Chapter One: Aconite pt 1

I drum my glossy red fingernails along the patent leather steering wheel as two guards take a painstakingly long time to scan my car for explosives. If they take any longer I’ll be the one exploding.

I was busy cultivating my batch of nerium oleander – more commonly known as oleander – a strikingly beautiful flower that is extremely deadly from root to petal due to containing lethal cardiac glycosides known as oleandrin and neriine. However, I was interrupted by a call from Uncle Dimitris begging me for a favour. As my favourite uncle, I couldn’t say no, but then again, no one says no to the most powerful νονοί in Athens.

With my car finally cleared, the gates in front of me open and I am ushered through. I step on the gas and begin weaving through the familiar winding road umbrellaed by Mediterranean Cyprus trees. The road eventually opens to an expansive gravel driveway filled with cars all parked in neat rows, which alerts me to the meeting going on inside. I can even see my father’s car parked closest to the house.

The large driveway lays beside a pristine, white luxurious 2.600sq.m mansion built on a 4.675sq.m plot of land. The white stone it’s made from is so perfectly white it causes a glare in the midday sun, but I’m not here to admire the home I practically grew up in. I park my car, get out, and make my way through the compound until I come to the outdoor sitting area. Guests are given a delightful reception when they walk past the 10x20m swimming pool that resides at the front of the house. Its crystal blue waters look all the more luxurious framed by the majesty of the mansion behind it. Can’t tell you how many times they’ve had to pull a body out of that pool, not to mention the number of times blood has damaged the filter; several occasions at the least.

I make my way down the length of the pool and walk up one of the two mirrored winding staircases at the front of the mansion that leads to the second floor. As I approach the double-glass patio doors, two strapping bodyguards look me over and nod in approval.

“He’s waiting for you,” the one on the left greets as he opens the patio door for me.

I step inside with my head held high and a ‘don’t fuck with me’ posture as I enter the bar area. Men are seated all around the spacious room either mixing drinks at the bar, playing chess on a lounge, poker on the couch, or reading a book in one of the small nooks. Each of these men is dressed in a black suit with unconcealed guns holstered at their sides or on their hips. Each is a bodyguard for one of the twelve heads of the Drakos Mafia family.

The two men at the far end of the room look up from their books and smile in my direction giving me a warm nod, and I return a nod in greeting. Ajax and Castor are my father’s bodyguards and have been for the last twenty-seven years. Four years longer than I’ve been alive, meaning I’ve known them from the day I was born. My father trusts these men with his life and so do I.

There are only a handful of women here, wives or daughters of some of the family heads. You won’t ever find my mother sitting with these women. My mother should be in Columbia right now on assignment, but even if she wasn’t, she’s not like these women. These women all bow their heads and follow their husband's commands, whereas my mother would drop dead before she allowed herself to be like them. I would take a different approach. I’d happily kill any man who expected me to be his trophy, or worse, his incubator.

I walk to the double doors across the room and just as I place my fingers on the handle, a strong hand clamps down on mine. I slowly look up curiously manner at the 6’4 brute who dared place his hairy paw on me.

“You can’t go in there,” he says harshly.

“Oh?” I casually ask.

“No women allowed,” he says smugly, his gold tooth glinting at me. This malaka should have spent that money to fix his bald patch.

“I suggest removing that hand if you want to keep it,” I say politely.

He throws his head back and laughs, “You think I’m scared of a tiny thing like you?” He says as he looks me over, hunger burning in his eyes as he drags his tongue across his lower lip, and I can feel my stomach ready to heave.

I smile at him, and with cat-like reflexes take a firm grip of his dick and balls, digging my almond-shaped acrylic nails into his flesh as I watch his face turn bright red and contort in pain; a cry escaping him, the sound of which is akin to a dolphin being strangled. From the corner of my eye, I can see men cringing and cupping their balls, while Ajax and Castor are hiding in their books trying not to laugh.

“Now, why don’t you be a good boy and go find an available vacuum, because, with an attitude like that, it’s the only thing that will let you stick your dick inside it,” I say icily, giving his family jewels another squeeze as I push him away and watch him drop to the ground and curl up in the foetal position. How utterly pathetic.

I look over at Ajax and Castor and throw them a wink that has them breaking composure and busting out laughing.

“They never learn, do they?” Castor says between laughs.

I smile, open the double wooden doors, and step inside.