Elect

Book 2: Eagle Elite

by Rachel Van Dyken

Genres: Coming of Age; Contemporary Romance; New Adult Romance

Synopsis

Would you die for the one you love?

Nixon Abandonato made his choice, and now he has to pay the price. Tracey is the love of his life, but being with him has made her a target of his family’s enemies. The only way to keep Trace alive is to convince the world she means nothing to him.

Trace Rooks has fallen irrevocably in love with the son of her family’s sworn rival, and she knows in her bones nothing can tear them apart—until Nix suddenly pushes her away and into the arms of his best friend. But Trace isn’t ready to give up on a future with Nix, and if he won’t fight for them, she will.

In the end, a sacrifice must be made. A life for a life. For what better way to cover a multitude of sins than with the blood of a sinner?

Release date: December 10, 2013

Publisher: Forever

Print pages: 328

Sample

Three weeks earlier

Chase,” I growled. “Do your damn job.”

My cousin rolled his eyes and saluted me as he jogged off to Trace’s side. We’d all decided it would be best if she stayed in school. After all, the security at Eagle Elite was tight. And nobody would dare try something during the day.

Really, it was the nights that had me going insane. I didn’t know whom to trust. I wasn’t even sure if I could trust myself. If anything happened to Trace again, I would never forgive myself. The way things stood, I was having trouble even looking in the mirror after the way I’d treated her over the past few weeks.

Raped. She had been so damn close to being raped by someone I’d once called friend. And now… now her grandfather was in hiding—again. You can’t just shoot a mafia boss without a damn good reason and he didn’t have a leg to stand on. It was crucial that we find out who’d killed Trace’s parents, because if it was the De Langes like I suspected, at least her grandfather wouldn’t get shot—or worse, tortured for doing what was right.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been my fault in the first place. If I would have just stayed away like her grandfather had asked. She would have been safe. Instead, the pull she had on me was so magnetic I found myself falling. Before I knew it, I was ready to start an all-out family war against the Alfero boss in order to have his granddaughter. Hell, I was ready to kidnap her.

I groaned as I watched Chase run to Trace’s side and grab her hand. Okay, I could handle a lot of things. Guns, violence, people who didn’t know their place in this godforsaken world, but my best friend kissing my girlfriend’s hand? The same girl I’d been in love with my whole life? Yeah, I was going to freaking murder him if he did anything to mess that up.

She was the only thing I had going for me. I mean, I had my sister, but both my parents were gone. My mother died when I was younger—at the hands of my bastard of a father, and my father, well… I would dance on his grave if it wouldn’t make me look like a genuine ass. The fact was, I needed Trace; she wasn’t just a girl to me, she was my lifeline. I was terrified that if I lost her, I would lose myself—lose everything that keeps me grounded and sane.

“You okay with this?” Tex asked next to me as he ran his hands through his dark red hair and nodded toward the happy couple.

I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “Are you challenging my judgment?”

“Whoa.” Tex lifted up his hands in surrender. “I was just asking a question, Nixon, not challenging you. Take a sedative. Seriously.”

“Take a—” I bit down on my lower lip and sucked on the metal of my lip ring. “I’m fine.”

“Right. I’m fine, you’re fine, everything’s fine. Oh, look, I think a rainbow’s sprouting out of your ass.”

“Remind me why you’re here again?”

Tex grinned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Oh you know, to make your life miserable. That and because your hot sister promised she’d meet me before her first class.”

“Please don’t use ‘hot’ and ‘sister’ in the same sentence.”

“Sorry.” Tex cleared his throat. “I’m here because your sexy sister promised she’d meet me before her first class.”

“And I’m leaving.” I rolled my eyes. “Tell my not-sexy, not-hot sister that she needs to answer her damn phone.”

“Will do!” Tex saluted. “Don’t trip over the rainbow, sunshine!”

I flipped him off and jogged in the opposite direction to the business building. I was technically a senior in college, though I truly only had three credits left before I’d be able to leave. I’d enrolled in electives so I could stay a student for the rest of the fall semester. I was seriously thinking about failing my last few classes so I could stay spring semester, too. I had to do something—no way was I going to be the only one not at Eagle Elite, not with the Sicilians rowing their boats across the Atlantic at this very moment.

I’d only been given control of the school because my family owned it. Clearly it was all a front. I needed access to everything, and therefore the dean had looked the other way when I enrolled in certain classes and dropped others. I’d been working for four straight years trying to discover who had killed Trace’s parents when she was six. And after all those years of trying to clear my family name, it just seemed like now everything was going backward and spinning out of control. The last thing I needed was the Sicilians breathing down my neck for raising hell these past few weeks.

