Kingmakers, Graduation

1. Sabrina Gallo

1

SAbrINA GALLO

I lean against the ship’s railing, letting the cold salt spray hit me in the face.

On the broiling deck, this is the only way to cool off. My hair will go insane, but I don’t mind.

I’m deliberately ignoring Ilsa Markov playing street craps against the base of the mast with a cluster of Enforcers. Likewise, she’s pretending not to notice how each bob of the ship tosses my skirt a little further up my thighs.

We broke up last night.

She said it was because she’s graduating. She’ll be joining her sister Neve in Moscow, while I’m stuck at school three more years.

We both know that’s not the real reason.

The last time we fought, she said, “I don’t think you’re cut out for a relationship. ”

That stung. Technically, we were never “in a relationship,” but we’d been hooking up on and off all year long, and besides that, I actually liked her.

Ilsa’s one of the only female Enforcers, and the only student who can knock me on my ass in sparring. She gave me a black eye that covered half my face; I looked like the Phantom of the Opera. I like to count that as our first date.

Right now, she’s fleecing Archie Chan for every dollar he’s got left in his pockets. She’s rolling so well that Archie mutters something about loaded dice. Ilsa shoots him a stare that shuts his mouth fast.

Ilsa would sooner cut off her own pinky than cheat. I call her “Diana” not just because she looks like Wonder Woman, but because her code of honor is as hard-plated and immovable as Amazonian armor.

I don’t know if she likes the nickname. Ilsa doesn’t always love my jokes — probably another reason we split up.

I don’t have control over what comes out of my mouth.

The worse the situation, the funnier I find it.

My dad says I get that from my aunt Aida.

Nobody’s strangled Aida yet, though not for lack of trying.

I’m not sure I’ll be that lucky.

I’m not blessed with my aunt’s sunny disposition. In fact, at the moment I’m in a foul fucking mood.

Half my cousins are graduating along with Ilsa, or already have. Miles is gone, Leo and Anna are leaving.

I hate being younger .

I was excited to come to Kingmakers, but it’s impossible to catch up to the cousins who are already moving on again, starting their lives in the real world. I’m hot with jealousy.

The strict rules of the island grate on me, not to mention the humiliating “homework” and the relentless exams. The best part of the year was when we stole the Chancellor’s boat for an unauthorized field trip to Kazakhstan.

I hitch half a smile, remembering the one night I wholeheartedly enjoyed.

The night I met Adrik Petrov.

I already knew him by reputation. Adrik is legend at Kingmakers. He was forming his Wolfpack before he ever graduated, a clique of students so ruthless that even the professors were afraid of them.

He had my back on that little adventure. Don’t think that means I owe him one—I helped break his uncle out of a prison fortress, so we’re more than square.

Adrik ordered me to meet him on the dock in Dubrovnik on the last day of school.

I can’t decide whether it would be more fun to take a spin with Russia’s bad boy, or to disappoint him.

Unfortunately, the ship only goes one place, so I don’t have much choice unless I fancy jumping the rail and swimming the last mile to shore.

He might not even be waiting.

Men don’t keep their promises when they live in the same house as you. I’m not arrogant enough to think he’s been mooning over me the la st four months, while I’ve been trapped on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.

He might not even remember gripping my wrist so hard it left a bruise in the shape of his thumb.

I will see you again. I was simply offering you the courtesy of choosing the time and place …

Like I was one of his Wolfpack.

Like I had to obey.

He doesn’t know me very well.

I don’t even like men.

Is Adrik a man? Or an animal?

I grin, wondering how to test him.

I’ve got at least another hour before I see if he showed up.

The journey back to shore seems interminable.

Wilting in the heat, the students strip off their uniforms, leaving button-up shirts and knee-socks scattered all over the deck.

My own uniform is much the worse for wear. It takes a beating when our classes take place anywhere but the classroom: Marksmanship, Combat, Surveillance, Torture Techniques, Stealth and Infiltration …

The hem of my plaid skirt is distinctly bedraggled, stained with something dark—grease, or old blood. My socks have long since lost their elastic, puddled around my ankles.

