Kingmakers, Year Two

14. Miles

14

MILES

A ll through January and February, I strategize how to break Zoe’s marriage contract.

The simplest method would be to murder Rocco Prince.

I’ve considered it. Many times. But it would be risky, for a variety of reasons.

First off, Zoe and I would be the obvious suspects. Despite our best efforts to be subtle, it’s widely known that we have feelings for each other. Kingmakers doesn’t always enforce its rules when it comes to petty misdemeanors like fistfights and hook-ups, but some rules are sacrosanct. The most iron-clad is the Rule of Recompense. Any serious injury or death is punished in the old way: an eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth. Life for a life .

Even if we could skirt punishment by the school, the Princes would seek revenge. Rocco, as unlovable as he might be, is their only child and heir.

I don’t want to start our life together with a cycle of retribution.

I want to do what I do best: solve the problem, once and for all.

I need to make a deal with the Romeros and the Princes. Something that makes everyone happy.

Zoe has explained to me what her father and the Princes stand to gain from the marriage contract and its accompanying trade deal.

I have to offer them something better.

Something much better.

I wish it were as simple as money.

I have 10.4 million now. The full balance of my seed money that I’d planned to take to Los Angeles after I graduate.

If I thought the Princes and the Romeros would take a check, I’d clear my account today. But they stand to make much more than five million each off their deal.

I have to take that ten million and turn it into something more valuable. I have an idea for how I could do that, with Ozzy’s help. But I need another player. And probably every penny of cash I can muster.

I work on my plan every spare minute, whenever I’m not in class or sneaking out to see Zoe.

It’s starting to shape up, bit by bit.

Only one flaw remains intractable and irascible. Even if I convince the Princes and the Romeros, the one person I’ll never convince is Rocco himself. He’s the thorn in my side. The one threat I can’t remove entirely.

I turn the problem over in my head again and again, but I can never think of anything that will satisfy him. Nothing but Zoe.

I move forward regardless, trusting that even if Rocco is angry, he’ll have to abide by what his parents decide.

Rocco knows I’m seeing Zoe, much as we try to hide it. He knows, and his inability to prevent it makes him angrier and angrier.

I’ve warned Zoe not to go anywhere alone on campus. She’s careful to stick close to Anna and Chay.

Rocco retaliates by venting his rage on me instead. I’m an easier target, since we share classes and the same living space in the Octagon Tower.

Rocco and his stooges break into the dorm room I share with Ozzy. They destroy everything inside, slashing up our unifor ms, ripping apart our books, and pissing all over our beds.

Ozzy discovers the mess. He’s shaking with fury when I join him in the midst of the mayhem.

He holds up the blanket his mother knit for him, one that he’s had all his life, torn to pieces and soaked in urine.

“I’ll fucking kill them,” he hisses.

It takes a lot to make Ozzy mad. But once you do, he’s got a hell of a temper buried under the jokes and the smile.

“I can room somewhere else till all this cools off,” I say to Ozzy, feeling guilty for bringing this down on his head.

“Fuck that,” Ozzy said, dismissing the idea at once. “This isn’t just between you and Rocco anymore.”

It’s true—at this point, Ozzy and Wade Dyer hate each other nearly as much as Rocco and me.

Wade has taken a strange obsession with Ozzy that goes far beyond following his boss’ orders. He snipes at Ozzy constantly, shoulder-checking him every time they pass. They’ve almost come to blows a dozen times, held back only by the presence of teachers or staff.

Wade mocks Ozzy’s height, his looks, his accent, his family, and his interests. Ozzy seems unable to shrug it off as he usuall y would, maybe because Wade is tall and blond and good-looking, the epitome of what Ozzy believes Chay would prefer.

Ozzy and Chay are still hooking up. I don’t know if it’s good for him. He looks sick every time he sees her chatting with some other guy, laughing and smiling up at them in her usual flirtatious way. His feelings for her deepen by the day, but it doesn’t seem to be reciprocated, and it’s driving him mad.

The tension eats at me, the secrecy and the strain to find some way out of this. The conflict with Rocco feels like a rubber band stretched to its furthest limit. There’s no doubt it will snap. The only question is when.

My only relief is sneaking out to see Zoe.

It’s not just for sex. I love that part of it, of course, but more than anything I want the freedom to talk to her, fully and openly, without anyone listening.

I’ve read through her whole script now, and I think it’s brilliant. She has an incredible way with words. She reminds me of Aaron Sorkin or Greta Gerwig, in that her characters are wildly articulate and bold in speaking their minds.

