Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

Bianca

I’d never been to a funeral before. I hadn’t been invited to my father’s for obvious reasons…namely, that my mother was his mistress. The Belcante family consisted of Aida, Brandon, myself, and an uncle we hadn’t seen since Brando was first born. Our little community couldn’t afford to lose a member. Yet that cold Tuesday afternoon, we were burying our mother.

Brandon sniffed beside me, his sweaty hand clamped around one of my own as we stood beside the yawning wound in the earth that would be Aida’s final resting place.

It hurt to know she would have hated to be buried here, in this random cemetery on the outskirts of some Texas town and not back in Upstate New York where she was born and raised, where she met Dad and gave birth to me. There had been a quaint little cemetery behind a white, peaked-roof church in her hometown where Dad and Aida had planned to be buried together one day. It was a pipe dream. Of course, Dad was buried in Bishop’s Landing beneath a massive marble obelisk where generations of his family were buried with him. But Aida would have liked to be buried in that quaint cemetery in the birthplace of their love story even if Dad couldn’t be beside her. She was the kind of romantic who would have wanted to be laid to rest amid her happiest memories.

Instead, she was being put in the ground of this godforsaken town we had moved to eight years ago out of necessity.

Still, there was a larger group of mourners around the wounded earth and gleaming casket than I would have assumed. A few past lovers, all with sad eyes and damp faces because Aida was the kind of woman you continued to love even if you realized she was wrong for you. Our neighbors, the Dabrowski family with their four little kids who lived across the street, old Mrs. Rhodes with her milky cataracts, the handsome biker, Brick, who Aida had tried to seduce for years without success. My friends, Zoey and Hitchcock, from school were both there with their parents along with an assortment of Brando’s friends and their families. A few people Aida had worked with at the beauty counter at the mall and some of my friends from the diner.

And one man I didn’t recognize.

He stood outside the ring of mourners in a black trench coat with a red scarf tucked under his neck. At first, I thought he was Tiernan, but he was shorter and broader, his hands free of tattoos. I thought I felt his eyes on me, but whenever I looked over, he was focused somberly on something else.

Tiernan was absent.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, really, because he’d proven himself to be a jerk, but I was embarrassingly hurt by his lack of attendance.

Did he really not care about Aida even though he’d asked her to move to New York with him?

Did he really have no sympathy for her children left behind in a turbulent wake of grief?

When I’d called him from the floor of Aida’s room, he had asked me to tell him what went wrong and listened silently while I stuttered over the words. When I was done, he said in so many words that he would take care of it for an undisclosed price and then hung up the phone, leaving me bewildered, angry, and achingly alone.

But things had happened.

The police had come and the EMTs.

Of course, Brando woke up and I had to explain what had happened.

He surprised me, because he didn’t cry. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, his voice scratchy when he spoke as if he were recovering from a long sob fest, but he didn’t shed a single tear. Instead, he held fast to my hand, his Iron Man clutched in the other, and followed me around the house as I talked with the officers and the paramedics.

Then Child Protective Services arrived and wanted to separate Brando and me for the night. I’m not ashamed to admit I’d thrown a fit, yelling at the man who tried to take us, screaming at the cop who tried to forcibly calm me down.

A man had arrived.

Maybe “man” was an understatement.

He was huge like a giant out of Greek mythology. One hand could have easily palmed my entire head. Even the cops had stilled, prey poised for flight before a superior predator.

But the man, I learned later his name was Ezra, only went to the CPS agent and handed him a stack of papers. He was deaf, communicating on a small tablet as they conversed quietly together.

Ten minutes later, the reluctant agent took the papers, shot us a worried glance, and got back into his car to drive off.

Suddenly, I wished we were going with CPS.

But Ezra had simply introduced himself using his tablet and ushered us back into the house to pack our bags before taking us to the only nice hotel in our backwater town.

Brando and I sat curled up in one of the double beds, my little brother dozing and sniffling fitfully.

There had been a knock at the door and my heart gave a staggered attempt at taking flight, wondering if it was finally Tiernan.

It wasn’t.

Instead, a woman dressed like a Vogue advertisement opened the door, her dark red hair gleaming like rubies in the yellow light from the hall. She was beautiful and clearly wealthy, her expression blank as her eyes swept the room while she signed something to Ezra.

And then she saw us.

And that striking face broke open with sympathy.

All my life I’d seen that expression on people’s faces and hated it, but there was something about the way she approached us and extended a hand for us to shake that was devoid of pity.

