Merciless

Chapter Two

Aria

There are a few things you should know about me.

I like to wake up with a hot cup of coffee every morning. Preferably with enough creamer and sugar to drown out the taste of the bitter caffeine addiction.

I love red wine at night. I can't have white; it gives me a headache and a hangover that will leave me miserable when I wake up.

Well, those aren't things that really matter. They're the superficial details you give people when you don't want to tell them the truth.

What do you really need to know?

My name is Aria Talvery and I'm the daughter of the most violent crime family in Fallbrook.

The reason I like to have wine at night is because I desperately need it so I can get a few hours of sleep.

My mother was murdered in front of me when I was only eight years old and I've never been okay since then, although I've learned to be good at pretending I am.

My father's a crook, but he kept me safe and tolerated me even though every day he reminded me how much it hurt him to look at my face and see nothing but my mother.

It's because of my eyes. I know it is.

They're a hazel-green concoction, just like hers were. Like the soft mix of colors you'd see in a deep neck of the woods when looking up at the canopy of leaves in late summer, early fall. That's how my mother used to describe it. She was poetic that way. And maybe some of that rubbed off on me.

Fact number... whatever we're on: I love to draw. I hate the life I live and hide away in the sketches and smeared ink. Away from the madness and danger my existence inherently brings.

And that love of art, the one thing I have that still connects me to my mother, is why I ended up at this bar, tracking down the asshole who stole my sketchbook from me. The prick who thinks he's funny and that I'm some stupid joke or a toy he can play with because I'm a woman living in a man's world, a dangerous one at that.

But I inherited my temper from my father. And that's why I ended up at the Iron Heart Brewery on Church Street. Yes, a bar on a street called "church." What's more ironic is how much sin has seeped into these walls.

And so I went willingly, after my precious notebook that was stolen and walked right into the enemy's arms.

It was a setup, but my mother would have called it kismet. You should know I'm smiling now, but it's a sarcastic smile as a huff of feigned laughter leaves me. Maybe all of this is her fault to begin with. After all, that notebook was irreplaceable to me because the only picture I had of her was tucked into the spine.

The last thing you should know, and the most important of them all, is that I refuse to break. I don't give in and I don't back down. Not for anyone, and especially not for Carter Cross. The bastard who took me from my family. Locked me in a room and told me in simple words that my life was over, and I belonged to him.

It won't be his cutting words from his sharp tongue. Or his broad shoulders and muscular arms that pin me down and trap me. It won't be his charming smile that utters filthy words that makes me cave. And it won't be that spark in his eyes, the flames licking and flickering brighter and hotter every time he looks at me.

No, I refuse to give in. Even if that same heat echoes in my chest and travels lower.

But there's this thing about breaking; the more you harden yourself and try to fight it, the easier and sharper the snap is when you inevitably break.