It gives me a look at what Zoe herself would be like, without fear of threats or spies or reprisals.

She’s working on the ending. Sometimes she asks me for ideas, and I try to give suggestions, even though I don’t know fuck-a ll about writing. Sometimes we even perform little bits of it, laughing at how awful we both are at acting.

I’ve never done anything creative before. I think of myself as a facilitator, not an artist. It surprises me how enjoyable it is to map out conflict and resolution within a fictional frame, where the stakes are low and Zoe and I are gods of that world, able to orchestrate events exactly as we want them.

We work well together, Zoe and me.

She’s laying in my lap one Sunday afternoon, on the green couch, which I’ve returned to the stables so Anna can have her ballet space clear again. I’m playing with Zoe’s hair, gently combing through the long, black, silky strands with my fingers. She has her notebook propped up on her knees so she can add to it while we talk.

“Should the ending be tragic?” she says. “Or happy?”

“Happy, of course.”

“But the whole point all along has been that seeing the future doesn’t allow you to alter it. It’s a paradox—what you’re seeing isn’t actually the future, if you can change it.”

“I know. But nobody likes tragic endings.”

“Romeo and Juliet would beg to differ,” Zoe teases me. “Or Titanic. ”

“The end of Titanic is Jack and Rose reunited.”

“In death.”

“It’s emotional catharsis all the same. You have to give the audience what they want.”

“So . . . you think that once our protagonist realizes the nature of her visions, that should give her power over the outcomes. She learns how to manipulate the system. Like in The Matrix .”

“Maybe,” I say. “I guess my point is that I don’t believe in no-win scenarios.”

“There’s always an out?” Zoe says, looking up at me.

“Yes.” I nod. “You just have to be clever enough to find it.”

Zoe sits up, the dark curtains of her hair falling around her shoulders, soft and shining from my grooming.

She looks at me with those beautiful eyes, pale green with thick black lashes all around. Whenever she looks at me like this, straight on, our faces only inches apart, I’m struck by how lovely she is. Impossibly lovely. A kind of beauty that only increases the closer you examine it.

“What’s our out?” she asks me.

“I’m working on it,” I say .

“I know you are. I want you to tell me. I want to help you, like you’ve helped me with the script. I want to work on it together.”

I consider this, not unwilling but surprised.

I’ve never involved another person in my plans. Even with Ozzy, it’s only technical details we decide together. The framework is always me alone.

Call me superstitious but I hesitate to say my plan out loud. It’s still forming, not fully developed. Exposing it to the air might kill it.

But I trust Zoe, and I value her intelligence. I want to hear what she has to say.

So I tell her. I tell her every idea, every possibility I’ve considered. I tell her the challenges, the weaknesses, the practical issues I haven’t yet overcome. It takes me well over an hour to explain what I have so far. Zoe listens carefully, never interrupting.

When I’m finished, she’s quiet a long time, thinking.

Then she says, “You need one more family.”

“I know.”

“Someone who can take product east, but they have to have an American presence too. Someone with cash to spare, in American dollars. ”

I nod slowly.

“What about the Malina?”

She’s talking about the Odessa Mob. The most ancient and widespread branch of the Ukrainian mafia.

I let out a long exhale. “I considered them. They’re perfectly positioned. And I’ve heard they have cash. A lot of cash. But their reputation . . .”

“I know,” Zoe says. “It isn’t good.”

“They’re rapacious. Insular. Treacherous.”

“They’d be arms’ length away. And if they turn on someone down the line . . . it won’t be us.”

“We’d have to get the Princes and your father to agree.”

Zoe looks at me, smiling slightly. “We need someone highly persuasive . . . do you know anyone like that?”

I grin. “I might.”

Zoe’s face grows somber again.

“Miles . . .” she says. “This is going to take all your money.”

I told her about my seed money. She knows how I intended to use it. And she’s right—whether this plan works or not, it will wipe me out. I won’t have a bean left over. Not enough to rent an apartment in L.A., let alone build an empire .

“I don’t care,” I tell her. “I’ll make more.”

Zoe shakes her head slowly. “I can’t let you do that. You worked so hard, all those years. It’s your dream . . .”

“No offense, baby girl,” I say, “but it’s not up to you. I’m doing this, with or without your help. I don’t know if it’s gonna work, but I’m sure as fuck gonna try. And if this deal’s no good, I’ll think of another. I told you, this is a jailbreak. Rocco is Warden Norton and you’re Andy Dufresne—we’re gonna Shawshank this motherfucker!”

