Erik: A Dark Mafia Romance (The Syndicate Book 3)

  Erik

  A Dark Mafia Romance

  Raven Scott

  Contents

  1. Natasha

  2. Natasha

  3. Natasha

  4. Erik

  5. Natasha

  6. Erik

  7. Natasha

  8. Erik

  9. Erik

  10. Natasha

  11. Natasha

  12. Erik

  13. Natasha

  14. Natasha

  15. Erik

  16. Natasha

  17. Erik

  18. Natasha

  19. Natasha

  20. Erik

  21. Natasha

  22. Natasha

  23. Erik

  24. Natasha

  25. Erik

  26. Natasha

  27. Natasha

  28. Erik

  29. Natasha

  30. Erik

  31. Erik

  32. Natasha

  33. Erik

  34. Natasha

  35. Erik

  36. Natasha

  37. Erik

  38. Erik

  39. Natasha

  40. Natasha

  41. Natasha

  42. Erik

  1

  Natasha

  Bopping my head to the music flowing from my headphones, I puffed out my lips absently before flopping my head back. Writing the entire code from start to finish was taking much more effort than I’d anticipated, and I glanced over at Fred as he scribbled away on a notepad.

  We were putting the final touches on the story, the drawings, everything was just waiting on me to finish the scripting.

  Which sucked to write.

  “Hey, Fred—” Pulling my headphones off to catch the tail end of his grunt of acknowledgment, I licked my lips heavily. “Wanna go bang?”

  “Don’t procrastinate, Natasha. Keep working.” Smirking broadly, even as sourness stained my tongue, I sat back in my chair, and Fred glanced up from his notepad to frown. “You just want not to work. I’m not falling for that, you sleaze.”

  “It was worth a shot.” He snorted at me, shaking his head curtly, and I turned to my laptop and sighed. “You’re not that hot anyway.”

  “Your shot was going to miss, and you know it. I’m not gonna be your bad habit, Natasha. How close are you to being done?” Groaning loudly, I swayed side to side in my chair, but Fred didn’t give me the time of day. “I’ll take that as not close at all. Why don’t you just focus on finishing, and maybe you’ll find someone to help with finishing later.”

  “There’s no fun in it if it’s not naughty.” He ignored me, and I pushed back my chair to stand and stretch my arms high above my head. “I’m gonna grab a snack. Want something?”

  “Sure.” Wandering out of the small conference room and down the hall to the lounge, I ran my hands up my face and through my hair. We were cutting it down to the wire now. Our deadline to start compiling was only a week away. February was right around the corner, and the crappy weather was making everyone cranky. Glancing out the window at the dirty, wet snow that piled up on either side of the road, I scrunched up my face in dismay. Every time it snowed, it got uglier outside, and I just wanted to see some green for the first time in months.

  Speaking of green . . .

  Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I scrolled through my notifications to tap Valerie’s text message. She and Carlyle were currently in Paris for ‘inspiration’ for her drawings, and I rolled my eyes at the pictures of the Catacombs she’d sent me.

  We were making a horror game, so I understood wanting to go to one of the most creepy places on the planet. The Paris Catacombs inspired movies and stuff, so it must have some entertainment potential. Thankfully, my sister didn’t have to be here to work and coordinate with Fred, but that meant I was stuck with him.

  “I wish I was in Paris, damnit.” Aside from my daily walks across the bridge, I hardly ever left our apartment just because I had nothing to do. Grumbling to myself as I popped open the refrigerator, I frowned as I peered inside. All the food was delivered, for security reasons, I guess, so I couldn’t even take a trip to the grocery store. I didn’t have a car, which seemed like a really bad move now that I was so far from the city.

  I was glad Valerie was so happy and in love, but I was borderline miserable with boredom. Fred, Marshal, and I had talked about moving out, but we also agreed not to make any plans until after our app launched.

  That wouldn’t be for a few months, at least.

  “Maybe, I’ll go do something on Saturday.” Grabbing a little container of grapes, I rocked back on my heels and frowned deeply as the door swung shut. I couldn’t even remember the last time I went out, let alone to a party. Actually, that might’ve been when Carlyle made that Lyft driver take us home that time.

  Shrugging lightly, I popped the top and stuck a grape in my mouth as my mind raced through everything that’d happened since then. Who knew that one chance meeting at a pizza place would change our lives so much? Sure, Valerie was head over heels for Carlyle, and I was pretty much collateral damage, but so many events had happened.

  It’d been months, and Carlyle was still paying out for those gang members. Even though he didn’t have to go that far, he did it anyway, for his own sake, of course. I wasn’t an idiot. Valerie didn’t even know about most of the more brutal things Carlyle had done on our behalf.

  Flexing my hands around the container, I inhaled deeply as I chewed. Valerie and I had never talked about what we did downstairs, but I was okay with that. I never told her about who was in the other room, or the fact that our mom was dissolved into absolutely nothing. The only part of her that existed now was in our memories, and those would fade, maybe.

  Hopefully.