I’d like to burn the lot, and maybe I should when I get home. God knows this set of uniforms won’t last another three years .

“What are you scowling about?” Cara leans against the rail with a notebook tucked under her arm.

It’s not schoolwork—Cara’s always scribbling. She wants to be a writer. I suspect she only came to Kingmakers so she could get material for her novel. She’s not criminally-minded, which won’t matter. Her sister Anna is heir.

Cara’s as dark as Anna is fair. With her large, sad eyes, and pale, pointed face, she looks like a Victorian ghost child. That suits—the gothic mansion in which she grew up is almost certainly haunted.

“I’m sick of these clothes,” I tell her.

Cara’s uniform is still perfectly pressed. She’s the only person on the deck not sweating profusely. The Irish students resemble lobsters fresh out of the pot.

“Aren’t you hot?” I demand.

“Mind over matter.” Serenely, she turns her face into the breeze.

Even the Chancellor looks uncomfortable in his dark suit and thick black beard.

He’s probably peeved that he has to take the ship back to shore with the rest of us plebs. Word got out about his private cruiser. All his secrets are leaking out. Nothing stays hidden in the mafia world, unless everyone who knows is dead.

Big bad Hugo got a slap on the wrist. Now he has to pretend to be on his best behavior. If the Hugos weren’t richer than god, he’d have been sacked from the school, with a knife in the spine as a retirement gift.

I know better than to think he’s actually changed. He stands in the shade of the mainmast, his beetle-black eyes crawling over me .

I return the stare.

Men have looked at me like this since I was eleven years old. It doesn’t faze me. Their lust is their weakness, and my strength.

“I loathe him,” Cara murmurs.

Harsh words, from my gentlest cousin. I can’t resist teasing her.

“I dunno. He’s pretty hot for an old man.”

This is true. Age hasn’t reduced Hugo’s height or dulled the devilish cast of his sharp features.

“Sabrina!” Cara turns on me, disgusted. “That’s Hedeon’s father!”

“So? He’s not my father.”

“He fucked a student!”

“I wish he would.”

Cara shakes her head, refusing to smile.

Switching tactics, I nod toward Hedeon Gray, pitching my voice low and insinuating. “If you’re so worried about poor illegitimate Hedeon, how come you’re not sitting with him?”

Hedeon is already surrounded by Anna, Leo, and our cousin Caleb. The only place to sit would be directly on his lap.

Cara catches my drift. Her cheeks glow pink as a china lamp.

“Don’t call him ‘illegitimate.’ ”

“Sorry.” I dip my head in apology. “I meant ‘bastard.’ ”

Now she’s genuinely angry, knuckles whitening on the spine of her notebook .

Ever the wordsmith, Cara fashions her retort like a dart and hurls it straight at my heart.

“Don’t take it out on me just because Ilsa dumped you.”

Sometimes you want to get punched in the face.

Sometimes you’ll goad anybody to do it.

I laugh at my own success.

“You’re a feisty little bitch today, aren’t you? You must really like Hedeon …”

“Oh, fuck off.” Cara walks away.

She’s had enough of me. Just like Ilsa.

Everybody thinks they want Sabrina. The dose is the poison.

Cara drops down next to Anna, her cheeks still stained with pink. Anna shoots me a sharp look from under the encircling comfort of Leo’s arm.

I wink at her.

Heavily tattooed, ice-blonde, and moody, Anna is just my type. Leo’s lucky I am younger. If I were their same age, I wouldn’t have lost out on Anna like a little bitch.

Don’t worry, we’re only cousins by marriage. This isn’t Game of Thrones .

Then again, who knows what might tempt me? The more I’m not supposed to have something, the more I want it.

My mood slightly elevated by depressing Cara’s, I gaze out across the dark blue water. At last, I spot the wheeling gulls and white sails that h erald Dubrovnik. In another ten minutes, the distinctive rust-colored roofs of Old Town rise into view.

The crowded dock gives no hint if Adrik Petrov is waiting.

I tell myself I don’t care either way.

