The Boss (Chateau Book 3) Read online

  The Boss

  Chateau #3

  Penelope Sky

  Hartwick Publishing

  Hartwick Publishing

  The Boss

  Copyright © 2021 by Penelope Sky

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Prologue

  Years of patience, years of virtue.

  It passed with the quiet click of a clock, counting the minutes forward, but also counting backward, counting down to a date that had never been set. Because that date was a moment, not a weekday, not a weekend, not a year.

  A moment.

  The home was dilapidated, practically unlivable, deep in the evergreen forests of Romania. There wasn’t even a road that led to the property, just a dirt path covered with leaves tinted with red and orange. Fall was bitter with cold, giving a whistle on the wind like the winter train was about to pull into the station.

  The weathered wood cracked against the elements, a stair was missing in the steps, and the windows had cracks where shards had popped out of the frame. A single footstep with a heavy boot made a creak that reverberated through the house.

  But a caged animal had nowhere to run, not out here.

  Every step made a squeak, every movement cast a shadow across the broken walls, every moment made their hearts beat slower and slower. A narrow hallway led to a single bedroom, a cot sitting on a slab of wood, a lantern on the nightstand, a set of eyeglasses. Pictures of naked French girls were hung on the walls, decades-old and taken from outdated magazines that were probably found in the bottom of a dumpster.

  The small window showed the exterior, the early morning light that broke through the trees and highlighted the gentle powder of snow that caked the branches and leaves. Like sprinkled sugar, it was on the ground, the gentle beginning of a rough winter.

  He lay on his back in the small bed, a single pillow behind his head, one hand across his stomach, gentle breaths filling his lungs and expanding his body in peaceful ways. Far away in dreams, he was unaware of the two men who moved to either side of the bed, who surrounded him like the night, dark like shadows.

  They both stared down at the pathetic man before them, sleeping soundly in a place he arrogantly assumed they would never find. His dark beard was now filled with strands of gray, and it grew like a brush along his chin, hung like stems of ivy down his chest. The stench wafted to their noses, causing a slight burn like the dung on a pig farm.

  The shadow on the left withdrew his gun and pressed the cool barrel to the man’s forehead.

  Not a stir.

  He cocked the gun, a little click filling the small bedroom of the shack.

  Like a light switch flicked on, eyes opened, staring at the gun pressed to his forehead, the view of the shadows above him blurred. The quiet breathing quickened, panic moved into his gaze, but it faded as quickly as it came, turning into an acceptance so peaceful it almost looked like desire.

  The shadow spoke, a voice deeper than hell, a voice that reverberated with power, with retribution, with the promise of vengeance. “Did you really think it would be that easy, Father?”

  His knees sank into the dry mud, his hands behind his back, viewing the forest in front of him, the birds chirping a beautiful song, like it was just another day in the world, not the day of execution for a traitor.

  In a black bomber jacket that fit his broad shoulders like they were a coat hanger for a suit, he stood behind his father, watching him stare at the beautiful peace before him, the world he would leave in a very unpeaceful way.

  His brother shifted his gaze to look at him, to silently conduct a deep conversation between them, with details and logistics, all passing in just a single lock of their mutual gaze. With brown eyes earthy like the trees and dirt, he watched his older brother, eyeing the knife in his hand.

  Their father remained where they’d left him, breathing deeper and harder, yanking on the ropes around his wrists so he could clutch his chest and dispel the anxiety that brought him into a state of panic. There was no greater torture than the fear of the torture, of the painful moments as you waited for death’s knock on your front door. All you could do was close your eyes and strain your ears to hear that sound, that sound that would end the suffering because the wait had finally ended.

  He gripped the knife in his gloved hand, a knife that had never been used, sharp enough to cut through the densest bone. “There is no death that will suffice. His spilled blood will never erase the red stains on their pillowcases. The rot of his bones will never catch up to their already rotten graves.”

  His brother stared on and, after several seconds, gave a subtle nod.

  “But his execution will be their revenge.” He stepped forward.

  His brother did as well, their boots crunching over the little rocks in the soil, the leaves that had dried and withered on the ground, the small ice crystals that were crushed under the tread of their shoes.

  “Please…wait.” Their father’s pleas didn’t have an echo, because they were so quiet, so disingenuous. His terror couldn’t replace his defeat, knowing in his heart that this was inevitable, and no cabin in the woods would ever hide him from his sins. “I’ve regretted—”

  The younger brother shoved his boot into his back with a kick, sending him forward onto the earth. His boot was pressed into the back of the older man’s shoulder, keeping him pinned to the mud that covered half of his face as it became submerged.

  “Magnus—”

  “Don’t speak my name.” He increased the weight on his foot, submerging him farther.

  Fender took a knee over him, hunching down with the knife drawn.

