Riot Hearts: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Saints of Crow Book 1) Page 2

  I’d almost not been able to contain myself during the funeral reception a couple of days ago. That girl was on my nerves and I had this unexplainable need to find out exactly what made her tick. I loved getting under her skin—and I needed it like my fix of the day.

  It hadn’t always been this way between us—the teasing, the challenging, the rivalry. We’d never liked each other, but for most of our youth, I was across the sea attending boarding school. The real passioned hatred hadn’t bloomed until two years ago when I came home and it has only escalated over the past months.

  For some reason, the dark-haired vixen was still on my mind when I sauntered out to my parked Maserati, that I’d just gotten painted matte black.

  “Finally,” Sebastian exclaimed when I approached him and Nicolas, who were leaning against my car. “What did it take so long for? Did you get your dick stuck in the toilet or something?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what happened,” I said with an eyeroll, reaching over to tousle his hair.

  He jerked his head away, shooting me with an offended glare as his hands touched his hair as if he protected something sacred. Nico and I snickered.

  “I got a business call. Had to take it,” I explained.

  The family company took most of my free time. People couldn’t deal without me. But I loved the company more than most things in my life. More than most people, too.

  “Careful there, you’re gonna scratch the new paint.” I cocked my brows at Sebastian in a scolding manner, pointing to where he was touching the paint. He grinned, giving me the finger.

  I had the great pleasure of calling these guys my younger brothers. At nineteen, Sebastian was Emory’s age. Nicolas was a year older than Sebastian and I was one year older than Nico.

  Sebastian snorted but Nicolas said nothing as we got into the car. It was like usual. Nicolas was the silent type while Sebastian was the loud one, and I alternated which side I put forward. I knew how to read people well enough to know how to behave to get the most out of them.

  Usually.

  When it came to the one person I wish I could read better than anyone, I was blanking out.

  Plugging the key into the ignition, the car roared silently to life. I put it in reverse but froze when a girl appeared in my side vision, two spots down on the parking lot.

  And there she was again. My incredulously hot childhood rival, getting into her white BMW 7. Her dark brown hair danced around her face in the wind. She was texting as her head was directed downwards. Something shy of a smile played on her hot, red lipstick-covered lips.

  But the sweet side of Emory Lauder had recently grown some balls, some fight. There was this internal flame in her now, and it annoyed the hell out of me. I wanted to snuff it out, and I didn’t care how petty that made me.

  It was coincidental we were down at the lawyers’ building at the same time, but it wasn’t that big of a town and we belonged to the same people. Our lives intertwined… even if we didn’t want them to.

  “You’re staring,” Nico pointed out from the passenger seat. His eyes flicked to Emory.

  His blue eyes moved as he scrutinized her while his dark brown hair was glued in place due to way too many hair products. Nico was the silent-killer type, and he definitely looked the part.

  The reason all our eyes were set on her was because our father had ordered us to stay away from her—keep her on our good side. Be decent and all that shit.

  I had no intention of doing so.

  Emory might have been right about me following my father’s lead and that itself made me loathe her even more. She saw right through me, even if she didn’t know.

  “See something you like, Riv?” Sebastian’s head popped up next to mine and I turned to set him with an icy glare. “You two are bound to get together at some point, even if only for a one-night stand. I call it. Put us out of our misery and do it already so your dick can move on.”

  “Shut your mouth and start worrying about whatever you worry about these days,” I bit back. “I’m observing. Which is useful if you want to beat someone.”

  “Whatever you say, brother. I’m just telling you, the fierce dislike between you guys is kind of hot.”

  I was about to grab him by the collar and tell him to shut his trap when Nico cleared his throat, leveling both of us with a reproving glare. “Father told us to keep our distance, observe, and not do anything foolish. So, in other words, you two shouldn’t be yourselves around her.”

  I snickered softly as I reluctantly hit the gas. Emory had already driven off. “Are you insinuating that I don’t know how to behave myself?”

  Nico looked me dead in the eye. “Usually, I wouldn’t doubt it. But with her, you’ve always been… unpredictable.”

  I snorted. So what if she made me a little unpredictable? That girl with the witty tongue and sassy eyes annoyed the hell out of me.

  “Trust us to keep our demons on a leash,” I said with a heavy eye roll as I hit the gas pedal harder, making us fly down the main street.

  I did, however, suspect Emory Rain Lauder had some demons of her own… And I would lie if I said I wouldn’t love to see her lose her shit.

  When arriving at the Sinclair estate, I was met with shouting even before we opened the door.

  “No. I’ve told you three times, don’t cook my meat in butter. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” my father roared to our chef, Lucy as we stepped through the front door. They were standing in the middle of the foyer, next to the white staircase.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can make you a new one. It’ll take five minutes, tops.”

  A moment of silence passed, and I believe Lucy held her breath for the longest second of her life until my father spoke. “No. I’ll grab dinner somewhere else. I have to stop by the office anyway.”

  Lucy nodded quickly. “Yes, sir. I will do better next time.”

  “No, there won’t be a next time. You’re fired.”

