Chapter One
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Daciana’s POV.
“Personally, I think that my idea is innovative and would be very beneficial for the company moving forward.”
I snort at Peter’s statement, and it goes quiet in the boardroom. I shift in my seat as all eyes turn on me.
“Daciana, do you have something to add?” My boss, Kirsten, calls me out across the table.
I clear my throat and sit higher in my chair. “I just find it amusing that Peter is trying to pass off the pitch as his own. Several of us overheard Melanie telling him the same idea three days ago in the breakroom.”
At the mention of the conversation that took place in the staff kitchen earlier in the week, Peter’s face turns red. Kirsten swivels her chair to face him.
“Is this true, Peter?” Her tone is level but her eyes are accusing.
He splutters and tries to back-track. “It’s a collaborative idea! Sure, she put forward the foundations, but really, it was only groundwork for me to add my own flair to it.”
“What flair? You copied her idea completely, you’re just lucky she’s not in this meeting to defend herself,” I retort. “It’s probably why you chose to pitch it today.”
Melanie is a friend of mine and Peter is a dick. I call out dickheads and I’m not shy about it. It doesn’t matter that Peter is higher up than me in the company, I don’t care. I say how I feel, my father raised me that way. Besides, if my mouth doesn’t say it, my face definitely will.
“Peter, you know that we give credit where it is due at this company,” Kirsten admonishes him. “If you are using Melanie’s idea, whether it be the foundations or all of it, you must give her credit.”
I keep the mouth shut for the rest of the meeting having said my piece. Peter glares at me but I ignore him. I eat guys like him for breakfast.
At the end of the day, I grab my handbag and walk the fifteen flights of stairs down to the lobby. Outside on the street, my driver is already waiting in the grey SUV.
Olivier, my chauffeur, bodyguard, and all-round lifesaver, gets out of the vehicle and opens the door for me.
“Miss Creţu,” he addresses me politely.
“Mr Saunders,” I reply and his lips twitch with a smile.
A long time ago, I asked Olivier to call me by my first name. He refused, so I refuse to call him by his, too. It’s a very formal exchange between us, it implies a relationship less warm than the one we have in reality.
Creţu means curly in Romanian, that’s where my family are from, Romania. My hair is chestnut brown and falls in tight curls to my elbows. It’s even longer when I straighten it, which I do occasionally.
I get into the back and immediately start going through my emails. I’ve left work, but I’m already checking my emails again. I’m a workaholic, it keeps me distracted from-
“Miss Creţu, I’m afraid your brother has asked that I take you straight to the family home, rather than your flat. We will be there in twenty minutes.”
At the mention of my brother, my stomach turns, and I feel instantly nauseous. My hand fumbles for the window button, I press it and it whirs down, giving me a blast of fresh air.
“Did he say what it is about?” I ask him.
Our eyes meet in the rear-view mirror.
“No, Miss. But, a word of warning, he didn’t sound…pleased.”
I curse under my breath. My phone has become sweaty in my palms, a mist forms on the screen. I wipe it on my pencil skirt. I shuck out of my blazer, knowing I will sweat through my satin blouse if I keep it on. This is my body’s reaction to him always; panic and heat up.
I am twenty-one years old and my older brother, Grigore, scares the living daylights out of me. That’ll happen when your brother is your childhood bully. Hell, he’s still my bully now.
He never beat me properly, Dad would have killed him, but he got some good punches in here and there, avoiding my face to hide it from Dad. Our father was the one person my brother was afraid of. Now that he’s gone, he has taken his place. That man can do intimidation like no other.
From the moment I was born, I knew my family was different. My mother died when I was ten and I realised then how much she had done to protect me from my family. My dad was a mob boss, no doubt about it. He never outright told me as much, but I had my suspicions growing up.
We have always been very wealthy, my childhood memories include constantly having bodyguards with us and around the home, and I was the only kid at school whose house had barbed-wire fencing around it. I thought at first my father had a successful job that maybe made him a target, but then there were moments where I would find drops of blood in his office, or hushed conversations behind closed doors talking of clients and ordering hits, or bound men being bundled into unmarked vans at ungodly hours of the morning.
My dad was murdered when I was seventeen. My brother told me that someone had shot him in his office and that he would find out who did it and punish them. I was upset when it happened, but I didn’t feel anything like the sadness that I had felt when my mother died. My father was a brutal and sometimes cruel man. He left barely any space for me in his life and, when he did talk to me, it was mostly criticisms.
The only good things that he taught me were how to stand up for myself -except to Grigore- and that being a Creţu means something in life, the name brings respect with it. I only have to say my last name to certain people and things happen faster, people are more polite and, the majority of the time, they have fear in their eyes.
Yep, there is no question that my dad was in the mafia. My brother has simply taken over his position.
I usually avoid Grigore like the plague and stay out of the family business. I have my own flat and my own unexciting job at a marketing company in the city. My brother lives in our childhood home, a mansion, on the outskirts. It is only very rarely that he calls on me and it never brings good news.
The car pulls up in front of the steps and I get out with mixed feelings running through me. I have some good memories of the house, particularly ones with my mother. I have a lot of awful memories, too. My father making me cry because he compared me to my brother, telling me that I was weaker, less important. My brother, hitting me when I didn’t do exactly as he said, calling me a pathetic waste of space when I told him I was moving out to go to university.
I had three years without him, and it was heaven. He kicked off each year when I didn’t come home for Christmas, but made me come to his annual birthday parties, where he lost his temper again because my presence annoyed him. He is seriously messed up. I’m surprised I’m not, too.
I slowly climb the steps, gripping the straps of my handbag. I can feel the breeze against my skin, but I’m too hot and nervous for it to feel cold. My four-inch heels click against the slate paving stones. Olivier rushes ahead of me and gets the door.
“Thank you, Mr Saunders,” I manage to murmur.
He walks a few paces behind me as I head straight for my father’s old office, where Grigore no doubt is waiting. My hand shakes a little as I knock on the door.
“Come in.”
That voice. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me. I take a deep breath, straighten my shoulders, and enter the room I’ve always dreaded being in.
Looking like the spitting image of our father when he was younger, Grigore sits at the desk with his feet up. His coal-black hair is lacquered back from his face. His eyes are cold and show how emotionally dead he is inside. His lips are curled into a constant sneer. He looks me up and down and nods at Olivier.
“Shut the door.”
I give Olivier an apologetic look. My brother has never been one for manners. He closes the door, giving me an apologetic look right back. I know he doesn’t want to leave me alone with this psychopath. I turn back towards my brother.
“How are you, Grigore?” I ask politely.
He takes his feet down and sits up straighter.
“Just peachy, Ana.” He purposefully uses the nickname he knows I hate. “I won’t ask how you are, because I know how you’re going to feel in a few moments.”
I swallow hard and watch him circle around the desk to sit on the front of it. I take a subtle step back to put some more distance between us. I know better than to push him, so I wait for him to talk, even though the anticipation is killing me. He steeples his fingers in front of his mouth and smirks.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sit? I have some news that will come as quite a shock to you.”
