The Mafia's Arrangement

Chapter 2

Aspen POV



Doing some test runs on my laptop, it works. Fantastic. Took me long enough. It’s only been like the first two weeks of school, but this project took me longer than I thought it would. Well, I guess that’s valid given that this project is supposed to take the whole semester, but who has the time? No, I finish it quickly and efficiently.

The small lab runs my simulation, and it works, giving me the green light to get out of the building. I try and not stay on campus if I can help it. I never know who may be watching. When the green light flashed, my professor in the corner who has been dozing off as he was just supervising us to make sure we didn’t have any questions, gives me a hard look.

“Ms. Chiu.” He greets me as I hand over my assignment. “You were supposed to work on this every class period for the whole semester.”

I can practically feel the groans of everyone in the lab as they work furiously at their own projects. I’m one of three girls in this lab classroom of 150 students. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own. I really wish he would have just accepted it and not said anything to bring this to everyone’s attention, but it is what it is.

“I actually have to head out to London right after class, so I finished our final early.” I say calmly to him as I return to my seat to begin putting away my things. Tapping my phone screen, I see that we only had five minutes left of the session anyways, so why is he so pissed off about it?

Once I am finished with packing up, everyone is already starting to pack up and leave the classroom. I grab my tote bag and head out of here, making sure that no one notices my being.

“Hey! Wait up!” I hear one of classmates scream out, but that could literally be for anybody. Please be for anybody else. He jumps in front of me, out of breath. Damn.

Carson. One of the higher scorers in the graduate program here at Cambridge. Apparently, he’s supposed to be the whole package. Attractive. Smart. Kind. Athletic. He was a swimmer back at Oxford.

“Hey, Aspen, right?” I nod and then try to side step him to keep walking, but he matches me. “Wait.” He says as he breathes out heavily. “Sorry, I’m actually working on the Ender Project too. I was wondering if you wanted to drive over to London together. Maybe grab a coffee on the way over.”

“No, thanks.” With that, I again try to side step him, but he repeats after me and is still blocking my way. What is up with him?

“I’m Carson, by the way. Might as well get pleasantries out of the way and all since we’re going to be classmates and coworkers.”

“Carson.” I stare at him. “May I go to the lab now, or are you going to stop me again?”

“Ohp, sorry.” He lets out an embarrassed laugh and side steps to get out of my way. “I do that, sorry. Well, I’ll see you there!”

Oh, great. I walk across the campus to get to my car and make my way to London with the main lab with the particle accelerators and other projects students and professors are working on. The Ender Project is one of the most coveted and secretive. You have to be invited to join, but apparently what you achieve from it is supposed to be amazing. We will just see about that.

“Oh my God. Did you hear about what happened last night?” I hear one of the girls whispering to one another as I make my way to my car in the parking garage. I say whispering to be polite, but they are definitely within hearing range, even in this echoing parking garage.

“In Paris?! Yes! Oh My God!” They go on and on about how tragic it is and the evilness of the gangs that have made a killing people a sport and a flaunt of wealth and power. At least, they’re right about something, I think to myself.

Getting situated in my pretty used up Mercedes, I get on the road to go to London, which is about an hour and a half drive depending on the traffic. Though this isn’t necessarily ideal to travel to London every other day, it can’t be helped.

My phone rings, and I look at the caller ID to see that it’s Jesse. s**t. Picking it up, I sit calmly in the flowing traffic.

“I’m fine, J.” I answer immediately before he even gets a chance to say anything.

“Dad’s worried.” His hoarse voice goes over the phone. He must not have gotten a lot of sleep last night. I’m not terribly surprised, he is next in line after all. I’m sure that comes with a number of responsibilities.

“He’s always worried.” I remind him, but I can’t exactly blame him for being worried considering how he lost mom.

“For good reason.” That sigh over the phone causes a minute of silent between the two of us. “We’re coming to London.”

My heart near drops to the floor. Again? I barely started the term and he’s going to be here twice since then. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore my father and my three brothers, but I’m 22 years old, I don’t need a babysitter.

“I’m fine.” I try to reassure Jesse, but he just gives out a huff.

“Dad is meeting up with Uncle Eric.” Oh, right. Him. Truth be told, I have never actually met Uncle Eric, though I hear great things about him. Every Christmas, he sends the boys a bunch of presents. When I was young, I used to be jealous at the fact that another person out there cared so much for them. That is, at least, until I realized why. He doesn’t know I exist.

“Oh.”

“They want to figure out some plan to combat this new gang initiation thing.” He explains to me.

“And they can’t do that with a phone call?”

“Well, that’s the problem.”

“What do you mean?” I take my exit into downtown London. “We leaked to Uncle Eric that Father would be in Paris at that concert.” My eyes widen even in the safety of my own car. Yeah, I may have never met the guy, but the way the guys talk about him kind of led me to believe that he was incredibly loyal. And he is the godfather to the three of them and me, if it ever came down to it.

“What are you trying to say?” I force him to get on with it.

“We don’t think it was Uncle Eric..”

“But you think he has a mole.” Dead silence on the other end. Of course, there is. It is no secret that people have been nervous that this new gang has infiltrated every other gang in their climb to the top. It’s caused a lot of public display of bodies in the most vulgar of ways, a warning that betrayal to any gangs will have the most dire of consequences.

“That’s why Father is insistent that he comes back to deal with this in person with Uncle Eric.” Jesse releases. “The twins are also coming along.” Riley and Tom.

“Wow.” I am impressed. “That’s everyone. Everything going to be okay back home?”

“We tested all of them various times with the things we told them, but none of our men have showed any signs that they work for the other side.”

“I’m sure Uncle Eric isn’t going to be too happy to discover there is a mole within their midst.” I agree with Jesse. “But J, I have to get going. I start working on my project today in London.”

“That’s great. Let’s plan to meet up sometime tonight then, okay?” I look at my watch to see the time. I pinch my lips together before nodding along to the idea.

“Alright, fine.”

“Do you think you’ll be finished with some ideas by then?”

“That’s asking a lot, J. I’m working on it, but I haven’t flushed the theories out.

“Alright, alright. Call me after. I will send you the details.”