Zoe is laughing, she can’t resist when I paint a vision of our future together.

I’m likewise riding on cloud nine.

The feeling of working this through with someone else is intoxicating, as if I’ve expanded my brain to double its size. It’s so easy talking to Zoe. She understands everything, and sees things that I don’t.

“I love you,” I say, without thinking, without planning.

Zoe’s eyes go wide. For the first time I see a clear resemblance to her sister Cat. She looks startled and frightened.

“You do?” she says.

I have to laugh. “Why are you surprised? Hasn’t it been obvious for a while? ”

“When did you start loving me?”

I think back. “In the infirmary. When you told me not to pity you.”

She shakes her head at me, a slow smile stealing over her soft, full lips.

“I love you too, Miles,” she says.

“Since when?”

Now she’s smiling all the way, her eyes gleaming.

“Since I saw you naked,” she says.

I laugh, seizing her and kissing her hard.

“Is that the only reason?”

“Yes. I’m horribly shallow.”

“You know what, I’m fine with that. I’ve always wanted to be objectified.”

I pull my sweater over my head, baring my chest.

“Feast your eyes.”

Zoe does look at me, her amusement turning to lust in an instant. Her eyes rove over my body, and she runs her fingertips down my chest, raising goosebumps on my arms .

She kisses me right over my heart, her soft, warm mouth sending shivers across my skin. Then she runs her tongue softly along the lines of my left pec, and my cock goes rock hard in my pants. I want her tongue in other places. I want my tongue on her even worse.

She’s wearing trousers again today, with suspenders over her pullover, and lace-up oxfords on her feet. I love when she looks tomboyish. The juxtaposition between the boyish clothes and the ultra-feminine body underneath is wildly erotic. I pull down her suspenders, then take off her top, and put the suspenders back up on her shoulders again so the wide elastic just barely covers her nipples, pressing down on her breasts, making them look rounder than ever.

“Let me take a picture of you,” I say.

“Like this?” Zoe looks down at her near-naked torso, shaking her head and blushing.

“Let me do it,” I say. “You’re so fucking sexy.”

Zoe bites her lip, considering. Then she says, “Alright. Tell me what to do.”

If there was any blood left in my head, it all rushes to my groin as soon as she starts taking orders. If there’s one thing I can agree upon with that psychopath Rocco, it’s that there’s no greater rush than having a woman as brilliant and gorgeous as Zoe bent to your will .

The difference is that I want her to do it willingly, gladly. I want her to get off on it just as hard as I do.

“Stand by the window,” I tell her.

The golden evening light streams through the dusty glass. The glass is too thick and bubbled and filthy to worry that anyone could see Zoe from the other side—at most she’d be a shadow moving behind the opaque pane.

The light glows on her skin. It highlights the curves of those phenomenal breasts and the indents of her waist. Her figure is an hourglass inside the boxy male clothing. Her thick, dark hair gives her a wild, untamable look. Yet, I’m taming her. She obeys me as I tell her how to stand, which way to turn.

I use my phone to snap the pictures. With each shutter click, my cock gets stiffer and stiffer.

“Lean back against the window. Lift your arms. Lower the suspenders.”

Zoe obeys, her eyes fixed on me and her cheeks flushed pink. When she drops the suspenders, her nipples have gone dark and pebbled, jutting out from her chest, tightening her breasts.

Tiny bits of dust float in the sunbeams, dancing around her skin.

“Take off your trousers,” I order. “Underwear, too. ”

Zoe strips, and so do I. I take a few more pictures of her, naked as Venus and twice as beautiful, framed against the window. Then I drop the phone, crossing the room in three long strides. I lift her up, setting her in the window frame, and I shove my cock inside of her without preamble.

Zoe gasps, biting down hard on my shoulder.

Sliding inside of her is like coming home, every time.

I think I remember how good it feels, and then it surprises me, over and over again.

When I’m fucking her like this, I wonder how we ever do anything else. How do I have the patience to eat or sleep or go to class, when I could be doing this instead?

I press my face against her neck and inhale the scent of her skin. I feel her long legs wrapped around me, and her slender arms around my neck. I kiss her, thrusting my cock deeper and deeper inside of her, groaning out, “I love you, Zoe. I fucking love you.”