Still, my heart beats a little faster, the sharp scents of diesel and salt seeming to promise that something exciting will happen today.

I snatch up my backpack, slinging it over my shoulder. I’ve got a change of clothes in there, just in case.

As we queue up to descend the gangplank, Ilsa approaches me, tossing back her mane of black hair, saying in her forthright way, “No hard feelings. Look me up if you’re ever in Moscow.”

She holds out her hand to me, nails blunt and unpolished—something I always appreciated when she slid those fingers inside me.

“Don’t shake my hand, you asshole.” I pull her into a hug.

I rest my cheek against the side of her neck, inhaling the clean scent of soap and fresh laundry laced with gunpowder. Ilsa ranked first in the final Marksmanship exam.

She hugs me back, allowing her hand to rest briefly on my lower back before she lets go of me.

“See ya around, kid,” she says, just to infuriate me.

I smile instead. It’s the closest she’s ever gotten to a term of endearment.

“Good luck,” I tell her.

Ilsa is about to take her position as her sister’s lieutenant, an unheard-of arrangement in the Russian mafia. The Markovs contro l one of the richest slices of Moscow, or at least they did before the High Table imploded. There’s a civil war amongst the Bratva. Who knows who will take control when the dust settles.

As I descend to the dock, Adrik Petrov is nowhere to be seen.

Probably for the best. I’m sure my mom’s anxious to see me back in Chicago.

I sigh, unexcited for the long flight home, and the even longer summer stretching ahead of me. My dad will run me ragged as he expands his empire all up and down the I-80 corridor.

I suppose it’s my empire, too. I’m his heir, but sometimes I think my little brother Damien is better suited to that role.

The Gallos have gone legitimate. I ought to get my contractor’s license instead of attending Kingmakers. It would certainly make my mom happier.

She worries about me. Everyone does.

They want me safe at home.

Safe is boring. Safe feels like a hundred pounds of steel chains wrapped around my limbs.

Born and raised in Chicago, I’ve barely seen the world. Vacations don’t count—resorts and hotels are playpens for tourists.

I thought Kingmakers would scratch my itch, but it’s just another prison, even more cut off from everything interesting.

Anna doesn’t agree with me.

“I’ll miss Kingmakers,” she sighs, having stepped off the ship for the last time .

“Not me!” Leo replies gleefully.

“Yes you will,” Anna says, confident that she knows Leo better than he knows himself.

A deckhand tosses my suitcase down on the dock so hard it almost bounces into the water.

“HEY!” I holler up at him. “Is that how your mother dropped you on your head?”

He shouts something back at me in Croatian.

“Why do you always escalate?” Leo laughs at me.

I haul the suitcase upright, one of the wheels wonky and refusing to spin.

“Motherfucker,” I mutter, glancing back to see if the deckhand is still in sight for further chastisement.

“Come on.” Anna grabs my arm and hauls me along. “No time for that.”

Cara and Caleb are already waiting for us at the end of the dock, their suitcases among the first to be unloaded.

I follow my cousins toward the taxi stand, trailing behind, the promise of the day failing to materialize.

Before I can cross the cobbled concourse between the dock and the queues of battered taxis, a black Ducati skids to a halt in front of me, a cloud of exhaust billowing up around us. The chrome muffler sparkles in the sun, the bike radiating heat like a living thing.

It’s the Superleggera V4, the fastest superbike in production. Ducati only made five hundred of them, so I’ve never actually seen one in person .

My eyes slide down the sleek carbon-fiber frame, the engine settling to a low growl that thrills in my bones. It’s fucking gorgeous.

The rider yanks off his helmet, shaking out a head of thick, coarse hair. He’s tanned darker than the last time I saw him, almost as brown as me. His narrow blue eyes, pale as a husky, flick up to meet mine.

His bare forearms are dusty from the cobbled streets, clear tracks of sweat cutting down. The hand gripping the helmet is battered, deep cuts across the knuckles.

Adrik Petrov, in the flesh.

“You’re late,” I tell him.

“I’d say I’m right on time.”

His English is flawless, the masculine bite of the Slavic accent edging each word.