  Their father bucked his body hard to be free of the ties that bound his wrists, but like quicksand, the more he flailed, the more he sank into the mud, covering most of his face so he struggled to breathe.

  With a look of indifference, Fender jabbed the knife down into his spine, paralyzing him from the waist down. “Mother.” He did it again, piercing the lung.

  His father gave a gnarled gasp, a short draw of air that couldn’t inflate his lungs fully.

  The knife sank deep over and over, Fender speaking the names of the family that was stolen from them both. “Marie…Remy.” He let the knife stay embedded in his flesh this time, pierced through the heart, and the body went limp. Whether he died from drowning in the mud, from internal bleeding, or the accumulation of all those things, didn’t matter. The blood that oozed immediately mixed with the mud, creating a beautiful crimson hue, an earthy tone that almost looked natural.

  Fender left the knife where it lay before he straightened once more. He shifted his dark eyes to Magnus.

  Magnus stared back.

  A quiet moment passed between them, a simple stare, an entire lifetime of silent worlds. It was an empty accomplishment, killing a man who was so haunted by his past that he lived in a state of ruin instead of having the strength to do what they just did for him. But it was done.

  Justice had been done.

  One

  The Boss

  Melanie

  The darkness of the cabin was pierced by the glow coming through the windows, the distant torches casting flickers of light that created translucent wisps of smoke on the floorboards. The girls were silent in their beds, exhausted from the hard work that day…and the day before that…and the day before that.

  It never ended.

  Perpetually sore, perpetually hungry, we were in a constant state of survival. There was little energy to devote to much else th
an getting through the next day…and not being selected for the Red Snow.

  That was what life had become—a meaningless existence.

  And it was entirely my fault.

  My eyes welled with hot tears as I sat up in bed, my arms wrapped around my knees, looking into the darkness and staring at the opposite wall. Flashbacks of that night in Paris returned to me. Stupidly, I was lured by men who gave me attention, who promised a fun night that I could gloat about to my friends back home. Raven warned me, the smartest person I knew, Little Miss Perfect, but I was too resentful to listen.

  It was exhausting being second best all the time.

  Raised by my sister, I was nagged about everything, from doing the dishes incorrectly to not understanding how credit with the banks worked, for being inferior to her in every way imaginable. I was grateful to have her as a big sister, but her superiority made me hate myself more, and then I hated her for making me hate myself.

  That was no excuse for the decision I made that night.

  That decision that made us wind up here…in hell.

  The tears bubbled into drops then slid down my cheeks simultaneously, warm against my skin while the air of the cabin was frigid from the winter outside. My bottom lip trembled, but I forced a cold breath into my lungs and tightened my arms around my knees to make it stop.

  Raven wouldn’t cry.

  I had to accept the consequences of my actions, to carry the burden of this regret for the rest of my life, to beg for forgiveness when I knew wholeheartedly that I didn’t deserve it. I had to live with myself every single day, live in self-loathing, to wish I’d let Raven go when she fled to Paris just to get away from me…even though it hurt.

  My nose permanently stung from the cold. When my breath escaped my nostrils, it would rise and coat the dry skin with a steam of moisture, but it was short-lived, and in the seconds between breaths, my skin immediately began to dry and wither.

  Eyes down, I measured the white sand and placed it into the bags, working like a bee in a hive with the other girls, the quiet sounds of us working as a backdrop of music to our servitude.

  Sometimes my eyes would flick up to look at her.

  To look at the only person in this world who ever really loved me.

  Now I had to watch her pick up a box far too heavy and struggle to carry it to the table so it could be opened and processed.

  Her brilliant mind wasted, she was just labor now, and she wasn’t even paid for it.

  Because of me.

  My eyes dropped in shame like always, because it wasn’t just too painful to look at her, there was also too much shame in my heart to meet her gaze, even if the rare opportunity arose for us to make contact with our eyes, our souls, and our hearts.

  At sundown, we finished up the last box. We would be discharged to our cabins to have dinner, shower, and spend our short evening in each other’s company before we got up at dawn to do it the next day.

  I was grateful I wasn’t alone in my cabin.

  I hated the fact that Raven was.

  A silent hush fell on the clearing, an abrupt change in energy that was felt by every single person even though it was unclear what had caused the shift. The girls looked in the same direction, as if something was coming toward us. It wasn’t Friday, so there was no Red Snow, unless there had been a change of plans.

  Then I saw him.

  In a black bomber jacket with gray fur down the sides, a man entered the clearing, flanked by his men. He didn’t don the guard uniform—and he didn’t hide his face. With dark-brown eyes and short dark hair that almost looked shaved, he scanned the area with his intelligent and cold eyes. A distinct shadow was on his jawline, the same darkness that filled the shadows in the corners of the cabin. His lips appeared then because they were pressed together tightly. He carried himself differently from the others, with a sharpness to his posture that made him stand out more than he already did. He was strong, straight-backed, his massive shoulders squeezed in the leather material of his jacket. Tall, muscular, carrying a silent power that reached every corner of this camp, he made his presence known with just his silence, showed his face like he didn’t give a damn if we saw it.

