Page 32 of Christmas Mafia Prince
“Just one year and so much has changed,” the guy says and to finish his look, inhales some smoke from a black cigarette.
“Good to see you too, Corvus,” Damen responds, and when I try to take my hand away, he holds it firmly, as if to let me know such dissent will not be tolerated. He’s made up his mind about my role during the holidays, and neither of us is going back.
The air grows dense, and I’ve been in enough dangerous situations to notice that all the other men have picked up on that too. I worry things might spin out of control, but then the teen in the colorful tracksuit stands and faces us with both hands down his pockets. He has a mop of blond hair, weirdly elaborate sneakers, and is, for some reason, wearing shades indoors.
“Is that him?” he asks with a wide grin. “The husband everyone’s talking about?”
Every single man in the room cringes, because of course they’ve been gossiping about us.
Damen falls right back into the pleasant persona he hooked me with. “That’s right. Meet my new husband, Killian.” He then proceeds to introduce his stable of male relatives and their places on the family tree (most of which I forget as soon as I hear them). I take note of the teenager in loud clothing, Aspen, because something tells me I better know who to blame when shit goes south. Call it intuition, but that guy sets off all kinds of alarms.
It’s the menace in black though who lands the first blow despite me being so polite and friendly.
“I just thought he’d be… taller.”
Now I regret not wearing the boots that give me the extra inch. Wouldn’t land me anywhere near Corvus’s eye level, but it would have beensomething. I don’t know why it’s so much more hurtful than the stupid shit thrown at me at the dinner table last night. Maybe because I’m actually a bit self-conscious about my height, even though Damen has told me I’m perfect several times.
Many answers come to the tip of my tongue. ‘I’m big where it counts’, ‘Height doesn’t matter when you’re horizontal’, or ‘Didn’t bother your dad last night’, but I bite down on them because I’ve promised myself I’ll be good, polite, fit in. It leaves me feeling painfully awkward when I wanna claw Corvus’s fucking face off.
“Better than the beard you sported last year,” Damen shoots back.
Corvus’s smooth-shaven face reddens, his lips open, and Aspen lets out a low hiss, biting his fist, as if in an effort to stop himself from saying something that can’t be taken back.
“Did hehave a beard last year?” one of the other men whispers and opens his phone, likely looking for proof in his photo gallery.
Corvus inhales in exasperation, and the cigarette in his hand snaps, falling to the marble floor. He steps on it with moreanger than the situation’s worth. “You need to get your memory checked out. Maybe it’s early-onset dementia.”
I don’t know if my gaydar is tingling or if it’s Damen who planted the idea in my head now, but I swear I’m gettingvibes. Does Damen know this about Corvus for sure? Wouldn’t he have told me there’s a closet case in the family?
I stand on my toes and kiss Damen’s cheek. If I can’t go feral and bitchy, I’m gonna kill them with a whole new level of passive-aggression. “Impossible. He remembers every birthday and anniversary.”
As Corvus cuts me to shreds with his glare, the cousin with the phone pipes up. “Found it! Yeah… no… no beard.”
Aspen starts choking on a laugh he’s trying to obscure so hard his shades fall halfway down his nose. “Not that kind of beard,” he whispers to the other guy (his older brother?).
“Oh but he’s not…” the brother whispers back so loudly everyone can hear it anyway. “He literally brought a girlfriend last Christmas.”
Ball in your court, Corvus. Check-mate.
At least the eyes of death slide off me, instead attacking Aspen and his uninteresting sibling. “Careful with your next words. Daddy’s not here to protect you from consequences.”
Aspen stills, looking like a cartoon character frozen mid-move in his ridiculous getup. I half expect him to say something even more offensive, but he rolls back onto the sofa and picks up a bottle of coke.
A dense silence settles over the hall as the other men watch Damen and Corvus stare each other down like two stags about to lock antlers in a fight to the death.
My stomach twists with a painful cramp just before Damen presses a kiss to my head. “Now you know. Here is my husband. I expect you all to treat him with the respect due to my spouse.” His voice hangs in the air, a hook waiting for the least cautiousfish in this marble pond, but when no one bites, he tells everyone we’ll see them later at ‘the knife throwing’ (?!) and leads me past the men, to the space where the butler earlier stashed our coats.
I pull on my new winter boots, giving Damen an anxious glance. “Did that go well? Ithinkit went well? Do they hate me? Should I expect a knife to the throat?” I laugh, but it’s not funny.
Damen shrugs and wraps a scarf around my neck. “They’ll get over themselves. Don’t worry, you did very well.”
I’m not sure how much faith I should have in my man’s cousins, but I choose not to argue, and we head out into the white landscape outside.
It’s a sunny day, and underneath the clear blue sky, the piles of snow shine like they’re made of gold thread.
As we close in on the maze, a woman’s voice keeps echoing in the air along with the screeching of small children, and I get the sense that Damen’s trying to wait her out. In the end though, he must have decided it’s not worth the hassle, and takes me past a thatch of trees, where a group of people stands close to the evergreen gate into the maze.
Damen’s sister, Alexandra, stands tall like a statue of corporate motherhood in her long coat, pristine boots and with a cell phone in hand. She’s even got the right kind of bob to complete the look as she yells at someone on the other side of the line.
