Page 9 of Pretty Pink Poison
“Yes. I’ve been walking since I was one.” She lifted her chin.
“You’re wobbly.”
She finally didn’t hold my gaze like she didn’t want to show any sort of weakness.
“Time for you to go inside.”
“Great.” She rolled her eyes and started to walk past me.
“I’ll carry you.”
“I can walk.” She stomped past me, but even then, I wouldn’t let Bianca do anything dangerous. I went after her and carried her in kicking and screaming.
She was right that I’d found the snake and killed it without remorse after I set her down inside that day. She didn’t talk to me for a week after. And instead of just asking her why she wasignoring me, I waited until the dead of the night and broke into her bedroom to find her diary so I could see what the hell she was thinking by avoiding me.
“I do not like the Black brothers. Not even Rafe who Mom continues to tell me will be my husband. But I really loathe Bane. Mostly because I can’t stop thinking about him.”
From then on, Bianca became my obsession. She was a contradiction that didn’t make sense, but I still needed to figure her out. I watched her every move, followed her where I could, and obsessed over her. I was resourceful as the son of Stefano Black. My father had made sure of it. I could climb a window in pure darkness and stalk someone without them ever knowing. I felt no remorse when I did so with her. I climbed into her window to read her diaries, to dig through her belongings, and sometimes just to stare at her.
No one knew. I was meticulous about becoming her friend and by the age of sixteen, I was just one of the Black brothers who fit by her side during the summer months. The school year, we all went to separate boarding schools. And when she came back, her gaze was sharper and her actions more strategic. She didn’t play with us outside and didn’t pick flowers for her mother anymore.
Our birthrights changed us. They had to. By the time she was in college, we’d all been hardened by the syndicate and the mob.
No one was pure anymore.
I spoke four languages fluently, was trained in hand-to-hand combat, could shoot a gun precisely with my eyes closed, but I could swindle a man faster. Fraud and tech were easy. I was an astute businessman and a deadly killer. Strangling a man with my bare hands was my favorite. I got to feel the life leaving their body.
It’s why what I’d done to Vincent or the dean of that university didn’t bother me one bit. Unfortunately, my brother didn’t feel the same.
“Don’t murder for Bianca again, Bane. I don’t give a fuck what she does, and you know it,” Rafe grumbled to me when I walked in that night.
My brothers and I all still lived on campus grounds even though we’d finished our bachelor’s. The master’s program was a fucking formality. Everyone knew it.
“He won’t be missed.” I was annoyed we were even talking about it. “Men shouldn’t be near her. It doesn’t send the right message.”
“What message exactly? Until we’re married, I don’t care what she does because I’m going to do what I do too.” Rafe rolled his eyes and walked out onto our porch to light a cigar. He handed me one and we both breathed in the biting smoke as one of our guards came to stand outside with us.
“Well, it’s coming soon enough.”
“And so what?” He turned to capture me with a frustrated stare I knew well. His blue eyes mirrored my own but his irritation wasn’t the same. My older brother just didn’t like to be tied down to any girl, let alone have a lifelong commitment hanging over his head. “Father’s dragging out this damn penance with Zarelli like we need them . I don’t need Bianca when I’m trying to run the family business. Marriage takes effort, and with Father acting like he’s fucking retired, I don’t need the burden.”
Something unraveled in my gut with his words. He wanted to wait longer, which meant she remained free. It’d been the line I’d drawn in the sand, the one that made my obsessive tendencies acceptable. Not that what I’d done today was forgivable by any means. “She’ll be more of a burden if she’sfucking every guy at this university… Oh by the way, the dean lost an eye today. Pay off his family, would you?”
“Jesus, should I be concerned?” Rafe waited. It shouldn’t have beenmyconcern. Rafe was much too lenient with her, and she basically searched for damn problems now that he and I weren’t around as much. We were running the family business, and I’d only gone into the master’s program there to stick around a bit longer. Father wanted our eyes and ears everywhere. And I agreed that it was necessary.
My father was of old Italian blood. There were few Italian families now in the nation that had as much pull as we did especially after my father had married my mother and become a part of the Diamond Syndicate on the west coast too. We were impenetrable as long as we were vigilant.
And my father had taught us how to do that until we became better at it than him. Now, I protected the family along with them protecting me. Always.
“What wouldyou ever be concerned about with me?”
“About your outbursts with her.”
“Not at all. I’m putting men in their place because they should never disrespect us. She has nothing to do with it. Famiglia Prima, Sempre.” It was our family mantra, one we lived by and died by.
I repeated the words.
Family first, always.