  He stopped in his tracks, scanned the camp, and instead of looking past me the way he did with everyone else, his gaze halted the way his boots halted in the dirt.

  Right on me.

  As if tentacles had wrapped around my throat and squeezed, I was unable to breathe. Like a field mouse in the wild, when an owl stared my way, I turned absolutely still in the hope that I would blend into the background, that I would be camouflaged by the girls who surrounded me, that his stare wasn’t reserved for me and whatever sinister motives he possessed.

  The stare continued.

  My heart raced in my chest, and it felt as if the sound of drums in my ears were suddenly audible to everyone in the clearing, including him. I should drop my gaze and focus on my work. My fingertips still gripped the bag of cocaine I was holding.

  But I was too scared to do that, literally paralyzed in that moment by that ruthless stare. It was like a spotlight from a chopper, and there was no hope I’d be able to run when that bright light put me on a stage.

  There was a subtle shift of his eyes back and forth, those earthy-colored lenses absorbing information at such an intense rate that he couldn’t keep his gaze focused for more than a nanosecond. Furiously, his mind worked, comprehending whatever stimuli flooded his thoughts.

  Then it was gone.

  He withdrew his gaze and continued on his path through the clearing, moving past the row of tables and ignoring the stares focused his way from both the guards and the girls. His men flanked him, one on each side, trailing slightly behind him like he was the king of this camp.

  Or better yet…the boss.

  After dinner and a shower, I sat on my bed while most of the girls were gathered near the fire, talking about the encounter with the man with the bomber jacket.

  Petunia was a veteran of the camp, a three-year resident. Her life had changed forever when she took a different route home one night—and that was it. She was in her late twenties, strong and able-bodied, working hard every day to make sure she wasn’t next in line for the Red Snow. “He’s the boss. I’ve seen him a couple times.”

  “The boss?” Irene had only been there a few months longer than I had. She was still being integrated into this new world of snow-covered cabins, of torchlight that lit the pathways to and from the clearing.

  The most surprising aspect of the veteran girls was their acceptance. When weeks turned into months, when months turned into years, they molded to this new life, spending their time in the cabin reading their books, playing their games, like they had gotten off work after a long day and were spending the evening at home. There was no discussion of an uprising, of freedom. They didn’t even talk about the things they missed, their families and friends, the outside world that was just a few hundred miles away.

  Raven could never be that way.

  Not in months.

  Not in years.

  Not in a lifetime.

  She would never forget the taste of pumpkin-flavored coffee in the fall, the lights of the Eiffel Tower, the picture of Mom on the coffee table in the living room, and she would never forget about me either…and the life I deserved.

  A life she deserved more.

  Petunia was in the rocking chair near the fire, drinking a mug of hot cocoa that her guard had given her. Some of the girls had special relationships with the guards, getting extra items through their obedience…or other things. Sometimes a guard would show up in the evening and escort the girls to another location for thirty minutes before he dropped her off again.

  We all knew exactly why. We just never talked about it.

  The only way I’d sleep with one of them was in exchange for freedom.

  But freedom would never be an offer on the table.

  Petunia spoke again. “He’s in charge of the camp.”

 
“How do you know that?” another woman asked.

  Petunia shrugged. “You can just tell…”

  She was right—you could totally tell.

  Footsteps sounded outside the front door, heavy boots that announced a pair of guards had shown up to the cabin. It was normally one at a time, so this was unusual. The lock was undone, and then they stepped inside, scanning the room until his head faced my direction. His face was covered by the garb of the guards, so there was no way to discern his identity. Sometimes I could tell them apart based on their size and mannerisms, but I could never be certain.

  But I was certain they were looking at me.

  All the girls turned to follow his stare, to draw the same conclusion.

  My body tightened in fear because I knew they were there for me, to take me away and remove my consent, to force my servitude in ways I refused to agree to. The fear was like acid in my stomach, but there was no escape from this. This was my punishment for my stupidity, for a situation that could have been easily avoided if I had just listened.

  “Get your things.” He stopped at the foot of the bed.

  I was still on the bed, still sitting with my knees pulled to my chest, unable to understand the request.

  The other guard helped himself to my dresser and pulled out my belongings, which wasn’t much. He set my boots beside me and dropped my jacket over the bed so I could pull it on.

  Then they both stared at me.

  “W-w-why?”

  The second guard scooped up my belongings into his chest and waited for my compliance.

  The other just stared, but he never moved to touch me, to try to yank me to my feet and force my obedience, which was odd.

  When I didn’t move, the first guard spoke again. “Because he wants you.”

  I knew who he was.

  The boss.