Hidden: A Dark Mafia Romance (Forbidden Kiss Book 1) Read online

  “I’ll bargain. I won’t let her cheat me at all.” She said to herself as she ate the last of the cookies. But then she looked up into the woman's eyes again and could have sworn that she saw some sort of taunt in her eyes. Something telling her “yea right!!!” as far as her decision not to get cheated was made.

  When she was done with the cookies, she gulped down the coffee in two big gulps and realized that that the coffee had actually been well made and tasted nice. She smacked her lips in contentment and felt slightly ashamed of herself for assuming that coffee would be bad by the fact that she was in a town where the majority obviously preferred tea. She stole a glance at the waitress in hopes that she would see something she had not seen before. Something pleasant and even mildly attractive about her. As Far as the few seconds prove was concerned, she didn’t see much and she silently and mentally threw in the towel because she didn’t know what else to do.

  “You done yet?” she turned towards the voice and this time, the woman was not leering at her and definitely not glaring down at her with hungry eyes. She silently thanked her stars and rose out of the chair gently. She slid a few notes onto the table and wondered briefly if she could afford a tip.

  “Well... c’mon now!” the woman called with some pinkness coming into her face and Amie put her hand on her luggage and started to drag herself and the luggage after her. For some reason, she was feeling weak and almost like she needed to sleep. She knew however that there was no way she was going to sleep just yet. Maybe when she got to her new apartment... Maybe when she had dumped her luggage in some corner of the room, then and only then would she sleep off and not wake up until the next morning. The large breasted woman led her outside the tea place and then back into a door on the same block. It was a story building that looked old enough to fall. Amie fought the urge to ask the older woman just how old the building was and if it was even safe to live there. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with the building apart from the ancient look that it had and a few statues looking dislocated here and there. Her eyes roamed all over the place skeptically while the older woman looked for what she assumed were keys to the place. After what seemed like an eternity of looking through keys, the door swung open and they both made their entrance.

  “I don't always have to use my own keys. There is that good for nothing Dean that lives up there. He gets the door for me. Leave it to me to forget which key opens the main door to a building I own.” She said as she promptly launched into a long and detailed history of the place. Amie was not listening. In fact, she had technically zoned out on the rambling of the woman. The only concern on her mind being the general state and look of the house. She could have sworn that the house had not been repainted in all of the whatever centuries it had been standing there. The paints were faded out of recognition and she really couldn’t tell what colour had been on it before. It was a bleached out, faded out version of whatever colour was there at the beginning. There was almost nothing left of it and she could feel the rough surface of the walls as she followed the woman up the dark stairways.

  “has anyone actually been living here?” she asked as she pushed a stray spider web away from her eyes wondering how it got there considering the fact the woman had walked ahead of her on the stairs.

  “I told you girl... some idiot lives here too!”

  Amie frowned slightly and bit her lower lip. She was fast regretting her decision to follow the woman through the house. What if she was being kidnapped? What if she was one of those sociopath women on IDXtra? What if she was going to kill her and eat her liver like Hannibal Lecter? What if she was more like Jack the ripper? What if...

  “Here we are!” she declared as she stood at the top of the third flight of stairs and wheezed like an overweight elephant caught in a trap. She looked at her and wondered if she should thank her for taking the trouble to find her a house or yell her head off at her for bringing her through these ugly and dark hallways. She stepped forward towards the door that she indicated and said a silent prayer that she didn’t turn out to be a serial killer and she wasn’t about to gut her or cut her throat from ear to ear like those horror movies she had been seeing.

  “C’mon... go in. Check it out!”

  Amie walked into the room with bated breath. And just as she put one leg into the place, a fat rat scurried over her leg and disappeared behind the long couch that looked like it belonged in some devil's dungeon.

  “Oh my God!!!” she screamed as she jumped. It wasn’t the fear of rats that made her scream that loud as much as the suddenness of the movement. She jumped backwards and bumped into the large breasted woman that stood behind her. The woman lost her balance and fell backwards. Hitting the floor with a dull thud and Amie falling right on top of her.

  The wind was knocked out of both of them and they remained on top of each other for just a second longer.

  “Bloody hell! Trying to kill me, are you, girl?” The woman screamed at the top of her voice. Amie scrambled off her and managed to get to her feet. She then stretched out her hand to the heavy woman in the hopes that she would pull the woman to her feet. The woman took Amie’s outstretched hand and started to get up but her weight on the hand was too much and thus again, the both of them fell over each other. This time, Amie took a while to get up and when she eventually did? She was determined not to try and get the woman off the floor anymore. Once she was on her feet, she stood aside and waited for the woman to get off the floor. But she looked at Amie with her haunting eyes and said in an angry voice.

  “Hey! Help me up now will you? It’s was difficult enough walking up here for your sake... Now all you are doing is standing aside and watching me struggle with the floor!”

  Amie nearly burst into laughter as she heard the last part of the woman’s sentence. Indeed, the woman had been struggling with the floor and as she looked at her now, she could see that the woman was distressed. So again, she put out her hand and this time they were able to get her to a standing position.