  Lucy looked like someone had stunned her with a taser. Father stormed away from her, striding over to us. He stopped in front of me with his brows pulled taut.

  “River,” he nodded once, “I found a couple of your drawings under your bed.” He said the word drawings with such distaste. “You know how I feel about that. You’re wasting your time.”

  My jaw clenched and I stared at him.

  I couldn’t understand how he ended up with someone as soft as Mom.. Or actually, I could. Mom came from a conservative Christian family, so she was used to the male being in control, and Father was just that. She was also a direct descendant of Saint Gregory Crow—as if that really mattered to anyone—but Father was always the man who sought power everywhere he could. I think Father forgot he didn’t become a saint by marrying her, nor a descendant of him—but my brothers and I were. Still, who the fuck cared? That so-called saint died ages ago.

  He shifted his focus to Nico. “Nicolas, Sebastian,” he greeted, giving another nod before straightening his red tie. His phone rang, and he took his cue to leave.

  Lucy was still standing outside the archway to the kitchen, still not moving.

  With a sigh, I walked over to her and she visibly cowered in front of me. My father yelled at her often, and most of the time she didn’t deserve it, but her generous paycheck made up for it in my opinion. The same could be said for our two housekeepers.

  “You’re not fired. He’ll expect you to have coffee and a late-night snack ready for him when he gets home. Something light for his stomach. Make a spinach salad with red onion, red pepper, and cucumber. Slices not dices. And balsamic vinegar.”

  The lengths of me being nice ended there, and I sauntered into the living room without another look at the brunette. Nico and Seb had already settled in the living room—Seb on the white leather sofa, worth around twenty grand, and Nico in the matching reclining chair. He’d pulled out his iPad and was doing some work from it.

  I lingered in the archway. My eyes wandered across the open-spaced room with floor
-to-ceiling windows giving a 180-degree view over the backyard with a pool house, fountain, and barbecue.

  “I’m heading out,” I announced dryly.

  Nico straightened. “What about the family meeting later?”

  I grit my teeth. How could I forget? Sucking my teeth, I considered my options, but with Father, there weren’t ever any. “I’ll be back in time. If he asks where I am, tell him you don’t know.”

  “Where are you going, exactly?” Seb asked.

  “My apartment.”

  I’d bought the condo this summer with my own money I had saved from working as an intern at a law firm. It was my own place. Father had nothing do with it, which I was most happy about.

  “Bye,” I called as I headed straight for the door I came through just minutes ago. An echoed bye came from the living room right before I closed the door.

  The apartment was located in the middle of the city, about a ten-minute drive out from the posh neighborhood the Sinclair estate and most of the other founding families lived in.

  I didn’t particularly like the location, but since my apartment was on the sixteenth floor, it worked out. It had a great view, especially during dusk and dawn when you could see the big flaming ball rise behind the city skyline far off in the distance.

  There was something magical about the sun during those hours of the day.

  I slept with my blinds open, so the sun woke me up in the mornings, and it was my favorite time of the day—so early, I felt like the only person awake in the entire world. It made me feel in control.

  Locking my way inside my apartment, I drew in the scent of my place. It smelled faint of wood, fire, and maybe a bit of acrylic paint.

  My atelier was upstairs, and since there were no full walls separating it from the rest of my apartment, the scent of acrylic always seemed to linger in the air, but I was just hyperaware of it. The scent of fresh paint happened to be one of my favorite smells.

  Walking right into my kitchen to the left, I grabbed an apple from a bowl on the kitchen island before taking the stairs.

  A piece I’d been working on for the last week was centered in the middle, standing there, mocking me on the easel. It was a big one. Her eyes on the canvas, painted with cerulean blue, stared back at me and made my skin crawl. The yellow, orange, red, and brown acrylics I’d chosen for the rest of it looked like a chaotic mess.

  I studied it through slits, scrutinizing it. The longer I looked, the more pent-up anger flooded to the surface.

  Everything looked wrong.

  The piece was trash.

  What the hell was I thinking when I made this?

  Stifling a snarl, I lifted my arm, tearing my nails through the canvas. Looking at it after, my fingers had torn through the painting right across.

  Relief rippled through me, but something dead and cold spread through my chest in the same moment.

  I dug my teeth into the apple and let the juices flood my mouth.

  It tasted bitter-sweet.

  I woke up around seven when sunlight blinded me through the sheer curtains. I’d always loved thin curtains, allowing privacy yet not blocking the sun out. Although I’d love to sleep in, I never did. As the saying went, successful people always woke up early.

  The first thing I did was go down to the kitchen to brew a coffee. On my way there, bitterness filled me when I saw all the flowers from the funeral. I hadn’t bothered to put them in vases, so most of them were dead.

  While I waited for the coffee to brew, a part of me half expected Gabriel to walk in through the living room with pants and an unbuttoned shirt on—late for something but totally chill about it as usual. Stupid brain.

  After breakfast, I went on a walk with Archer. The poor thing hadn’t nearly received as much attention as he deserved since I had no choice but to leave him with Carla most of the time.

  I was glad to have woken up early. Today was an important day. It was time for the will reading with my lawyer. It had been postponed until now due to the joke they called an investigation of my family’s deaths. It was all weird, but what could I do?

