Dangerous Temptation (Dark Dream 1)

“What are you going to do, boy? Let some Constantine trollop brainwash you into believing you belong with her? It’s all lies. You’re a Morelli. You belong with me,” Bryant taunted smoothly. “Are you so far gone that you’d shoot your own father?”

Brando’s face came to mind, the mess of blond curls and the missing-tooth smile cracked wide whenever I was near because I’d earned his admiration and adoration.

Bianca.

Her face in the dark night on the beach ravaged with pleasure I gave her.

The color of those eyes as she fought with me, as she showed me again and again what it was like to face adversity unafraid.

How tenderly she’d licked my scar, as if she wanted to heal every wound I’d ever survived.

Yes, I thought wildly, changing the course of my life in one mad moment.

“Yes,” I said to Bryant, the word a declaration of war against the family I’d been sworn to protect.

And then I pulled the trigger.

Epilogue

Bianca

I ran through the halls of The Met like a bat out of hell, tears streaking down my face. My eyes were blind to my surroundings, focused on the mental image of Tiernan’s face breaking in two as Bryant exposed him for who he really was.

A Morelli.

A sob broke free like a trumpet call at a funeral.

It felt like that. A death.

A death of a dream I didn’t even know I’d fostered until it was ripped from me by the cruel hands of Bryant Morelli.

I’d thought…

I’d thought Tiernan was becoming family.

That together with Ezra, Henrik, Walcott, Brando, and Picasso in that great, big, unnerving house of Lion Court, we were becoming something bonded. Something stronger than what I’d had with Aida because I wasn’t the only one taking care of our unit. Henrik taught me to fight and Ezra watched out for Brando like a second, hulking shadow. Walcott tended to the house and grounds, but he also tended to our souls, appearing as if by magic whenever someone needed anything.

And Tiernan, master of us all.

If he was just out to use Brando and me to crucify the memory of our father, then why had he been so devastatingly kind?

Why the Hulk action figure, the doctor’s appointments, and Picasso for Brando?

Why the kisses that broke through my soul like sun through a stormy sky?

Why bother?

Unless he was just that cruel, as the stories went about the Morellis, just so heartless that he wanted to reap maximum damage.

Make us start to love him and then tear it all away.

I heaved air into my lungs, then tripped on the edge of my feathered dress, falling hard to my knees. I stayed there, my face in my hands as if I could collect my tears. As if they had a purpose. Some kind of worth.

But they meant nothing to no one.

I was alone once more.

Vaguely, I was aware of the clack of heels on marble and the loud murmur of a party in mid-swing.

But it wasn’t until I sensed a presence suddenly in front of me that I opened my blurry, burning eyes and saw a pair of sky-high heels in fine velvet blue. I tracked the smooth legs up to the hem of a white silk sheath dress that hugged slim curves to the tops of slim shoulders up to a face as beautiful as a Titan painting.

Caroline Constantine, witness to my heartbreak and utter meltdown.

She stared down at me imperviously, eyes as blank as sheets of untouched ice in winter.

I wasn’t breathing, a sob stuck in my throat and swelling so I couldn’t drag breath into my collapsing lungs.

There must have been a question in my eyes, a benediction.

A cry for help.

I had nowhere to run and everything to run from.

Only in my wildest dreams would Caroline Constantine, my last known connection to my father, ever offer me solace or protection.

Yet…

I watched mutely as she bent slightly in order to reach for me, tucking two fingers up under my chin to look down into my tear-wrecked face.

“Bianca Belcante,” she said, my name rolling like pearls against her tongue. “What a surprise.”

I hiccoughed.

“Bianca,” a masculine voice from behind Caroline spoke a moment before a tall, beautifully dressed blond man stepped in place beside her.

I blinked the wetness from my eyes as my brain struggled to place the somewhat familiar face. It only took me a moment to remember, maybe because I hadn’t experienced grief this strong since the day my mother died.

He’d been the man at Aida’s funeral, the one in the red scarf who’d looked like he wanted to approach me until Tiernan showed up to take us away.

“You know her?” Caroline asked, eyebrows raised.

He hesitated as he looked down on me, sympathy in his eyes, but displeasure marring his mouth. “Her uncle was an old friend of mine.”

I tried not to let my surprise show, because there was something going on here that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I hadn’t seen my uncle since I was a young child, well before we moved to Texas and I’d never met this man before in my life.