  Amie then finally walked into the room with her nerves still on edge from the incident of the rat. As she walked into the place, she looked around the room in dismay. Everything was old and dirty and as she looked through each part of the room.... She became more alarmed and resolute that she would not be paying for the room in this condition. When the short tour of the small one room apartment was done, she turned around and looked the woman in the eyes.

  “Thanks for bringing me here and trying to find me an accommodation but I don’t think this is the place that I want.”

  The woman looked her up and down as if she was trying to decide if she was worth the effort of telling her about anything else.

  “What is what your budget?” she asked nonchalantly.

  Amie looked up into the ceiling and realized suddenly that the kind of money she was willing to spend on an apartment would determine the sort of apartment she would get.

  “I don’t know.... somewhere between a hundred to two hundred dollars I guess” she said with a shrug. Thinking in her mind that:

  “One hundred dollars plus should surely get me a more presentable apartment than this shit hole!”

  She turned to the laughing woman that stood beside her. She was holding her chest as if she was afraid that somehow, it would burst open and the content therein would spill out for all to see.

  “Why are you laughing?” She asked her with a slight frown.

  “Well... Because you are talking of a hundred to two hundred dollars in a house of three hundred dollars per month. That is nothing short of amazing dear!” the tone was so heavy with sarcasm that Amie suddenly realized that there was no way the woman would be wrong. Houses were expensive in the country that she had chosen to take this semester and she might even have trouble getting a place within that price range. She looked at the woman and shook her head.

  “But... but I can’t stay here like this! It is so messy and needs a so much repairs!”

  “If it's messy, then clean it up.
And if it is broken, fix it. That is the problems with you people. You want something cheap with no challenges, but I don't have that here. If you want a beautiful house, you have to be willing and able to pay for it. And if all your money can get you is this place, then you have to wear your fix it cap and take care of things.” The woman turned around and started to walk out.

  “Hey, so, there is no part of this city where I can get a good accommodation?” she asked the woman as she felt the futility of asking in the first place. The woman would most likely give her the same answers all over again. She sighed and silently wondered what she would do. Somehow, she knew that the older woman was right. She would need a whole lot more than two hundred dollars to get a place that would be what she would have liked. Besides... even if she got a place for three hundred and above, what was the assurance that she would be able to pay the rent at when due? She was already near bankruptcy as it was and choosing to look for a house with that sort of price tag could mean a whole lot of bills for her. She turned around and took a deep breath. She walked over to a window and tried to open it and it promptly came off its hinges. She looked back at the woman who stood by the side of the door with her arms crossed over her voluptuous chest.

  “It’s not so bad!” she said as she turned around and faced the woman.

  “Not so bad. Don’t you worry... I’ll send Paul up to look through the place and do some fixing!” Amie smiled a little bit now.

  “That would be highly appreciated Mrs...”

  “Oh... just call me Amanda!” she said with an air. Amie frowned just a little bit and nodded.

  “Okay. That would be appreciated Amanda.”

  “Well then... I’ll leave you to unpack!” Again, Amie was almost pushed to laughter. Unpack? She couldn’t possibly unpack in a place like this! She was going to need a minimum of two hours of cleaning work to get the place in an even remotely habitable shape.

  “Amanda...” The woman paused at the door while Amie fumbled inside her purse and came up with two neatly folded hundred dollar bills.

  “Here... for this month.” The woman took the money and looked at Amie with a frown.

  “Hey, i know you want three hundred dollars for the place but trust me I can’t afford it. The only option is for you to throw me out into the streets right now.”

  Amanda continued to stare at the girl with a grown and Amie’s heart was starting to pound again.

  “I should plead with her... I should beg her...”

  She was saying within herself.

  “Amanda.... Please...”

  “Shut up... it's okay. I’ll take two hundred and you can pay in instalments.” She said a she finally showed all of her teeth and Amie got to see them close up. Amanda did not have more teeth than the average woman, what she really had was a dental malformation that pushed most of her teeth forward and making her frontal teeth seem a whole lot more than it ought to be. She watched the woman get to the door and as a last minute thing said

  “Hey Amanda...” The woman looked back and Amie said a barely audible “Thanks”

  Amanda frowned again and left. Amie looked around the place and wondered if it was too late to go after Amanda and get her money back. She remained standing on that same point, beside the window for minutes unending after that.

  Chapter 2

  She collapsed into her new bed and slammed her eyelids shut. She was tired and beat all the way around and was mentally wondering if all the efforts she had put into the place had been worth it. She had scrubbed and mopped and washed and swept. She had dusted and polished and what she had thought would take her about two hours had consumed three whole hours and more from her. It was tiring, she was hungry and ready to drop. At that moment, she couldn’t even believe that she had gotten off a twelve hours flight just about five hours earlier. She was yet to get the rest that she sorely needed, and what was worse, the guy that had been sent up to help her with some of the fittings turned out to be more of a burden. She could’ve swear that she was handier than he was and she had to constantly tell him how to do things.

  He nailed the window back in, fixed the bad faucet and oiled the door. He also helped her with tiny bits of this and that but somehow, she felt like he had not done anything that she couldn’t have done herself.

  She sighed.

