Hired

Angelica

I crept close enough to the headstone to touch it and traced the name with shaky fingers.

Hyacinth St. Clair.

It had taken me way too long to understand why it was here. Mama was not laid to rest here. Uncle Robert had picked me up right after their funeral in Arcron. I knew right where they were buried—in the humongous garden of my childhood home, right next to the ancient abandoned cathedral that had come as a package deal when my parents bought their house. Yet every year on the anniversary of their death, Uncle Robert brought me here.

I had known for years that the grave was empty. Every time he made me buy hyacinths and place them on this empty grave, I thought he wanted to make up for the fact that I couldn’t go back to my childhood home. But now, I knew why.

I tilted my head and placed my other hand on his headstone. He had asked to be laid to rest next to Hyacinth St. Clair should he ever die. It made no sense to me, since I knew he was not trying to be close to his sister in death. He had also strictly prohibited any picture of him on his headstone—yet another odd requirement. I now realized what it looked like to the outside world.

With no picture to show the similarity between him and that of the smiling woman right beside him, they looked like a couple and I was the daughter they left behind. Uncle Robert had erased my identity without saying a word of it. If anyone ever went snooping around for my identity, all they would come up with was the daughter of Hyacinth and Robert St. Clair—the exact reason why he had adopted me seven years ago.

The Arcieros didn’t know him. Countless people tried to dig dirt on them for more reasons than they could count. Maybe they thought he was an investigative reporter or private investigator. A bug they could crush without consequence. I could face Fergus Arciero and tell him my name and it wouldn’t even ring a bell. If I introduced myself as Angelika Giannelli, however, that would be a different tale.

I wanted to do it. I wanted to douse their empire in gasoline and send it ablaze. And while they burned to death, I wanted to remind them of their betrayal. Or better yet, I wanted to stab each one of them and watch them choke on their blood as their worst nightmare played out before them. Letting me live was their worst mistake and I wanted them to regret it all the way to their graves.

But not just yet. I had spent four years learning everything I could about them and I wasn’t ready to let them die in one go. What was the fun in that? I had a much better idea. I was going to torture them like they tortured my family, take them through hell and back, and only then would I let them die.

I had spent the last four years investigating them and although I didn’t have any destructive information yet, I had a plan set in stone.

Out of the innumerable men in the Arciero family, Miles Arciero was the most useful. There was nothing hard about getting close to a womanizer who would hit on anything remotely pretty but he was too smart to not get suspicious if I appeared before him out of the blue. Luckily, I knew what drove him crazy. He desired everything his half-brother had. Their late grandfather’s acknowledgment which he never succeeded in getting, his achievements, the nightclub Curtis owned. I had a feeling if Curtis cast a second glance at any woman, she would be ten times more attractive in Miles's eyes.

No matter how sick this obsession was, it worked in my favor. Half brothers with rivalry worse than that of arch enemies; one more cautious than a wild rabbit, but who I could easily get information out of, and the other approachable but with lips sealed tighter than Fort Knox. The two balanced each other so perfectly that it was a shame they were not each other’s favorite sibling.

I spent weeks racking my brain for the least suspicious way to approach Curtis Arciero and when I finally found a loophole, something horrible but insanely convenient happened. Nana Simone had a seizure that led to the discovery of a blood clot in her brain.

It was nothing urgent. The surgery could be done any time within three months and I could pay it off using some of my inheritance.

But the persona I had created for myself would never be able to afford the astronomical price. She would need to find a part-time job desperately. So, in my attempt to be subtle, I tried to apply for a job in countless places where I knew I wouldn’t be hired even if the bosses turned a blind eye to my resume, then I tried my luck in the nightclub where the bosses cared about nothing but beauty—Inferno.

_______

Getting the chance to interview was not nearly as easy as I thought. I had bribed my way in and taken someone else’s place and when I finally faced Heston Cirillo, I wanted to die from his stare.

“You are nothing like Siren described.” His eyes roamed over me like I was a specimen under the lens of a microscope.

“Of course not.” I huffed. He was probably talking about the redhead whose place I had stolen. This had been a miscalculation on my part. I was supposed to bump into Curtis. I had worked out the best time to show up at Inferno, only for my dress to rip thanks to my struggle with the zipper. After emptying out my closet and finding nothing worthy of wearing to a nightclub, I gritted my teeth and draped on this sundress. I looked horribly out of place but it was for the best. My persona would not have the confidence to wear the dress I had chosen anyway. I was supposed to be an innocent little angel.

But the way Heston was looking at me, he might as well kick me out.

“You don’t have the image we are looking for.” He finally concluded.

“What are you looking for?” I asked insistently. “A face plastered in makeup? I can do that. I draw my eyeliner perfectly and know the shades of lipstick that suit me.”

“It’s not that. It’s…” He looked down at my body, trying not to be crass. “Do you know the first thing about attracting a man?”

I knew what he was trying to imply in so many indirect words. They wanted women with irresistible, perfect hourglass figures. Lucky for them, I was about to give them one.

Heston’s jaw was nearly on the floor when I pulled my dress off. Underneath the innocence of my boring sundress, I was wearing a matching set of red underwear. Nothing too flashy but enough to make Heston—who’d feasted his eyes on countless naked women—to be rendered speechless.

I felt nothing from his gaze as he assessed me. I treated it as an interview of sorts.

“So Siren was not entirely wrong about you.” He rubbed his chin. “Have you ever danced on a pole?”

I grabbed my dress off the floor, returning to the cocoon of innocent Angelica. “I could learn. I can dance but I’ve never tried it on a pole.”

“No one has the time of day to…”

“Heston.” A deep, sultry voice interrupted him from sending me away. I felt a chill down my spine, knowing who it was before I raised my head to meet his gaze. And when I did, my breath hitched as those gray eyes explored my skin, inch by inch.

Curtis was checking me out and he was not even trying to be subtle. His eyes lingered on my torso… or lower? I couldn’t quite tell. I was suddenly aware that my dress was merely covering my chest. I had forgotten to cover up my lower body. I had the strongest urge to shift my dress to cover me up but at the same time, I didn’t want him to take his eyes off me.

It was stupid, and as soon as I realized that, I cleared my throat.

“Get dressed,” Curtis ordered. I slipped my dress on in one fell swoop, feeling my heart finally return to its place in my chest. What the hell was that?

A woman came sauntering over in her high heels moments after, whining about missing the chance to see my body up close.

I frowned as I watched her and Curtis bicker back and forth like close friends. Olivia Reynolds? What the hell was she doing here?

She dismissed Heston, to my relief, and came over to introduce herself. “I take it you are one of us now? I’ll be happy to show you around. I’m Siren.”

Siren?

That was not her name. I had found her name and pictures as I investigated the Arciero family’s enemies. It turned out, Curtis already had one of his enemies beside him and he didn’t even know it. Maybe the Reynolds and the Giannellis could ally over this.

With this in mind, I placed my hand in Siren’s, fighting the urge to call her by her real name. “It’s nice to meet you, Siren.” Then I lowered my voice to add, “Heston thinks we know each other.”

“Of course we do.” She winked and I smiled. If she was here for the same reason as me, we might share some drinks once the Arcieros are six feet down where they belong.

“Let me show you around.” She led the way. I followed quietly, delighting in the realization that I had leverage over her that she knew nothing about.