Elena Lombardi was Tiernan’s lawyer, and she was there to facilitate the funeral arrangements and our placement with an appropriate guardian.

She was calm, efficient, and kind without being smothering. Talking to her made some of the tension knotting up my insides loosen and smooth away.

I doubted they would be able to track down our degenerate uncle who had disappeared on us years ago so we would probably be placed with foster parents or, best-case scenario, a nice couple looking to adopt. When I swore I wouldn’t be parted from Brando, Elena had only smiled slightly and place a manicured hand on my shin beneath the blanket.

“I didn’t think for one moment you would,” she assured. “I’m here to look after your best interests. Don’t worry, Bianca.”

But I was worried.

I was worried as I lay in the dark that night listening to Brando moan through his nightmares, insomnia plaguing me because I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d wake up to my brother dead beside me the way I’d found my mother that morning.

I worried because Tiernan was not a good guy. Everything in my gut screamed at me that I’d made a deal with a demon, the terms unknown to me.

When he didn’t show up the next day as we had meetings with a funeral director and CPS, or the next when we picked the flowers and the clothes Aida would be buried in, the anxiety only grew.

I couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t relax.

I felt stalked by the unknown, by the inevitable conclusion to the deal we’d struck.

What kind of payment would Tiernan demand for stepping in to help Brando and me in our time of need?

The mechanical thrum of the casket lowering into the earth pulled my attention back to the moment, my eyes fixed on the glossy black wood as it descended.

Brando whimpered at my side, tucking his head into my arm as if the sight of Aida going into the ground was a horror film he was too young to watch. I wrapped my arm around him and hugged him into my side, wishing fervently that I could take this misery from him. My throat was dry and painful as I swallowed roughly.

“Amen,” the Priest called to God.

“Amen,” everyone echoed.

*     *     *

We weren’t havinga reception after the funeral, so people lined up to pay their respects to Brando and me. Elena stood behind us with Ezra, the two of them sentries watching over us. Watching us for Tiernan.

Where the hell was he?

Would we be passed off to some random family in some new town and never see anyone we’d ever known again?

My heart spasmed so hard, I couldn’t breathe.

It was hard not to believe that every dream I’d ever harbored had perished with Aida.

No family. No New York.

I probably wouldn’t be able to go to NYU after all. In six months when I turned eighteen, I’d get a job and try to apply for sole guardianship of Brando. I couldn’t work and take care of him while I was in college. I was smart and resourceful, but despite what Brando liked to call me, I wasn’t Wonder Woman.

“I’m so sorry, Bianca,” Hitchcock muttered, his dark eyes warm with sympathy as he held my palm in both of his large, dark hands. “I wish I could do something… I wish I could make you stay.”

My smile was flat as old soda, but I gave myself an A for effort. “That’s nice of you to say.”

His mouth screwed up to one side and he took a deep breath. “I just wanted to say while I had the chance…you don’t know this, I’ve watched you and I can tell you don’t get it, but your beauty and kindness leave a mark. They-they left a mark on me, and I won’t forget it.”

I blinked.

Hitchcock and I had been friends since my first week in town. He was also the new kid, an immigrant from India who spoke flawless English with a heavy accent that a few kids were ridiculing in the cafeteria. I’d sat beside him immediately, blocking his view of the other table and speaking to him over their giggles.

We didn’t talk about the bullying.

I think we spoke about Amrita Sher-Gil’s hypnotic self-portraits instead.

Zoey had joined our little group a few weeks later when her best friend had moved away. We hung out at school during lunch and infrequently on the weekends because I had Brando to take care of, brilliant Hitchcock already had a job at a local gas company in their IT department, and Zoey was on the school varsity swim team.

We were friends, but I hadn’t known, not really, how much I valued them until now. Or how much they had valued me.

“Thanks, Hitch,” I murmured, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.

A weight on my shoulder clamped down and pulled me back from my friend’s embrace. A shiver ripped down my spine like a sticky zipper, rattling my entire frame.

Without looking over my shoulder, I knew who had manhandled me.

Mostly because there was only one man who ever had.

But also because there was an electric quality to the cool September afternoon like an incoming storm pulsing in the atmosphere.

Tiernan had arrived.

“Do you kiss everyone who pays their respects?” His voice was cold, trickling like ice water down my back.

When I went to wrench my shoulder out of his hold, his fingers curled tighter and he hauled me all the way back against his torso. The sudden heat of him against my cold skin made me shiver again.