  I could claim there had to have been something more behind their deaths, but no one would listen to me, so I shoved the thought away for now.

  When I came back from my walk with Archer, I stripped out of my clothes and went down to the pool in the basement. It was my favorite place in the house.

  Diving into the blue and calm water, my worries washed away for the time being. The chillness cooled my stressed muscles and my brain was forced to shut down and take a break for a minute. In the water I was weightless. I had always loved swimming, especially in the sea. But due to pollutions and what not, I couldn’t bathe in the water off the coast.

  It was mid-August and classes at the local university didn’t start up for another month, so I stayed home with Archer the entire day. In the late afternoon, I headed out to Franklin, our family lawyer, at his office downtown. I’d known him since I was little, and I was thankful he was the one guiding me through their deaths.

  “Yeah,” Franklin said when he saw my knowing look on my face. “Since there’s no one else here, I guess you can tell you’re the main heiress.”

  I smiled awkwardly. “So, it’s true? I inherit everything?”

  He nodded. “Since your brother is deceased with no heir, you inherit everything except their art collection, taxed at 250,000 US dollars, which they donated to the art museum.”

  I snickered. They knew neither I nor Gabriel cared much for art.

  So, in the end, all the headlines turned out to be right. I inherited it all. Now I could only wait for more articles with my name painted all over it.

  “You’re now the majority shareholder of Lauder Inc. real estate and construction, and four sister companies. You’re the owner of four properties—the estate, a beach house in Los Angeles, and apartments in Paris and London. You also inherit four cars, a yacht, their entire fortune and belongings, plus their vote on the city board as a representative for your family,” he recited.

  I stared in front of me, overwhelmed by the massive wealth. I knew my family was rich, but I don’t think I completely understood the scope of how much we had—and how much responsibility that came with it now.

  In this town, stocks were the equivalent of candy for grown-ups. For me, though? I wasn’t sure yet. I knew how busy my parents had been with work; I’d lived with them. How was I supposed to do their job when I was starting my second year in college? I wanted to do this right—for them—but my schedule was already full.

  I didn’t want to be a sob story, though. People already pitied me, and I didn’t want them to. Maybe it was good people underestimated me, because then they wouldn’t see me coming.

  “You don’t look happy,” Franklin stated, leaning back in his leather chair.

  “No, yeah, I’m just overwhelmed,” I said before clearing my throat and straightening my shoulders. “So, for now the COO can handle the CEO duties over at Lauder Inc. When’s the next city meeting?”

  “Tomorrow. Saturday. You can authorize someone to decide in your stead if you wish to. All you have to do is inform me and I’ll handle the formalities.” Franklin folded up some papers and flicked through them. “But as for tomorrow, I think you’ll want to be there because the matters on the agenda includes your parents’ death. Over to another matter.” He flipped a folder he’d found open. “There’s a letter for you here.” He handed over a white envelope with my name on it in my mom’s handwriting. “Maybe you want to take it home and read it.”

  Home. A word that no longer held meaning to me.

  I plucked the letter from his hands, quickly enough so he couldn’t see how my hands trembled ever so slightly. “Thanks.”

  He cleared his throat. “I also recommend you write a will.”

  My head shot up. “A will?”

  “Yes. You don’t have an heir, and if something were to happen to you then… you catch my drift.” He shrugged, not seeming the least bit w
orried he predicted my early death.

  My brows had popped up and my mouth snapped shut as I did nothing but look at him. Who was I going to put in my will? Evie? My fricking classmates?

  “Sure,” I squeezed out. “I’ll think about it.”

  He smiled a stiff meaningless smile. “Great. Contact me when you’re ready and I’ll help you.”

  I left the office feeling like the weight of a sun had settled on my shoulder. My family’s legacy was heavier to bear than I had anticipated.

  The letter was like an old relic in my hands, and a lot like another blow to the gut.

  If my mom wrote this letter, she had to have known they possibly could have died. Right? And yes, it could be a precaution, but it would still mean a part of her thought their deaths were inevitable.

  She could’ve told me. Or talked to me. I don’t even know. Nevertheless, the letter felt like some kind of betrayal. Like I was left out of some important and vital information.

  And now I was supposed to write a will at the age of nineteen. How was I supposed to do that? God, it felt like I’d been put in a time-machine and shipped off thirty years into the future.

  How was I supposed to deal with all this shit? I wasn’t supposed to deal with stuff like this until I was at least fifty years old, but since I didn’t trust someone enough to hand over the reins to them, I had no other choice than to get used to it.

  I needed a break from all this funeral stuff, so I did what every normal nineteen-year-old would do, I called my best friend. Evie picked up after the second ring.

  “Hey, how did it go? Are you done with your lawyer now?” she asked, her voice soft.

  Sighing, I let my shoulders fall and pressed the button to the elevator. “He gave me a letter my mom wrote before she died.”

  “Oh.” She hesitated for a moment. “Do you want me to come over and read it with you?”

  I stepped into the elevator. “I don’t even know if I’ll read it.”

  Just because she wrote it did not mean I was obligated to read it.