Adrik jerks his head toward Leo and Anna. “Good to see you.”

You’d never guess Adrik ever needed our help. I doubt he’d admit that he did.

He’s as arrogant as ever, tossing his black hair back out of his face, radiating as much heat as that bike. He’s not quite as tall as Leo, but broader in the body, with a tight, compressed energy that makes the veins stand out on the backs of his hands.

Like the engine revving to leave, Adrik is impatient.

“You coming or not? ”

I’d like to say “not,” just to wipe the smirk off his face. But I can’t take my eyes off that bike. If Thou shalt not covet is a real commandment, I’m going straight to hell.

“If she won’t come, I will,” Caleb says, drooling over the Ducati.

My brain runs a dozen swift calculations.

“I’ll come.” I push my suitcase toward Cara, who has to catch it quickly so it doesn’t topple over on its wonky wheel. “Take that home for me, will you?”

Cara glances between Adrik and me. She doesn’t love this idea.

“What am I supposed to tell your dad?” Leo demands.

“Tell him I’ll catch a flight tomorrow.”

Leo blocks my path, arms crossed over his chest. “If you get yourself in trouble?—”

“Oh, save it,” I snap. “After the year you had!”

Leo grins, well aware that he’s being a filthy hypocrite. “Alright. I’ll carry your damn bag, don’t make Cara lug it around.”

Cara passes it to him.

My cousins file off toward the taxi stand, Anna lingering behind for one last warning glance.

I turn my back on her.

I fucking hate when they b aby me.

Alone with Adrik, the air feels thick as honey.

“What’s the plan?” I ask him.

His bright blue eyes flash across me, head to foot, taking in the uniform he probably remembers even better than I do. A ghost of a smile crosses his lips.

“You hungry?” he growls.

His voice is low and rough. I can smell the heat of his body, mixed with ocean salt and the bike’s exhaust. The tip of his tongue rests against the sharp point of his incisor as he waits for my response, eyes slitted against the dazzle of sun on water.

“Always.”

“I got us a table at Coco.”

He’s trying to impress me. Coco is the bougiest joint in southeast Europe—fancy enough that even the mafia brats have a tough time getting a table.

“Get on,” Adrik says, holding out his helmet to me.

God, I’d love to throw my leg over that seat.

But even rule breakers have lines they won’t cross.

“I don’t ride bitch on bikes.”

He scoffs. “Then have fun walking.”

I turn on the heel of my sneaker, marching off in the direction of the Artemis hotel. Adrik stares after me, clearly thinking he was calling my bluff.

I don’t bluff .

A line of mopeds and motorcycles park against the curb. I scan the rank, looking for the best option.

A candy-red Kawasaki stands out like a racehorse amongst ponies. It’s nowhere near as boss as Adrik’s bike, but it’s leaner and potentially faster in the narrow medieval streets of Old Town. As long as it has the right rider.

I grab my knife from my pocket, flicking out the blade. In seconds, I’ve popped the ignition cap and spliced the wires beneath. Clenching the clutch, I spark the wires until the engine roars to life.

Without glancing back at Adrik, I roar off down the street.

The wind whips my hair back. The throbbing engine between my legs sends vivid vibrations all the way through my body, up to my fingertips, and down to my toes.

I fucking love this feeling.

It’s been eight long months since I rode a bike—worse than celibacy.

The motorcycle brings me alive, sending blood rushing through my veins. It sparks every neuron until the cobblestones stand out in high definition, until I hear the shouts of fishmongers in the open-air market of Gunduli?eva poljana, and smell the tantalizing scents of home-grown truffles and olive oil as I whip past the Gligora wine and cheese shop.

I only spent a day in Dubrovnik back in September, but if my father and I have one thing in common, it’s an eye for detail. I’m not just a pretty face—everything I see, I memorize. I remember every street I walked and every shop I passed the night before I caught the ship to Kingmakers .

I know exactly where Coco is located, and how to get there.

In fact, I might know a faster route than Adrik.

Avoiding the crowded thoroughfare of Placa Stradun, congested with tourists, sidewalk cafés, and overburdened carts of kitsch, I take a hard right through an alleyway, then several more twists and turns through narrow residential streets.

