“You want to to fix things with me, Carter?” I bared down on him with a cruel smile that felt good on my lips. “I’m done seeking forgiveness for something I was forced to do to you eighteen years ago. It’s your turn to prove yourself to me. Help me get Bianca back from the Constantines. And if they do anything at all to harm her, you’ll help me end them forever. Those are my terms.”
“You’re fucking insane, brother,” he said, rubbing his neck with a grimace. “Help is what I was offering all along.”
“Do we have a deal?” I asked with an arched brow, extending my bleeding hand to him in offering.
He stared at it for a moment before clasping it tightly in his own. I jerked him forward roughly so he stumbled hard into my chest. Pain seared through me but I wanted my pale gaze–– decidedly un-Morelli––to be the only thing he could see when I said, “Prove to me there’s more to being brothers than blood.”
3
BIANCA
Most people spend their entire lives wishing for their dreams to come true, but no one ever wonders what will happen once they do. When we’ve reached our goal or achieved our happily-ever-after. Was everything you went through to get there worth it? Does it last?
Was it everything you thought it would be?
I’d dreamt my whole of being enfolded into the heart of the Constantine clan, but the reality was incredibly sobering.
I was heartbroken, lost, and alone in the rambling mansion taking up acres of prime, perfectly groomed real estate in Bishop’s Landing. What was left of my heart after Tiernan Morelli broke my trust remained back at Lion Court with my baby brother, Brandon.
I’d never, not once in my life, been separated from him before now.
It was day eight without him.
Caroline assured me her lawyers were working on transferring custodianship of Brando and myself to her, but even her cutthroat, hundreds-of-dollars-an-hour lawyers couldn’t strike a compromise with Tiernan.
Caroline seemed almost disturbingly unfazed by the proceedings, but I grew more distressed by the hour.
How could I trust Tiernan to take care of the most precious being in my life? Even though we’d lived there for months, long enough for the entire household to know how to handle Brandon’s epilepsy, I worried endlessly. I’d started to pick at my hangnails until they bled, which Caroline told me was a filthy habit, but I couldn’t seem to stop.
The only thing that kept me from panicking was that Walcott was keeping me up-to-date on Brando over the phone. Apparently, they’d lied and told my baby brother that I was away on a last-minute holiday so he wasn’t even concerned about me, thank God. I wanted to stay happy and oblivious until I could get everything sorted out for us to be together again.
The Compound was disturbingly empty even though Christmas was fast approaching and Caroline told me most of the kids would be home for the holidays. I was both excited and sick to my stomach at the thought of meeting them.
In my fantasies, Brandon was with me, and they knew exactly who we were to them.
Now, I was alone, and Caroline told everyone she introduced me to that I was a ‘friend of the family.’ I should have been honored to be taken in by the matriarch of one of the most beautiful and formidable families in the country, but there was something…off about her. A coldness that nothing could permeate. If I hadn’t clasped her hand and felt the warmth of blood in her veins, I would have believed she was a beautiful robot.
It was clear, she expected the same behavior from me.
I adjusted uncomfortably in the high-backed wooden chair at the colossal dining room table. Caroline had given me some of her daughter Tinsley’s old clothes and they were too tight across the bust and hips, cutting into my skin in a way that made me feel self-conscious. Clearly, I had gotten my exaggerated curves from Aida’s blood and not Lane’s, because every Constantine I saw in the professional family photos on the walls and in the tabloids was willowy and graceful.
“Stop fidgeting, Bianca,” Caroline admonished mildly as she took a sip of white wine, staring at me over the glass. “It’s unbecoming on a beautiful young woman like yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, wincing slightly as the engraved wood dug into my spine. “It’s a hard habit to break.”
“A lifetime of bad habits will take a concentrated effort to fix,” she agreed. “We have our work cut out for us.”
I wasn’t usually an ungrateful woman. Lord knew, in my seventeen years, I didn’t have much to be grateful for, but what I did, I cherished with every breath. So, I knew I shouldn’t give voice to the lingering suspicion stalking my thoughts, but I’d never been much for impulse control.
“Our work cut out for us towards what end?” I asked, swirling my spoon through the bright red soup in the thousand-dollar China. “I’m so grateful for your help, Caroline, but what is it you…expect from me if I stay here?”
She studied me in that way she had. A cool, almost-reptilian regard. Idly, I wondered if she played poker, because she’d be a shoe-in for success with that unreadable expression.
“Well, I suppose it would be the same things I expect from all my children,” she mused lightly. I watched one long, elegant finger laden with diamonds run circles over the rim of her wineglass. “Decorum, work ethic, and success, perhaps. If you stay here, Bianca, I want you to thrive. I want you to go to the best college and make a name for yourself. If you are connected to this family, you must do right by us.”
“Of course.”
“And of course,” she continued. “Obedience. Above all things, Bianca, I expect you to listen to my rules and heed my authority.”
Obedience.
Why did it always come down to that for these people?
For people so moneyed and powerful, you would think they could withstand some descension.
Some of my reluctance must have translated in my expression, but Caroline laughed. “Don’t worry too much, Bianca. My daughter Tinsley was an awful rebel, I have no doubt you’ll impress me more than she did.”
I didn’t know what to say to that without insulting anyone, so I just took a sip of my cooling soup.
We ate in echoing silence for a few moments until the servants cleared our bowls and replaced them with steaming plates of roasted salmon and vegetables.
“Have you heard anything about Brandon coming to live here with me?” I mustered the courage to ask for the hundredth time.
A flash of something––irritation?––moved over her lovely face. “Yes, we are working on it. Unfortunately, that horrible scarred man refuses to entertain the idea of giving up guardianship so we have to look for…other means of rectifying the situation.”
“Like what?”
A closed-mouth smile. “Why don’t you leave all that adult stuff to me? You worry about school and your friends. I know you’re close with Elias, but I would urge to make friends with less disreputable peers.”
“Elias is lovely,” I argued, a little thrown off because he was also her nephew.
She waved her hand dismissively. “Yes, of course. But despite my best efforts, he’s made some ill-advised life choices.”