I tipped my head up and back to look at him. His pale eyes glowed from the shadow cast by his heavy, furrowed brows, the scar bisecting his cheek gone white with strain.

“So what if I do?” I countered, jerking my chin forward.

He snorted softly, the hot breath wafting over my face. “If you want to use your mother’s funeral to pick up men, I suppose that’s your prerogative.”

I gaped at him, fury igniting in the hollow cavity where my heart had been, lighting every cold inch of me with flame.

“How dare you?” I whispered harshly.

“How dare you?” he countered, releasing me swiftly to step forward, accepting Hitchcock’s father’s hand. “Thank you for coming to pay your condolences.”

Mr. Khatri blinked at him from behind his thick glasses while Mrs. Khatri giggled softly beside him.

“Reyansh,” she whispered. “He looks like a young Cary Grant.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

The Khatri family were obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock films, hence the name of their only son.

“If he was scarred and rude as hell, maybe,” I allowed under my breath.

Hitchcock grinned at me. He’d heard all about my mother’s boyfriend.

Ex-boyfriend, I guessed.

Yet, there he was, suddenly standing beside Brando and me like we were some kind of family as he accepted commiserations from the funeral goers. He was all charm and soft misery, the picture-perfect, brokenhearted boyfriend.

It made me sick to watch him.

Worse, it made me hate Aida for leaving us with no one to turn to but him.

“Can we go home now?” Brando asked me, tugging on my hand so I slouched down on his side.

A sob blossomed in my throat and got stuck there when I swallowed hard.

“Remember, Brando, we can’t go home.” Technically, we could go back to the house, but Elena’s firm had already put it on the market to pay off Aida’s significant credit card debts. There would be some money left for us because we had used the last of Dad’s money to buy the house outright, but it wasn’t much. It was funny to think that once I’d taken money for granted. “Mom is gone and we need to find a new home.”

Again.

I didn’t say that, though.

Brando had been too young when Dad died to remember how we’d gone from riches to rags nearly overnight, moving from the pretty mansion he owned in Dallas to this little house in this little town.

“Tiernan can take us home with him,” Brando offered, tears glossy in his big eyes as he looked up at me. “Right?”

“You don’t want to go with him,” I said on a forced laugh. “He’s a mean, old guy.”

I watched as his full lower lip rolled under and wobbled. When he spoke, his voice was threadbare. “But where else will we go? Who’s gonna take us?”

Despair moved through me like a ghost, leaving behind a bone-deep chill.

I didn’t know.

I had no answers and Brando was just a kid, all he had were questions. As his sister, his only family, I felt responsible for comforting him even though I had no idea how to even comfort myself.

“You’re coming with me,” Tiernan said, suddenly in front of us, the rest of the mourners having dispersed back toward their cars, a few lingering to pay respects at the gravesite before they moved on.

“Yay!” Brando cried, throwing his arms around Tiernan’s lower legs, clinging to him tightly even though the older man looked horrified by the gesture. “I knew it.”

“What?” I breathed, sucker punched by Tiernan’s calm assertion.

I’d asked him for help, but never in my wildest dreams had I assumed he would offer this.

He blinked those eerily pale eyes at me as if I were an idiot. “You. Are. Coming. With. Me.”

I gnashed my teeth together, my hands forming fists I planted on my hips. The desire to stomp my foot was strong. Instead, I ground the heel of my tired black pumps (Aida’s castoffs) into the grass.

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” he said easily, awkwardly patting Brando’s shoulder before he carefully pushed him away with three fingers to his shoulder as if he was afraid of cooties. “It’s done.”

“Done?” It couldn’t be. These things took time. I knew because the CPS agent we’d talked to had assured me I’d need patience with the proceedings. We would probably be shuffled around to different foster families before they could find a permeant placement. “There’s no way.”

His grin was wolfish. “You’ll learn there is always a way if money is involved or the right name is whispered in the right ear. Luckily for you two, I have both. You’re coming home with me to New York.”

I looked wildly to my left and right, desperate for an escape hatch I knew I wouldn’t find.

“It’s true,” Elena said from behind me and I realized I’d forgotten about her, about Ezra, about everyone except for Tiernan and Brando. “The expeditated hearing was this afternoon and the judge granted him temporary custody.”

“It’s just temporary,” I confirmed on a relieved sigh.

We could still get out of this. It wasn’t too late.

