Children of Ambition (Children of Vice 2)

“If you couldn’t think of one, I doubt I can.”

Right. That was the problem. Because I knew and understood everything, I knew I didn’t have a reason to force Dona to stay.

“So, I have to accept this?” Accepting something I didn’t want was an odd feeling…

“It’s okay to say it hurts to lose her,” she said, hugging me.

And I looked down at her as she held on to me. Realizing only then that the odd feeling was…pain. Not physical, but emotional.

I hugged her back. I nodded slowly, admitting it to only her, “It hurts.”

Saying goodbye to my sister hurts.

TWENTY-THREE

“I, with a deeper instinct,

choose a man who compels my strength,

who makes enormous demands on me,

who does not doubt my courage or my toughness,

who does not believe me naïve or innocent,

who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”

~ Anaïs Nin

DONATELLA

Lifting the slim crystal vial on my dresser and dabbing the perfume behind my ear and my wrist, I rubbed them together before putting the vial back. I looked back at my own reflection, fixing the curl of my hair. If beauty was a woman’s armor, I had more than enough to slay a dragon. That’s what I was doing. Slipping into my beige heels before rising from the bench in front of my vanity, touching the bare skin over my breast, I smirked. I wasn’t sure why my heart was beating as fast as it was, however I could feel the humming in my chest, making my blood warm…all of me warm. Excitement. It was the feeling I got when I when I was excited and yet this shouldn’t have excited me as much as it was.

Stepping back and walking towards the door, the gray satin robe-style dress I was wearing with slits up both thighs and a plunging neckline flowed with each step I took. I glanced over my shoulder at the room of boxes still waiting to be taken away before closing the door behind me. The walk from my room to Gabriel’s wasn’t far, and I didn’t even bother knocking, instead, stepping inside. A voice came from the bathroom.

“Rest for now, Sebastian, we can leave early tomorrow morning,” I heard him say; I noticed a beat-up leather notebook on the dresser closest to the balcony, I walked forward and lifted it up carefully. “It’s fine. She’s still saying goodbye to her family, I’d rather not rush her. I still have time.” He went on, followed by the sound of the faucet, and I didn’t bother to listen more than that. I looked to his journal, captivated by his drawings.

The first set were just random people on the streets.

A few birds and other animals.

But in between that there many drawing of a woman who looked very much like him. They had the same eyes and I just knew she must have been his mother. His drawings were in color, so detailed. Almost every other page of the first half of the book was of her until…

Until it got to me.

Nothing else, just me.

Me, angry. Me, laughing. Me, looking out the window, swimming and me…naked. He seemed to have spent plenty of time imagining my breast size, waist, and hips as they were slightly different in each drawing.

“Who knew you were such an artist?” I said when I heard the bathroom door open.

“Almost everyone is an artist in Europe… The only difference is if they are known or not.” His steady voice replied behind me, he didn’t seem startled or even thrown by me being there.

Since his arrival, that’s all he had done to me; he’d startled me, thrown me off my balance. He’d upset, confused, conflicted, doubtful, and excited me. Like a tornado, he came in and ripped everything out of place, became the focus of my and everyone else’s attention. The power shift was so swift, I barely had time to grasp it, to grasp that I was being sucked in and there was no saving me because part of me wanted to be uprooted.

“Donatella,” he whispered, standing directly behind me now, his voice sending a shiver down my spine. He reached around me and tried to take the notebook from my hands, but I pushed his hand away. “Did you need something?”

“We can’t leave tonight,” I said, flipping to another page. “I want to see my parent’s grave with my brothers in the morning. I came to tell you that. But it seems you aren’t ready to leave yet, either.”