  I’m certainly not going to ruin that for her. Valerie was happy, safe, and dare I say, living her best life. But what about me? My sister was pretty much my only reason for being alive, and it’d always been like that. Now, she was making her own way with someone else, and I was stuck here, alone and bored out of my skull. Shaking my head roughly, I popped another grape into my mouth and tried not to think about how dismal my life had become.

  Eventually, I’d find something that made me happy. That thought was what got me up in the morning, just like so many years ago— if I just persevered, it’d get better.

  “Natasha.” My head snapped up at the call, and surprise rose my brows when Marshal came sauntering across the lounge with a huge smile on his face. “Why are you grumbling to yourself? Did Fred chew you out about procrastinating again?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not why. Anyway, what’s up with you? How’d it go at court?” He leaned against the counter to rub his palms together, and I scanned him from top to bottom through narrowed eyes. “It went great, I guess?”

  “You guess right— Jenna got ripped to shreds. The judge ordered her to pay me alimony, I get one of the cars, I get my apartment back, and she has to pay me back all the utilities and rent that I paid while under the restraining order plus thirteen thousand dollars in emotional damages.” My brows rose in surprise at that— the lawyer Carlyle had contacted really did a great job. Smiling as Marshal beamed in triumph, I nodded mutely, and he clapped his palms together. “We’re still going to be married for another thirty days, but after that, I’ll never have to see her cheating, lying self again.”

  “Congratulations. How are you going to celebrate?” Marshal had initially been so upset about his wife’s drama, but over the past months, he’d really come to terms with it. She was a bitch, and he realized how much happier he was without her, how much she lorded over his life, and how misera
ble he was even at the height of their marriage.

  Even knowing what he knew, Jenna still fought him in court, and she lost badly.

  “I actually can’t do anything right now. We’ve got a week before we have to start compiling, and I’m behind because of this legal business.” Scrunching up my face in distaste, I bit back a groan at the reminder, and Marshal chuckled lightly. “We gotta do it, Natasha. We don’t really have any cushion room. Once the app launches, I just know it’ll be a hit. We can even branch out and do other genres. I know Fred is up for it, and it’ll be a lot easier for you, too, because you’ll have the infrastructure already made.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just crunch time, and I hate crunch time.” My complaining wasn’t anything Marshal hadn’t heard already, and I picked up another grape as he pushed off the counter. “Does Fred know you’re back?”

  “No. I just came in here for a drink before I head over. I’m meeting with Kyle in a couple hours to go over all our social media information.” Shuffling away as he strode the short distance to the fridge, I nodded as foreboding gnawed deep into my gut. “How much do you still have to go?”

  “A couple thousand lines. It’ll be fine.” Ignoring how daunting it really was, I waved a hand in dismissal, and Marshal shot me a dubious look.

  2

  Natasha

  My eyelids pried open, and I sucked in a sharp, deep breath as a shiver slid down my spine. Staring dazedly at the ceiling through the gloom, a cold sweat layered thickly on my skin, and my toes curled as I stretched my legs experimentally. Quiet. So quiet. I listened, but there was nothing to hear, and the stale air in my lungs escaped with a gust. The vestige of my nightmare clung to the edges of my vision as I rolled to turn on a lamp, and the dark bedroom flooded with a dim, gold light.

  “God, I thought I was over this.” Holding my forehead in my clammy palm, my murmur echoed in the still room, and I propped my elbow on my knee to sigh. My heart still thundered, blood drumming in my ears, and my abdomen and jaw ached from being clenched tight.

  All that therapy wasted on the one thing I wanted most.

  “What the fu-u-uck . . . ” Throwing the sheet off me, I stood up to scowl at the wet, vague outline of a person who stained the fitted, silky material. Rubbing my eyes roughly, I rolled my jaw and stretched, but it did nothing to ease the tension balled up in my lower back. Rather than deal with this, I just walked out in my sticky pajama shorts and a crop top, and my knees wobbled on the way to the kitchen.

  Maybe, it’s because Valerie wasn’t sleeping in the other room, so I didn’t have to worry about her hearing me anymore. Maybe, it was because she was doing so well, and it was a huge weight off me that kept everything else down.

  Passing the kitchen, I opened the front door and stepped into the hallway to stare at the neutral walls and feel the overrun carpet under my feet. My hair stuck to my neck and shoulders, but I couldn’t summon the energy to peel it back as I shuffled forward. At night, these halls were just as lifeless— only Carlyle and his personal staff lived here, and most of his workers commuted.

  Managing to walk halfway to the elevator, I realized that I had nowhere to go, and I leaned on the wall to slide down to my butt. Pulling my knees to my chin, I wrapped my arms around myself and closed my eyes to heave a massive sigh. My brain didn’t work to try to think up a distraction, but it didn’t conjure images I’d rather not focus on, either.

  Which was okay, I suppose.

  I mean, what could I think of any way? I had no friends, my sister was in love, and I hated my job . . . not that I’d ever tell Valerie. She was the one with the talent, so I had to find something to do that could support her. Everyone knew that those with talent rarely struck it big right out of the gate, and coding was good money.