“Mr. Abandonato,” my senior seminar professor announced the minute I stepped foot into the classroom. It was a tiny class of only about fifteen students, all of them too engrossed in talking and texting to care that I was late. None of them even noticed that I looked like I’d just gotten back from visiting the seventh circle of Hell and had a meet-and-greet with Satan himself.

“Yes?” I tried not to appear as irritated as I felt. As it was, I knew I was only about five seconds away from losing my shit. “What can I do for you?”

My words held a double meaning. My asking what I could do for him. He knew who I was; he knew what my family did. I always chose my words carefully for that very reason. Most people asked for favors in public—not in private. So the art of deception was my specialty. If he answered that he needed something taken care of, then I’d know he wanted to deal with Nixon Abandonato, mafia boss. If he laughed and started spouting out nonsense instructions about school, then he just wanted to talk to plain old Nixon.

Sometimes I wondered what normal would be like. For example, what does it feel like to wear jeans without hiding a gun on your leg? Or not feeling leery about every single person that looks at you cross-eyed? Sleeping was overrated, and now I was running on pure adrenaline.

“We have a new student.” Mr. Ryan’s gaze flickered to the front of the room. My eyes followed his. Rage mixed with that very same adrenaline, making my hands shake as I balled them into fists.

“Shit.” A few students looked in my direction, then gazed back at their phones as my eyes slowly took in the new student. I could probably scream “fire!” and their asses would still be firmly planted in their seats. Idiots, all of them.

“Pardon?” Mr. Ryan said. “Do you know one another?”

“Oh,” a hiss of air escaped my lips as I marched over to the desk. “You could say that.”

“Well,” Mr. Ryan said from behind me. “If you could show him around, it would be much appreciated. After all, you are senior class president.”

“That I am,” I answered. I stopped in front of the new student’s desk and whispered, “How the hell did you get in?” I was so close to his face that I could see the faint bruising across his nose—telling me one thing. He wasn’t there by choice—he’d been forced; not that he’d ever admit defeat. My nostrils flared as he licked his lips, taking his time in answering.

He leaned back in his chair, his long dark hair covering part of his face. “You think you’re the only one with connections, Abandonato?”

“Of course not.” I gripped the sides of his desk and leaned in until my face was inches from his. “I just didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to pick a side.”

“I didn’t pick. I was chosen. They want someone to investigate. Somebody trustworthy needs to be on the inside. It’s not like they can enroll in college.”

“Really?” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my knife, sliding it across the desk toward his stomach. “And I’m not?” I tilted my head to the side. “Careful how you answer, Faust. I wouldn’t hesitate to slice you open where you sit.”

Ever since Faust had accused Trace of asking for it, when she was nearly raped, he’d been on my shit list. He was from one of the Original Sicilian families and a big giant pain in my ass.

He leaned in so that my blade was literally poking a hole through his white cotton shirt. “Do it. Then Trace won’t have anyone protecting her, or her grandfather. The Alferos are officially at war with the rest of us. Pick a side, Nixon, or I’ll pick for you.”

“Class!” Mr. Ryan clapped his hands. “Everyone take their seats.”

I pulled the knife back and hid it in my hand. “This isn’t over.”

“Of course not.” Faust smiled, his eyes darkening with smug satisfaction as he nodded toward me and answered, “It’s just begun.”

The minute class was over I walked over to Faust’s desk. I should have seen this one coming—which was another reason Chase was Tracey’s bodyguard instead of me. I wasn’t thinking clearly—and it was all because of her. My focus was on protecting her but in the process I was losing my touch.

Which meant only one thing.

I needed to put the fear of God into Faust before he went back and reported to whatever family the Sicilians had sent.

The door shut. I slowly turned the lock on it. I removed a poster from the wall and used it to cover the small window in the middle of the door, then turned back to face Faust.

He was leaning against his desk. “You can’t kill me.”

I smiled as adrenaline pumped through my system. I clenched my hands into tight fists and relished the feeling of blood soaring through my veins. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Faust’s smile fell from his face as I charged him from the side and slammed his body against the brick wall. His arms came up to stop me but I had him pinned with the weight of my body. Knife in hand I held it to his throat. “Who did they send?”

Faust swallowed against my metal blade, causing his skin to catch slightly on the edge. A trickle of blood fell from the small cut his movement had made. He stilled.

Faust wasn’t answering.

Fine. I’d play.

