Children of Vice (Children of Vice 1)

“For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;

Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

~ William Shakespeare

DONATELLA

Swirling the wine in my glass, I stared up at the family portrait that hung above the fireplace, leaning back into the leather seat.

“One down, one to go, Nana,” I whispered, bringing the glass to my lips.

“How did you know it was me?” She walked up beside the chair, still in her dress as I was.

“Caron’s Poivre,” I answered. She was the only one who wore that perfume. She’d worn it for as long as I could remember. “Ivy and Ethan will get along well. Which leaves Wyatt the only one you have left to worry over.”

“And what about you, young lady?” She glanced down at me.

I was actually surprised by that question. “You and I both know that men need a woman for a variety of different reasons. Mostly they all desire to be loved intensely. Women validate them and make them look complete and capable to others.”

“And for women? You don’t think we also want to be validated and to look complete?”

I drank again. “Of course we do, desperately. But I also know that unlike men, women can function, can still rule the world with a hollow heart. Because we often have to choose between family or ambition, we learned to swallow the pain of whichever we gave up.”

“Your mother found a way to have both.”

“Did she?” I took a glimpse back at the woman seated, dressed in white, with the same olive skin and face as me. “She came close, closer than any other woman, but in the end she failed too…she just happened to die before anyone else could notice.”

When she didn’t reply I knew she was staring at me. That worried look on her face she’d often give me whenever I spoke like this. I preferred not to see it tonight.

“What do you want, Dona?”

What a horrible question. Snickering, I answered honestly, “Everything. I want power, recognition, fame, and respect. I want to be a queen, not a princess. I want to walk into a room and watch every person bow their heads to me as I walk by. I want there to be books written about me. I want to be the topic of some university student’s final exam. I want to create change, lasting change. I also want to be a mother and wife…I want to marry a man who’s so in love with me it drives him to the brink of insanity and back again. A man who’s on par with me, who is also respected and feared, who understands my ambitions will sometimes overshadow his. Who can stand being the background to my foreground. I want everything, Nana, and every day I don’t get it I feel like I’m burning on the inside. Like there is a monster inside of me that will continue clawing at my heart until I give it what it wants.”

“That is the tragedy of women born with the ambitions of men.”

I laughed. She didn’t get it. “It’s not the ambitions of men, it’s the ambitions of me. And I will get it…everything I want…or die trying. I won’t give up like she did.”

I lifted my glass to the woman in the painting, not sure if she’d be proud or just as worried as my grandmother, and not caring either way. Ethan and Wyatt were still so wounded by their deaths…but I’d buried that a long time ago.

“I love you, Dona.” She kissed the top of my head before leaving, most likely because she had no idea what to say to me.

Finishing off the wine, I put it on the table before rising from my seat, turning around just as the doors opened again, this time revealing no one other than Tobias, aka Toby, my brother’s only friend even if he wouldn’t admit it.

“You really should stop sharing your darker thoughts with her. She worries over you,” he spoke frankly.

“She’s scared of me,” I corrected.

“Your grandmother has seen a lot. I hardly doubt she’s scared—”

“She’s scared not because of what I want, but because she has no idea how I’ll get it,” I clarified for him, though he should have seen it. “She’s worried that one day I’ll get so power hungry that I’ll end up betraying this whole family.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Don’t be certain. Even I don’t know what I will do sometimes.” I winked, heading toward the door when he grabbed my arm, pulling me back.

“Yes?” I stared into his hazel-brown eyes.

“Don’t treat me like everyone else.” He sneered. “I know you better than them all. Your love for your brothers is the only thing that eclipses your aspirations.”