I don’t know why I waited this long to tell her. It feels so good to say it. It’s what I meant when I told her I’d set her free from Rocco. I meant that I’d do anything for her.

The real, actual words are more powerful.

When she says them back to me, it thrills me to my core. It makes me feel invincible, god-like .

“I love you, Miles,” she says, looking up into my eyes. “Always you, only you.”

I lift her up from the windowsill, her legs locked behind my thighs, my hands gripping her ass, supporting her. I bounce her on my cock, making her tits bounce on her chest, a sight that is fucking mesmerizing, something I wish I could put on a loop and watch for hours. She’s so gorgeous that it’s impossible to keep control. From the moment I slide inside of her, it’s a battle trying not to nut, making sure that Zoe cums first.

It’s a battle I’ll lose if I keep looking at those gorgeous breasts. I set her down again, flipping her over and bending her across the cushioned arm of the green sofa, gripping my cock at the base and sliding it into her again from behind.

Zoe likes it this way. She likes how hard I can fuck her from behind, especially if I reach around and rub her clit at the same time. I slide my fingers up and down her slit, finding that sensitive little clit and giving it just the right pressure in time with my thrusts. My hips make a smacking sound against her ass. I fuck her harder and harder, knowing she can take it, knowing she fucking loves it.

“Beg me to cum in you,” I growl.

“Cum in me, please!” she gasps.

“Tell me you want it.”

“I need it! ”

It sounds like this is for me, but it’s not. It’s for Zoe. I’m giving her permission to ask for what she wants, to beg for it even. And sure enough, as I knew it would, it tips her over the edge. She likes begging and she likes obeying me.

Her pussy locks around my cock as she starts to orgasm, the waves hitting her in time with my thrusts.

I was barely clinging on to my control. As soon as her pussy starts clenching, the dam breaks and I shoot inside of her, hard and hot and fast. The cum pours out of me, an eruption I could no longer hold back even to save my own life.

Nothing in the world has ever felt this good. No deal, no win, no triumph. Zoe is the ultimate prize.

The only thing I want in this moment is to secure her. To make her mine forever.

That Sunday, I call my mom.

I’ve wanted to tell her about Zoe for a while. I was going to wait until I figured out the solution to my problem. But now, as I move into the endgame, I feel something rare and unusual: I want my mom’s advice.

As soon as she picks up, I say, “Mom. I met someone. ”

“What kind of someone?” she says. I know she’s trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. She doesn’t want to scare me away.

She doesn’t have to worry. I’m way past a fear of commitment.

“I met the one,” I say without hesitation.

I can almost feel my mom gripping the receiver tight. Yet there’s a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Why do I get the feeling there’s trouble involved,” my mother says.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you never do anything the easy way, Miles. You never want the simple thing. You love the challenge.”

I can hear my mother’s exasperation mixed with something else. Something like understanding. And maybe even pride.

“Yeah? Where do you think I get that from?”

“You’d do better to take after your father instead of me.”

“That isn’t true, Mom,” I say quietly. “I admire you. You know that, don’t you? No one has a fire like you. No one loves harder. No one will go further to get what they want.”

She swallows, her throat making a clicking sound .

“Thank you, baby,” she says. “That means a lot to me. You’re my firstborn, and I’m so fucking proud of you. I sometimes worried that you wouldn’t ever experience what your father and I have. Not everyone does. Not everyone wants to.”

“Where’s the ‘but?’ ” I say.

“No ‘but.’ Just be careful, baby. You’re coming into the real world now. Real stakes. Real consequences. Love makes you desperate. It makes you risk . . . everything.”

“It’s worth it, though. You can’t tell me it isn’t.”

“It’s worth any price. But it’s not always you that pays the price, Miles. Remember that. Remember what happened to your Grandpa Enzo.”

I know the story as well as the people present at that fateful wedding. Leo’s father Sebastian married Yelena Yenina, daughter of a Bratva boss, despite the fact that their families were mortal enemies, engaged in a bloody battle over territory.

As soon as the vows were said, Alexei Yenin tried to slaughter my family. He shot Uncle Nero and Uncle Dante. And he gunned down my grandfather, riddling him with so many bullets that he had to be identified by his watch.

I should have been at that wedding myself, a baby in my mother’s arms. She and my father were only excluded because the Br atva feared retribution from the Irish mafia. I could have been a casualty of someone else’s love.

I hear my mother, and I understand her.

But nothing can stray me from my course.

I won’t give up Zoe.

I can’t.

I want her, or nothing at all.