I threw the knife behind me and punched him across the jaw. His head made a cracking noise as it slammed against the brick wall. I didn’t want to knock the guy out, so I pulled him away from the wall and threw him into the desks. Cursing, he fell to the ground and then got up.

“Is that all you got, Nixon? Losing your touch?”

Oh, hell no. I lunged for him. Just as he moved out of the way, I caught his foot. He tripped, slamming his body against the floor. I dragged him by his heel to the closest window I could find and opened it.

We were on the second floor. The fall probably would do a lot of damage; maybe if he landed on his feet we’d be lucky and he’d break both legs on his own. Either way, I just hoped nobody was on this side of campus. I figured most people would already be in their next classes.

With a grunt I lifted him onto the windowsill and grabbed the front of his shirt. “Here’s how this is gonna work.” I smirked. “You either tell me who sent you, or we participate in a physics lesson. How fast would you fall from twenty feet, you think? And how many bones would you break, if you survived the fall and all that.”

“You wouldn’t kill me.”

“I would.” I blinked. “In fact, the idea gets more and more enticing the longer I look at your shit-eating face.”

Faust’s nostrils flared. Impatient, I punched him in the nose and grabbed his shirt again before he fell. “Think, Faust.”

“Nicolosi,” he spat. “The Nicolosi family is investigating. They arrived two days ago.”

Stunned, I could only hold him in place. Forget killing him; I wanted to jump out the window myself.

Any family but the Nicolosis. I’d thought they’d send one of the original Sicilian families, but not the original family.

Not the family that Trace’s grandfather had singlehandedly forced out of America—when they had enough money and power to have a say. What was worse—our family had helped them do it. Granted that was all before the Romeo and Juliet drama had exploded onto the scene with all of our parents, but still.

Son of a bitch.

“I can tell by your horrified expression you were hoping for someone else,” Faust grunted.

I pulled him back into the classroom and punched him so hard in the jaw that he fell into a cold heap on the floor. I wiped my bloody hands on my jeans and walked out of the room.

Mr. Ryan was waiting in the hall. “Do I even want to know?”

“Nah…” I shook my head and offered him a smile. “That may just get you killed.”

“Is there a body in my classroom?” His tone was calm, as if he were asking if I wanted a drink of water or a can of soda.

“I couldn’t say.” I shrugged. “But maybe cancel the rest of your afternoon classes.”

Mr. Ryan nodded and pulled out his phone. “Sending the e-mail now. I’ll put a note on the door, too.”

“Thanks.” I’d made it halfway down the hall when Mr. Ryan’s voice rang out.

“You, uh, have a knife sticking out of your leg.”

Shit. I looked down. So that was why Faust was smiling. Didn’t feel it. I was so used to getting the crap beat out of me that I rarely reacted when attacked. When you react out of pain or fear, you pause, giving your enemy time to kill you. “So I do, Mr. Ryan. Have a good day.”

I reached down and pulled the small knife from my thigh and wiped the blood on my jeans. I needed to change before Trace saw me. She would flip.

I seriously needed to stop pissing Nixon off, but it had been a knee-jerk reaction, kissing Trace on the hand. If he didn’t want me playing friendly with his girlfriend, he shouldn’t have ordered me to be her personal bodyguard every freaking day of the school week.

I was in a living hell and nobody knew it but me.

“Can we skip?” Trace asked as we walked to her third class of the day. It was a KI class, one I knew she hated because it was all about self-defense. To be honest, she needed that and more, so I put my foot down even though her gorgeous smile was killing me inside.

“Nope.” I put my arm around her. “Just imagine Phoenix’s face when you’re punching Spike.”

Trace shuddered beneath my arm. “Yeah, when I imagine Phoenix I have a knife to his balls. Pretty sure that would either scar Spike for life or get me kicked out of Elite.”

“Fair enough.” I pulled her closer. “He’s taken care of, Trace. Nobody’s seen him in two weeks. He’s either in hiding or across the Atlantic. He’s not stupid enough to attack you again. Let Nixon do his job. We may not be able to kill him for what he did to you—but we sure as hell can make his life a bitch.”

Trace nodded, but didn’t say anything. I knew she was still traumatized over the whole ordeal. Shit, I was still traumatized and I’d done my fair share of dirty work in the name of the Abandonato family. Finding her on the floor with her clothes bloody and ripped from her body was one of the most horrifying experiences of my life.

I still wanted to kill Phoenix.

But Nixon wouldn’t let me.

It had to do with some sort of code about killing off direct descendants of mafia bosses and them being next in line. Considering Phoenix’s dad got a bullet to his head a few weeks ago by Trace’s grandfather, our hands were literally tied.

