SWNOVELS Alluring Darkness: Chapter 3
Only the faint murmur of nurses talking in another room disturbs the silence. Sitting on a chair next to Connor’s bed, I watch the way his chest slowly rises and falls as he sleeps. Then I shift my gaze up to his bruised face.
He looks nothing like me. Dad passed on his straight black hair to both of us, but apart from that, no one would ever guess that we’re siblings. Connor got Dad’s gray eyes and unremarkable features. It’s not an ugly face. Nor a beautiful one. It’s completely bland. The kind of face that people forget the second it’s gone. In other words, the perfect face for an assassin. Our grandfather had the same kind of features. And his father before him too. It’s part of what made the Smith family such a legendary house of hitmen. At least before everything went to hell.
Tilting my head back, I stare up at the gray concrete ceiling and heave a deep sigh.
We used to be rich. And I mean filthy rich. We used to have wealth on par with what the Hunter family must have, who can apparently afford to buy four of the latest model Range Rovers for their sons without issue. I still remember the extravagant gifts that Dad would always bring home to Mom after he had completed some high-profile job or other.
But that fortune is gone now.
And so is Dad.
Because of one fucking mistake.
I don’t know all the details, since at that point, my parents had been keeping me away from that world for years. But Mom told me that Dad had been hired by the Morelli mafia family to take out some politician. Apparently, Dad made some kind of mistake and everything went to hell. People died, including Dad. Money was lost. And it created one hell of a mess for the guy who had hired Dad for the job.
The next thing I knew, a man in an expensive black suit came to our house with a bunch of documents. I still remember the way Mom’s hand trembled when she signed away almost our entire fortune to him as repayment for the damage caused. It settled the score with the Morelli family, but it left our family on the brink of ruin. Both financially and socially.
And since our parents had declared me too unhinged to become a good assassin, the entire burden of restoring Dad’s legacy and our family name in the eyes of the underworld, as well as saving us from financial ruin, has fallen solely on Connor’s shoulders.
Sadness and guilt twist my heart as I look at my brother’s face again. He never speaks of it or shows it, but I know the immense pressure he’s under right now. And I have never been able to do anything to help him. But that is about to change.
“Raina?”
I startle at the sound of Connor’s voice. Shaking off the melancholy that had fallen over me, I blink and then flash my brother a smile. “What’s up, Con?”
He huffs out a laugh, but it’s quickly cut off as he winces and wraps a hand around his ribs. Pain stabs into my heart at the sight of it, but I keep it firmly off my features because I know that he would hate the pity.
“What are you doing here?” he asks once he has eased back onto the pillows again.
I frown at him as if that’s the stupidest question ever. “I’m memorizing the color and pattern of your bruises so that I can paint it later. What else would I be doing?”
Another baffled laugh almost erupts from his chest, but he manages to stifle it this time. Shooting me a mock scowl, he says, “Stop trying to make me laugh when you know that my ribs are bruised, you sadist.”
I just flash him a wicked grin.
Shaking his head, he huffs out an amused breath.
For a while, we just sit like that. In comfortable silence. Outside the door, two nurses walk past while discussing some other patient who, from the sounds of it, accidentally burned his eyebrows off during a chemistry class. I almost scoff at that. What kind of idiot doesn’t know how to handle dangerous chemicals properly?
“What are you really doing here?” Connor asks at last, breaking the silence in our room.
“Checking on you.” Seriousness descends over me as I hold his gaze while slowly shaking my head. “What the hell happened, Con?”
The fluffy white pillow lets out a huff as he drops his head back against it heavily while heaving a deep sigh. “I don’t know.”
“They told me you almost shot someone called Eli Hunter, and that he’s really not the kind of guy you take a potshot at.”
“I didn’t!” The words tear out of him with surprising force, and anger flickers in his gray eyes. “I didn’t aim for him. I swear, someone must have somehow sabotaged my rifle. I checked it before we went out on the exercise. But then there was like a five-minute window where we all had to listen to the instructors. Someone must have messed with it then.”
Worry washes over me, and I frown. “Who?”
“I don’t know. But I need to find out so that I can prove it to the Hunters. Otherwise, they’re going to keep coming at me all year. And I can’t graduate as one of the top three if I have those fucking psychos coming after me all the time.”
Another wave of sorrow crashes over me. I can hear the strain in his voice. Can hear the panic and fear he feels when he thinks that he might not be able to graduate at the top and restore our family’s honor.
As if he realizes that I noticed all that, he quickly wipes all traces of emotion from his face and instead gives me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about me, Raina. I’ve got this covered. Just go home and focus on your own studies. The world needs more skilled chemistry teachers.”
It’s true that I’m a skilled chemist. The teacher part, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about. But my parents decided that it was the best career path for me, so I took their advice and applied to the chemistry teacher program at our local university. Apparently, teaching high school students bleeds the patience and emotional stability out of every teacher, so my parents figured that it would be the best place for me to blend in. No one would notice that I’m a bit crazy since all teachers lose their shit after a few years on the job.
“Sure,” is all I reply since I have no plans on returning to that university. But Connor doesn’t need to know that yet. “Just… be careful, Con.”
“You too.”
He doesn’t promise that he will be careful. He never does. And neither do I. But neither of us comment on it, because we both know that any such promise would be a lie. He’s training to become a hitman, and I’m, well… me.
After gently patting his arm, I stand up from the chair and make my way out of the hospital wing. As I follow the corridors and stairs away from the administrative building and towards the actual university part of the building complex, I can’t help but feel a sense of dread.
I might be a shitty teacher, but I’m an even worse assassin. I’m not athletic. I can’t run for miles or pull myself up using only my arm muscles. I don’t know anything about how to blend into crowds or camouflage myself in different types of environments. My knowledge of knives only extends to chopping ingredients for food, and I’ve never even held a gun.
When I left my dorm to head to Connor’s room, the entire university had been empty because it was so early in the morning. But now, a mass of students fills the hallways. And as I sweep my gaze over their faces, that awful sense of dread washes over me again.
I am so fucking out of my depth here.
I am going to fail every single class.
And I don’t like failing. I don’t like feeling clueless and stupid. But Connor has been shouldering our family’s burden alone for far too long. Now, it’s time for me to help him.
I can’t restore our father’s legacy. I can’t be a top-rated assassin. But I can make sure that Eli Hunter’s wrath is solely focused on me so that Connor can finish his senior year without interference.
Straightening my spine, I draw in a bracing breath.
And then I walk into my first class.