Page 10 of Pretty Pink Poison
CHAPTER 4
BIANCA
“How much longer are wewaiting to go downstairs?” Angela whined, because she was the impatient one out of us three.
“You should always be late to your own party.” My mother's large brown eyes landed on each of us, making sure the information settled in before she carried on. “Bianca, please don’t embarrass our family tonight. The staff and catering will see to it that everything downstairs is flawless but remember that ambience is only half the equation. How you carry yourself completes the picture.” She said it like her viewpoint wasn’t an extension of my father’s, but I knew it was.
Cora whined with her hands on the vanity connected to my oval mirror as Angela cinched her corset tighter. “If the other part is appearance, I’m going to ruin it for all of us because I’m about to abandon this torture device.”
“Your tits look phenomenal,” Angela scoffed, not censoring herself at all in front of my mother who immediately flicked her gaze at me as if judging my choice in friends. “What I wouldn’t give to have half the curves you do.”
“Shut up.” Cora rolled her eyes. “That’s what women say when they’re literally damn models.”
It was true. We gave Angela hell any time she mentioned wanting more of a figure than she already had. I had an ass, and Cora had both great curve and boobs. Even still, extra weight made us self-conscious. Our mothers had raised us that way.
They argued back and forth about their different shapes as I stared at the cars arriving outside while my mother added a few finishing touches to my hair. “This isn’t the look I would have chosen for your nineteenth birthday, Bianca.”
I glanced up at her and tried my best to feel some bit of remorse. My mother had put in the effort to rent this house with Angela and Cora’s parents near the university. We’d had a staff since the day we moved in.
And security.
We were regulated in our college home like I’d been regulated in boarding school and at our family home. Even if we lived in huge homes that were like sororities, acting out wasn’t exactly easy to do. We found our ways, though, and one of mine was wearing something my mother would absolutely abhor.
“It’s a Halloween party, Mother.”
“I don’t care what it is, Bianca.” She tutted. “Make sure Rafe is near you most of the night for your own good. Your father wouldn’t want it any other way.” It was a threat she wanted me to hear loud and clear. Even if I wasn’t under their roof anymore where my father could shove me into a closet, he would still make my life hell if I disobeyed him.
“Yeah, make sure he’srealclose to you and Bane is close to me.” Angela winked at me and my mother pursed her lips.
“I’d suggest distance from Bane, Angela. Your mother and I have told all of you this countless times.”
I frowned at her. “Please don’t start, Mom.”
“He might be close to our family, Bianca, but what he did to Vinny and that other boy—”
“I saw the video,” I told her without so much as blinking. “He deserved it. He shouldn’t have touched Bane’s stuff.”
Her reaction was to recoil as if I’d slapped her. As if she didn’t know any sort of abuse. As if we weren’t a part of the syndicate, and my father wasn’t quick to sacrifice her well-being and mine if need be. “Retaliation is never the answer.”
She really believed that, and yet had she retaliated just once for her own daughter, I might not have had my life planned out for me before I was born. “Well, sometimes a person’s malicious actions breed repercussions, don’t they?” I said because Bane delivered revenge and justice when she never had with my father. I turned back toward the window, unable to keep looking at her.
She tsked and then told us the staff was almost done setting up the haunted corn maze. My family always rented out the campus grounds for a few scares. When she kissed my cheek and left, Cora asked, “Haunted maze again this year?”
“And a few other wicked little surprises.” I smirked at her and wiggled my eyebrows. This year I worked directly with the party coordinator. Tonight was going to be gruesome, frightening, and twisted. I wanted to feel alive but also like I was having a heart attack and might be dying, because it might be the very last party I had before I was married.
“Well, I guess wicked surprises are expected from a future Black. If you’re going to marry Rafe, you’re going to end up vicious anyway.” Angela shrugged, voicing her disapproval of my betrothed as she always did. Angela was the daughter of the Russian Pakhan who didn’t at all benefit from our arrangement. So, her constant objection was predictable.
“I’m never going to be vicious to you two. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You were to Vinny last week and now he’s in a coma,” Angela pointed out, giving Cora’s strings one last pull beforepatting her ass and saying, “There you go, pretty. That’s just right. Just don’t breathe and you’ll be fine.”
Cora grumbled ano shitbefore straightening and holding her corset at the waist. “She wasn’t evil to Vin, Angela. Bane was, not her.”
I kept listening to them bicker while the staff outside waved another SUV up toward the front steps and then beelined over to them on the brick roundabout to escort a woman in a ball gown out who was wearing a clown mask. The costumes were killer themed this year.
“So, you’re saying everyone’s more concerned about Bane, and no one will be looking at my big ass in this dress?” Cora started up again about her outfit.
“If my ass was that size—”