  At least I was good enough at it not to get saddled with student loan debt. The whole point of convincing Valerie to go to a different college was so she didn’t find out how much I despised coding. Even though I didn’t struggle with it, there were so many other things I wanted to do, but I couldn’t because she was the artist, and she was more important.

  Even so, I didn’t know what any of those ‘other things’ were anymore.

  “Natasha?” Groaning at the interruption, I frowned up at Illya as she crouched in front of me, her pretty face a mask of concern. “You okay?”

  “I kinda wanna die, but . . . whatever.” If she thought I sounded impudent, Illya’s dark green eyes didn’t betray her, and she sat down next to me as I huffed. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it . . . whatever ‘it’ is. I was actually on my way out to the store. Sometimes, I can’t stand being cooped up in this place.” Humming softly, goosebumps washed my arms, and I tightened my grip on myself as bitterness coated my tongue. “Did you wanna come with? I like to drive really fast, though.”

  “What time is it?” She pulled out a cell phone from her shirt, and I winced when Illya read the time. Two-fourteen a.m. There was absolutely no point in trying to go back to sleep. I had to get to the conference room by seven, and . . . “Yeah, I’ll come with. Why not.”

  “You wanna get dressed, or . . . I mean, it’s like ten degrees out.” Shaking my head, I hauled myself up to stand and glanced down at myself. I looked like I’d just detoxed off something bad, but I honestly didn’t care at that moment. After all, the only stores open at two a.m. were friggen Walmart and CVS— hardly anything to get dressed up for. “Okay. Do you wanna at least put some shoes on?”

  “I guess I should.” But did I really wanna go all the way back down the hall, into my apartment, and grab my boots by the door? Standing up, Illya watched me patiently as I gazed down the way I’d come, and it was exhausting just thinking about it. “You know, Illya, we got drunk together a couple times, right? So, basically . . . I think I’m moving backward again.”

  “Okay.” That was some right logic there, and Illya nodded as I started to slowly drag my feet toward my apartment. “What happened?”

  “I know I’m not supposed to, but . . . like, Valerie’s happy, and I hate it. I hate my job. I hate this place. I hate working. I just wanna curl into a ball in a hole and wither away.” Guilt clawed at the back of my throat, and my eyes stung at the veracity of my own declarations. “God damnit, I hate that I hate this shit. I have nothing anymore, and finding something is so . . . so . . . so daunting.”

  “Weren’t you gonna open an Airbnb with those properties? So, it’s not like you have to work on that app or whatever it was.” Groaning in frustration, I ran my palms down my face and stumbled under the weight of it all.

  “I did. That’s not the problem. I told them I would, and now I don’t want to. It seemed like the only damn choice at the time— we were all jobless, and yada-yada, bullshit, whatever.” My voice lowered as I struggled to walk and talk at the same time, and my whisper filled the hallway. “I can’t just back out now. That’s not fair.”

  “Ah, yeah, that sucks. Valerie’s not supposed to be back for another week. I just talked to Theo about an hour ago. He was scowling . . . I could tell.” Illya’s voice shone with her smile and knowing Theo had no other facial expression, I sort of understood. With that scar on his face, it wasn’t surprising, and I glanced over at her warily. “We should go get something greasy.”

  My door was unlocked, and I pushed it open to stuff my feet in my boots without replying. If I ate something, I was pretty sure I’d throw up. Going out with Illya wasn’t going to stop the blackness eating away at the edges of my mind. Glancing past the corner of the short hallway, I frowned at the silhouettes of furniture and slight glimmer of shiny surfaces.

  None of this stuff was mine. I didn’t even have anything but my clothes. While it wasn’t necessarily Carlyle’s fault that Valerie got sent a fucking bomb . . .

  “I don’t know. I feel terrible for being so unhappy, and that makes me more unhappy, and . . . ” Shutting the door behind me, I scuffed my heel against the carpet as I
ran out of words to describe how I was feeling. Valerie was my whole life, and I didn’t know what to do with myself now that she didn’t need me as much. Honestly, it was pathetic, but there were only so many ways to describe this bitterness and guilt. “I thought it’d be great, but it’s not. Not for me, at least.”

  “Why don’t you move out?” A harsh bark of laughter burst from me, humorless and scratchy, and I frowned darkly. Illya was really understanding, maybe because she went through something of the same? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t going to ask. “It’s not so scary to move on once you start, you know.”

  “I don’t. It’s always been Val and me, Nat and Val, Val and Nat . . . for twenty-five years. How am I supposed to make that change? I mean, sure, I don’t want Valerie and I to be like this, but we are. At least, I am.” Sniffling a shallow breath as we walked toward the elevator, I crossed my arms under my bust to huff sharply. “And I am happy for her— I’m just not happy for me, and that’s the suckiest feeling. Like, what, am I supposed to be a third wheel forever? I’ve never been on a date. I had friends in college, but those didn’t last because I partied really hard. Besides, Valerie’s the talented one. Even if I was better than average at something, I wouldn’t know what it is.”

  Illya punched the button on the wall, and I leaned against the warm surface to close my eyes and flop my head back. She didn’t reply immediately, but I didn’t really care. I was just venting, and in the morning, I’d feel better.