Ten weeks.That was how long it had been since I’d last held my star.Ten excruciating weeks since I’d heard her laugh, nuzzled against her, smelled her.I wouldn’t last another one.If I didn’t touch her soon, I was?—
Kane bumped his shoulder into mine, jarring me out of my inner misery and the plan I was already mapping out to end the crushing agony of being without my goddamn soul.Blinking the world into focus, I realized that people were starting to leave, and that meant shaking hands, accepting condolences, pretending I wasn’t an empty, rotting shell.
Amadea and Raffaella played the part of perfect, grieving daughters as a procession of guests shook our hands, offering their fake condolences before returning to their cars.The women sniffled, heads kept bowed to hide the fact that their eyes were bone-dry.Their “Thank you for coming.Papa would have been honored by your presence” was repeated, and even I was mildly convinced by the amount of wobble they forced into their voices.
For the most part, I tuned them out, shaking hands, grunting in answer to the random questions thrown around.Disrespectful?Probably.Did I fucking care?Not even a little.If someone wanted to pop me in the head with a bullet, I’d probably kneel and let them do it.
I didn’t need this shit—the power, the money, the so-called freakinghonor.It was all a damn joke anyway.Together, Kane and I were now the second strongest family in the country, and I didn’t want it.
At one point, I thought I had.Somewhere along the way, while I was telling myself I was doing it for Vega and our future, I got it twisted in my head.No matter how often I told myself everything I did was to keep Vega safe, a sick part of me had been more focused on one-upping the sadistic bastard who was my father.
He’d known I was his son for years, and he’d still left me to rot in that state-funded group home.His spies knew the abuse I’d gone through, the nightmare that was my life before Vega became my guiding star in the darkest nights.And he’d done nothing.
Cullum had called it a trial, a test to prove my worth.As if I’d needed to prove my worth before he could accept me into his family.
As I’d moved up in the ranks, became friends with Kane, wined and dined Amadea and her father, I’d seen the look in Cullum’s eyes.Reluctant respect mixed in with greed for more power.That ruthless need to control everything bled over into me.
I wanted the control more than the money or the status.That ability to make every person around me bend to my every command.
And now that I looked back, I could see that I’d been controlling Vega.Her job, her time, each and every aspect of her life, was at my discretion.I was her best friend, knew all of her weaknesses and used them to my advantage.
Even her relationship with Kane.I’d introduced them, knowing he would be just as enthralled by her as I was.Her guilt in falling for him, I used to my advantage as well.
She was a puppet, and I was her master.Manipulating her and calling it love.Confining her on the edges of a world I kept telling myself I would make her queen of, while planning a wedding to another woman.Holding her heart hostage, knowing I’d never let her go.
Vega finally saw it, the real me that I’d been hiding.That was why she’d left.Me.I was the problem.I was the source of her pain.She left us because I was a monster who hurt her, degraded her, made her feel like nothing.
All along, I’d been becoming Cullum.I’d just refused to acknowledge it.
One minute, I was standing by the gravesite, and the next, we were back at the Bianchi mansion.I didn’t remember a single moment.Cars lined the driveway, reminding me that the repast was already underway.I squeezed the bridge of my nose, breathing in slowly.My head was pounding, and I just wanted to lock myself in my room with a bottle of whatever liquor I could get my hands on.
Once the women were out of the back of the limo, Kane motioned for the driver to shut the door.Hitting the locks, my best friend grabbed my shoulder, his brown eyes intense as they studied me.“I need you to trust me.”
I cocked a brow at him.“You think I don’t trust you?”
Fuck, he was all I had left.Kane was the only person I trusted, not just with my life, but with Vega’s, not that either of us had done a stellar job of taking care of her.
“What I think is that you’ve been checked out since we realized Vega left us.And today, I need you to be present.To keep your goddamn eyes open and, above everything else, trust me.”He tapped his hands to both my cheeks.“Say you trust me, Ryder.”
“I fucking trust you, Kane.”
Kane
One faceafter another came and went during the reception.Ma had done a good job of hosting the repast, while Raffaella and Amadea were busy accepting more condolences.They hiccup-sobbed into their handkerchiefs and kept their heads bent.Plenty of people believed the grieving daughters show they put on.Others gave me stiff nods and quickly moved on.
I kept my eyes open, counting.The men.The drinks.The minutes.I watched Cullum throw back his usual three glasses, then a fourth.Followed his progress through the room from the corner of my eye.Who he spoke to.When he laughed.His fifth drink.Sixth.
By the seventh, everyone was in place, and I was ready.
Beside me, Ryder was more alert than he’d been in months.He’d been nursing the same glass of whiskey all night, never actually taking a sip.Pretending to refill it every fifteen minutes or so.Cullum had been watching his son almost as often as I’d been keeping tabs on him, a secret smile tilting his lips.
That motherfucker thought he was untouchable, that all the plotting and sneaking around he’d done in the last few months—fuck, the last two-plus decades—was about to reach fruition.
Guests, the ones who didn’t have any business to stick around for, slowly drifted out, many of them more wasted than drunk.I’d made sure there was plenty of liquor, and that a few select attendees had a little something extra added to their glasses so they wouldn’t be a problem when the real party began.Cullum’s group of followers lingered under the guise of sharing stories of Aurelio Bianchi in the good ol’ days.
Each drink gave Cullum more confidence, the extra guests who remained nothing more than casualties of war to him.The sonofabitch thought he could take me, Da, and Raffaella out, and Ryder would stand by and allow it to happen.Because he thought his son’s mind was broken.But that was what he’d always wanted.
Ryder’s entire life had been plotted to lure him to this moment, so that Cullum could have it all.Not just the Bianchi influence, but to take the Brennan power as well in one smooth sweep.From the group home to Ryder meeting Vega, all the way up to the morning she’d found out about the wedding.Cullum had orchestrated every event.
