Hunter - Blaire Drake Page 0,2

that had been my guilty pleasure for the last ten years, no matter how much I owed the man.

The day after we arrived in California, escaping our old life in New York to protect me, Darien threw himself into work. As the bloodline for the Romano mafia family, Mamma had enough money hidden in secret, which enabled us to buy this house and live secretly. Darien quickly became one of the most sought-after security guards in Los Angeles, his appearance hidden by shaving his hair short and never leaving the house without sunglasses. Even Mamma insisted that she and I had to change. She dyed her hair, she cut mine, and she kept cutting it until I was sixteen and decided I didn't want to hide anymore.

She wasn't stupid, and neither was I. We both knew my father would find us. It was just a matter of when.

And whether or not anyone within the Los Angeles family would rat us out. Apparently the money my mother supplied them with on a monthly basis was enough to publicly ignore our entire existence.

I was amazed we'd lived ten years. Well... I had.

I shook off the thoughts of my mother as Rossi meowed loudly. Apparently, I'd been ignoring him while stuck in my own head. Nothing new there. I looked down at my feet, but he wasn't there, which only meant one thing. It wasn't me he was meowing at... Rather a bird or perhaps next door's tuna again.

I reached forward and opened the kitchen window. Rossi jumped out, his paws hitting the grass silently, and he bounded up onto the wall. I swore he was Tigger in a past life. The feline had back feet made of springs.

With a sigh, I picked up the bowl he'd licked clean of tuna and put it in the dishwasher. The older I got, the more I found my thoughts traveling back to the life I had before this. I'd made myself a promise the day we left New York, and I had every intention of keeping it... until I realized exactly what that promise would entail.

Sneaking away from California and across the country. Into New York. Find the Hamptons house my father was happily living in... the one that belonged to me... And kill him.

That was the short version. I imagined the long version to be a lot bloodier than that one.

So it never happened. I'd stayed here in California, afraid that telling Darien would make him put me on lockdown, and that's the last thing I wanted. My life was sheltered enough as it was, limited to attending UCLA for an advanced degree and grocery shopping.

Oh, not to forget the monthly meetings with the highest members of the Los Angeles family. How else was my existence supposed to remain secret? With my mother's death, the job of protecting me fell to... me. The meetings every few weeks consisted of my buying their silence for another month and them updating me on whether or not my father knows about me.

Just because they protected me doesn't mean that other families did.

All it would take would be for one person to look hard enough. I was hardly hiding. I didn't care enough about hiding. The only reason I didn't have a neon sign proclaiming my existence on the roof of our Calabasas house was because I promised Mamma I would do what I could to stay safe until the time for revenge came.

That's why the only friend I had other than Darien—and Rossi, of course—was Gaige Pontarelli, the second son of the head of the Los Angeles family. His brother, Angelo, was his father's shadow, which left Gaige to amuse me, as it was put.

Like the fact the money I handed his father every month didn't keep his place at the head of the family secure. I could collapse his family in a heartbeat if I was willing to take the risk of being found by my own family.

That day was coming closer.

My phone buzzed on the counter and I picked it up. Gaige's name flashed on the screen with a new message, and I clicked 'open.'

Gaige: Ciao, bella. Let me the fuck in.

I laughed loudly as I put the phone down and headed for the front door. Our community was gated, but he was on the entry gate, so I rarely knew he was coming unless he... Well, unless I called him first. Usually this was how he showed up: randomly.

I peered through the spyhole in