Adrik’s bike howls as he speeds after me.

He’s trying to catch me.

His bike is faster, no question—if this were a track, he’d blow past me in a single lap.

But we’re not on a track. The more we have to stop and start, and the sharper the corners we navigate, the more I can make use of the light frame and zippy 650 engine on the Ninja.

I expect to leave him in the dust.

Tossing a look back over my shoulder, I see Adrik bent low on the bike, cutting the space between us.

He handles the machine like a pro, slicing through turns with surgical precision, slowly gaining ground on me.

Adrik doesn’t just know how to ride. He knows how to race.

Racing is all about taking lines. It’s strategy. That’s why the best brain wins, over hundreds of laps. You have to shave off fractions of a second each turn, each lap more perfect than the last.

I’m taking my turns at maximum speed, coming in hot, turning as tightly as possible .

Adrik’s bike is bigger; he has to slow at the corners. But he’s calculating his angles like fucking Pythagoras, flattening the curve, bringing the bike to a straight line as soon as possible so the Ducati can make full use of its monstrous 998 engine.

Adrik is sacrificing entry velocity for exit speed.

It’s a math equation. I know that—and apparently he does too.

I speed through a tight roundabout, leaning so hard that my bare knee almost scrapes the road and my hair trails in the dust.

I started this race, and I’m damn sure gonna win it.

My bike sounds like a lawnmower compared to the leonine roar of the Ducati. I rise up off the seat, feinting like I’m gonna turn right out of the roundabout, then juking left instead, shooting the gap between a delivery van and a Fiat. The delivery driver lays on his horn and the Fiat’s owner shouts furiously out his window. I cackle with triumph, pulling away from Adrik.

Not being entirely familiar with the area, I fetch up against a stone staircase so tight that the handlebars of my bike scrape the plaster walls on either side as I bump down. Terrible on the shocks, but who cares, it’s not my bike.

I almost collide with an old woman in a flowered headscarf, who gives a startled squawk.

“ Oprosti!” I call to her cheerfully.

She shakes a fist at me, then begins her shaky ascent of the stairs, a basket of bread, jam, and fresh-cut flowers tucked over her arm.

Adrik is forced to stop at the top of the stairs, watching as she painstakingly makes the climb .

Laughing madly, I zip through the Buza gate, while a furious uniformed attendant shouts something in Croatian.

Adrik will never catch me now.

I pass under the bright orange cable cars ascending to the top of Srd Hill. We could have ridden the cars, but I’d much rather take this winding road on the bike, roaring up the Mediterranean hillside, the ocean flat and glittering below me.

Clouds of dust billow up behind me like smoke. I speed faster and faster, reckless and thrilled, chasing the swallows that dart and swoop across my path. I’m not racing Adrik anymore—I’m challenging the voice that tells me to slow down before I take a curve too hard and tumble off the cliff, or collide with a tour bus driving the opposite direction.

Sense is never as strong as the impulse for more.

There’s no angel on my shoulder, only a devil that whispers, “ Faster, faster … fucking FLY!”

I’m reaching the peak.

There’s no more road ahead of me, only the dazzling view of the harbor and the ancient crescent of Old Town far below.

My all-time favorite movie scene is when Thelma and Louise drive their ‘66 Thunderbird off the rim of the Grand Canyon. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than that baby blue car soaring into space.

I’ll never die an old woman in bed. My last memory will be something so beautiful it will echo through eternity.

Someday … not today .

I turn the bike into a shaded courtyard, at the end of which stands the entryway to the restaurant, the double doors topped by an old-fashioned awning on which the ornate scroll of Coco is painted in gold script.

I stop short in front of the valet.

“I’ll park it myself,” I tell him, hoping he won’t notice the gaping hole that ought to be an ignition switch.

As I pull the bike into its berth, I hesitate.

I look at the twisted wires, the ends spliced together.

Taking my knife from my pocket, I cut them off short.

Then, dusty and sweating, I march up to host, already planning how I’ll get a table.