks ago, he jumped out of the window and headed into next door's house because he smelled fish.

It took me at least three minutes to walk there. Rossi was wasted as a pet—I should have given him to the LAPD. He would have out-sniffed their dogs any day.

My phone buzzed on the side with a message from Darien, and I picked up the shiny new Samsung I could barely work.

Darien: working late. The publicist messed up the schedule.

I rolled my eyes as I texted back a quick, 'k,' mostly because I knew it would annoy him, and