Didn’t mean I couldn’t dream about his death every freaking day. It seemed unfair that the bastard could breathe the same air as Trace, let alone walk around as if he hadn’t tried to kill her.

“You’re late,” Trace’s professor announced when we walked in.

“My fault,” I lied. “My shoe was untied, I fell, pulled Trace down with me, got her shirt all—muddy, and she had to go change.”

Professors hated me. Nixon was the golden boy, kind of like a god around this place. I was just the assistant, the one who did the dirty work. Didn’t help that my grades were less than stellar ever since I’d been trying to get homework done while Trace slept. It was the only free time I had.

Keeping her safe was a full-time job. Not that I was complaining.

The professor’s sharp eyes focused on me with chilling indifference. “You’re wearing boots without strings, the sun’s shining, and one more tardy and your grade falls, Tracey.”

“Ouch,” I mumbled next to her, “I can order a hit on any professor you want, just remember that.” I patted her back and winked at the professor.

Trace rolled her eyes, but it did make her smile.

“Your partner has fallen ill, so you’ll be working with Chase today.” With that, the cranky professor walked to the front of the room. “Now, today we’re working on footwork and self-defense techniques. Instruction packets are on the desk; be sure to work through every scenario before you leave.”

Trace grumbled beside me and went to fetch a packet. Her face fell when she read the first page. “I-I can’t, Chase. I can’t…”

Suddenly, the Trace I was used to was a shadow of her former self. Shaking, she wrapped her arms around my neck like I was her lifeline, her savior, her everything. As much as I hated seeing her freaked out—my body responded to her proximity like she was my gravity. She gave another shudder. I gently pulled her away and looked into her fear-stricken eyes.

“What the hell?” I grabbed the papers from her and quickly scanned the first scenario.

A guy and girl alone in his apartment. He tries to take advantage of her, she gets away but he’s able to grab her wrist and overpower her on the ground. What do you do?

Freaking hell.

I reached for Trace’s hand and squeezed it. “It’s just you and me, Trace, okay? You’ll power through this, and you know why?”

Her hand shook inside mine.

“Because you’re an Alfero.” I gritted my teeth and pulled her closer to me. “Do Alferos back down?”

“No,” Trace whispered.

“I’m sorry; what was that?”

“Hell no.” She nodded.

“Do you let people walk all over you? Do you let people attack you, Trace?”

“No.” Her nostrils flared as she jerked her hand away from mine and glared.

“Good girl.” I nodded. “Now, try not to forget that it’s me, not Phoenix. I’m really partial to my anatomy, and I’d like to, you know, in the future have kids someday.”

Rolling her eyes, she took a stance next to me. I muttered up a prayer as I quickly tripped her and pushed her down against the mat. She struggled against me, but I held her wrists firmly above her head—just like Phoenix had. Shit, it was killing me. Her face contorted in pain as she closed her eyes, and shook her head back and forth. I waited for the fear to pass—waited for the moment when her body would switch from being terrified to being pissed. But it was hard as hell.

I could shoot a man twice my age in cold blood.

I’ve buried more bodies than I can count.

I’ve grown up around drugs, prostitution, and the gambling underworld.

Nothing—and I mean nothing—had ever been harder to do than forcing Trace to relive one of the worst moments of her life. Nothing was more necessary than that she do it, so I held her. I held her and I leaned in.

“Fight back.”

She squirmed beneath me, I could see the panic welling in her eyes. Maybe I was wrong, maybe she would crumple under the pressure, but she had to learn how to defend herself. As much as I wanted to be—I knew I wasn’t part of her future, I wouldn’t always be able to protect her. I gripped her harder. Trace’s nostrils flared as she took in a few deep breaths.

“Trace,” I whispered hoarsely as her body moved against mine. Shit, I wasn’t counting on my physical response to her, to being so damn near… Swearing, I tried to focus. “Think, Trace, think about how to move my weight, or use it to your advantage.”

Her eyes narrowed, and then she wrapped her leg around me and pulled my body tight against hers, making it so I couldn’t gain any leverage. It was a smart move; most people wasted their energy on trying to get the person off of them, then they gave up.

It was always wise, when in such a situation, to not fight against but fight with. Trace used her other leg to swing it around my body and then slowly pushed me so that I was on my side and she was on top of me. She wasn’t able to gain quite enough leverage, though. In seconds I had her flat on her back again.

In that moment, seeing a bit of sweat pouring down her face, I hated Nixon all over again.

Because he knew he was torturing both of us. He knew how damn . . .