Bianca was a different story entirely.
She didn’t remind me of Grace, of everything I’d lost to this war between two families.
She didn’t remind me of anything.
I’d never met someone like her before, so innocent yet so full of fire. She was unafraid of me like only The Gentlemen and my cousin, Tilda, were unafraid of me. She was beautiful, but many women were beautiful. Her uniqueness lay in her artlessness, the way she moved through the world as if she thought she was invisible when every single person she passed looked at her and longed to be her or be with her.
Of course, I wanted neither, but I wasn’t dead and I wasn’t stupid.
There was some kind of magic to Bianca Belcante and if I wasn’t careful, she would infect this household with it too and bring all of our dead souls back to life.
I just had to make sure that didn’t happen.
Cruelty came easily, violence was my friend, and my heart hadn’t worked properly in years, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
But I had the ominous feeling as I stared at the critical faces of my men, as I remembered the tragic beauty of her tearstained face when I stole her locket, that I was about to embark on the hardest mission of my entire life.
Chapter Three
Bianca
I woke up the next morning feeling achy and hollow, despair echoing through the empty caverns of my heart as I stared at the blue velvet canopy over my bed. My hand rested over my breastbone in the empty space where Dad’s locket should have lain.
I couldn’t believe Tiernan had ripped it away from me like that.
It ashamed me to admit that before that monstrous act, I’d been intrigued by the scarred and tattooed billionaire. He was a study in contrasts, and as an art lover and sometimes artist, I couldn’t help but feel compelled to understand the intricacies of his duality.
His voice was cultured, East Coast perfection, but the words he spoke were frayed with anger and bitterness, rough where they should have been smooth. The same wrath was mirrored in those serpentine eyes, their narrowed glower under heavy brows. But he had a full mouth, soft and delicate pink like the inside of a seashell. It was incongruous on his harsh features with that long, slicing scar, yet it fit. He wore expensive, impeccably tailored clothing like a classic New York businessman, but his skin was stamped with black tattoos, carving up his flesh in Latin phrases and detailed outlines of random images like the rose on the back of one palm and the full sleeves going up either arm done all in blacks and greys.
He employed a deaf man, a scarred man, and a female lawyer as if equality and acceptance meant something to him yet he called me “little thing” like I was an object and not a girl.
He took in two orphaned children who otherwise would have been condemned to the messy foster care system and potentially separated from each other, but he seemed to hate me. So why would he become our guardian?
My head throbbed as I fought to understand the cruel man who had saved us even though it seemed he sought to destroy us.
I tossed off the silk sheets and swung my feet over the edge of the bed, wiggling my toes on the soft carpet I’d cried into for hours the night before. Dawn had breached the horizon, spilling light as pale as milk across the frosted landscape outside. Brando would be up soon if he wasn’t already and I wanted to be able to spend our first morning in this gothic hellhole together.
When I tried the door, it was blessedly unlocked, which sparked a remnant of rage in my chest. How dare Tiernan steal from me, then lock me in my room like an errant child.
My steps were heavy with anger as I stalked down the long, dark hall filled with priceless art to the stairs. No one had given us a tour of the main floor, so I wandered from large, cluttered room to large, cluttered room, touching my fingers to the marble busts and stacked paintings just to spite Tiernan’s insane rule that we didn’t touch anything.
He had made this our home when he brought us here and I wouldn’t be kept from trying to eke out some comfort in the haunted halls.
I froze in what seemed like the music room, a massive harp and piano gleaming in the light from the beveled windows, because I heard another kind of music.
Brando’s laughter.
My heart unstuck from the web of fear caught between my ribs and began to race. I hurried after the noise, finding myself at the yawning mouth of a staircase descending into the stone-walled basement. A shiver tripped up my spine at the ominous sight, but I didn’t hesitate to run down the stairs, worried about my brother.