  This was what she got for flying halfway around the world to study for one semester. What was she thinking exactly? The room looked better ... kind of. But it really didn’t matter anymore. She was too tired to be picky and besides... it was a far cry from what it was when she had first walked in. Outside her door was a pile of dead rats that she had killed while the sandy haired handyman plastered himself flat against the wall and looked like he had seen five ghosts and they were coming for him. She hadn't bothered to try to dispose them, she wasn’t sure that she would be bothered to anytime soon. “Maybe tomorrow...” She said with a little bit of a satisfied smile. She wanted to display them outside her door perhaps to warn all the other rats against popping their heads into her place. As she lay back in the bed and started to drift off, she made a mental note to call her mother in the morning. Her battery was dead at the moment and the wiring in the house seemed to be faulty. She would get it fixed in the morning. She was happy, having accomplished so much in just one day. She knew that she deserved the rest that she was taking and let herself drift without the tiniest amount of guilt. When she woke up four hours later, the room was in darkness and she was momentarily scared as she tried to figure out where she was. Then her mind cleared little by little and everything seemed to come back into focus.

  “Oh... this is that shitty room of mine!”

  She thought within herself and smiled in the dark. She was just about to roll over and try to go back to sleep when her eyes caught a tiny ray of light from the wall of the room.

  “Light?” she muttered under her breath as she dragged herself out of the bed and towards it. She let her body came in contact with the wall, she traced it out with her hand and covered the hole from which the light was coming. She knew immediately that there was a hole in the wall and she just wasn’t sure if what was stuffed with cloth from her side or from the other side. She stuck her little finger into the hole and felt around. She knew instantly that the hole was bigger than that and that it had been stuffed from her side of the wall. Gently, careful not to make any noise that might alert whoever was in the other side, she pulled the small piece of cloth out. It was long and had seemed to have been stuffed in there for quite a while. She placed her eye over the hole so that she could get a better view of what was going on the other side.

  On the other side, there was a muscular man without his shirt on. She withdrew from the wall as if she had been bitten by a snake. She rested her back on the wall and looked around as if she was afraid that someone had seen her looking at what she just saw. Her heart thumped a little faster. She pushed her head backwards and closed her eyes for a minute as if to clear her head of whatever it is that had been injected into it by the sight of what she had just seen but it didn’t work. She took two big breaths and turned back to the wall and placed her eye over the hole all over again. The sight was the same except for the fact that he was lifting weights, carrying two dumbbells while doing curls. It was a mesmerizing moment for her and she held her breath as she watched him make the movements. His body was slightly wet as he had obviously recently gotten out of the shower. She watched him do his workout. It was obvious that he didn’t know that she was there. She was still watching the twitching and the flexing muscles when he suddenly turned around and walked towards the hole and thus towards her. She jerked backwards but not before she was treated to a full view of his amazing six pack that was just in front of her face. She had to constantly remind herself that he didn’t even know she was there and couldn't possible have done it intentionally. She kept telling herself that she should just leave the wall and go back to bed, and, maybe in the morning, the nightmare or dream or whatever it was that she was havin
g, would be gone and she would be left with the memories of it. But she knew she couldn’t.

  As a twenty-three-year-old virgin, she had a whole lot of fantastic thoughts about men and their bodies and what they would be like. She had thought about the weirdest things and the most awkward possibilities but this was the closest she was getting to a weird encounter. She was somewhat afraid but the curiosity and intrigue that she was feeling was way more than the fear and thus she remained plastered to the wall as she watched him moving around the room, trying to put things together and getting ready for bed.

  Amie cast a long glance as the wrist watch she had on at the moment and discovered that it was way past two in the morning. Who was this man with the body of an Egyptian God and where had he come from at that time of the night?

  What sort of tattoo was that on his back? Who was he and how come she was reacting like this towards him? She wasn’t new to seeing male bodies. She had seen a lot on TV and had even watched a lot of movies. None of those things made her feel this way.

  She dragged herself back to the bed and slid in. As she drifted back to sleep, she wondered whether the man knew that there was hole in the wall and that he was being watched.

  When she woke up and stepped out of her room the next day, the dead rats that she had kept at her door step were all gone. She was a little taken aback and wondered if they had not really died and had scampered away after she had placed them there.

  She was awake very early that day. As she left her place, the thoughts of the man she had seen on the other side of the wall was on her mind and she was already feeling stressed out at the thought that he would be there every night. She knew that Amanda had mentioned that there was a guy who lived in the other apartment but it had never occurred to her in her wildest dreams that when she finally met this man, it would be a man with a body that looked like it was carved out of stone by the best sculptor in the world. It had never even crossed her mind that he would look handsome talk less of the Greek God quality of handsome that he was. Who was he and what was he doing in a shit hole like the one they shared? The inside of the room had looked well furnished. For example, the Arabian rug that lay at the centre of the room would probably be expensive enough to rent a much better apartment for a whole year. There was no question about it, the content of the room made it obvious that the dweller was not a broke ass person like her. He had enough money to buy that king sized bed that she saw him in and a quilt too. The general decor and appearance of the room told a whole different story from the one that the external appearance of the building told and in fact, a whole new world.