Anyone was better than Tiernan.

He was rich and handsome, but those qualities were only a thin veneer over the decayed heart of him. I could smell it, the rot, and see it, the sin lurking behind his green-eyed gaze.

No one could convince me otherwise.

“Probationary,” he confirmed, that same cruel grin curling the scarred side of his mouth. “Just to prove none of us will kill each other.”

Elena and Brando laughed.

I didn’t.

My gaze was locked with Tiernan’s as I fought an internal battle.

I didn’t trust him. I didn’t even like him.

How could I trust him with the care of Brando? Only, had I trusted Aida with him? No. I’d been his mom and dad, his sister and best friend, his caretaker. I might not have given birth to him, but I was in every other way his parent and I was proud of it. I’d been taking as good care of Brando as I had the means to do.

If Tiernan was our guardian, I’d have even more resources at my disposal.

Maybe even surgery that could afford Brando a life free of seizures and their protracted consequences.

He was bright, too. Smarter than most of the kids in his class. If we moved to New York, I was sure we could find a better school—the best school—for him. He could grow up to be a doctor or a lawyer, a comic book artist or a world-class baker. I didn’t care what he did when he was older, I just wanted to see him get there healthy and happy, ready to succeed.

Maybe Tiernan was the best choice for Brando.

But was he the best choice for me?

There was something about him that stirred me, dredging up the gunk at the bottom of my soul until everything seemed murky, unknown and vaguely threatening. I didn’t like not knowing who I was around him, what I might say or do just to get a rise out of him. It was like two polar opposite magnets. As a kid, I’d loved trying to force the like poles of each magnet against each other just to feel the hard energy pulsating between them, unable to meet but vibrating with tension.

I had this gut feeling, festering and painful, that if I went with Tiernan, I’d never be the same again.

Tiernan regarded me with the vaguely amused arrogance of someone who was used to winning. He found my resilience trite, almost funny.

Why did I bother?his gaze seemed to ask.

I sighed internally, wishing for the millionth time that my dad were there. He always knew what to do and he’d always looked out for us, even when he shouldn’t have.

But he wasn’t there.

Aida wasn’t there.

I was alone with a kid who relied on me and I was the only one who could make the decision to go with Tiernan or kick up such a fuss, they’d let us go our separate ways.

“Probationary,” I agreed slowly, glaring at my new guardian. “If we don’t kill you in three months, we’ll see about longer-term accommodations.”

Satisfaction softened the hard edges of his mouth and made his eyes glow. “Excellent. This way, then.”

He gestured for us to precede him, waiting until Elena took Brando’s hand and moved by with Ezra before his hand clasped around my wrist.

“If you want to survive the next few months, you better stop manhandling me,” I warned him, jerking at his hold to no avail.

“If you want to survive the next few months, little girl,” he practically purred, his voice smooth and sinuous but the intent entirely predatory. “It would be best if you remember that you owe me. And the price?” He was so tall that he had to duck down to get close to me, our noses almost touching. “Your obedience.”

“Obedience?” I echoed, knocked off-kilter by the demand.

Obedience to him? To what end?

His white, square teeth were all I could see as he grinned, wide and unabashed. “Obedience. Short of calling me Daddy, you’ll do everything I say just like you would your father.”

“Don’t dishonor his memory by even suggesting that,” I spat, wrenching out of his hold even though it burned my skin like a match to paper. “You’ll never replace him.”

“I wouldn’t want to,” he promised, as if my father had been a scumbag and not one of the best men this country had ever seen. “The only thing I want, Bianca, is the pretty sound of the words, ‘yes, sir’ from your lips every time I give you an order. Maybe you don’t understand this, but—” He bent even closer, his breath hot on my face. I could count the thick, long lashes curling up over those eerie eyes. “I effectively own you now. And I intend to enjoy it.”

A growl worked through my throat, an unconscious expression of the rage curdling my blood. My hand rose without thought and whipped against Tiernan’s unmarred cheek. The connection sent painful sparks shooting through my palm, but I didn’t regret it.

At least, until Tiernan righted his head and pinned me with those amphibian eyes filled with cold disapproval.

“I’ll give you that because your mother just passed away and you’re young and obviously overwrought. But if you ever raise a hand to me again, I’ll have you over my knee so fast your head will spin.”

“You wouldn’t fucking dare,” I hissed, moving so close, the toes of my shoes pushed against his loafers.

“Care to find out right now? I’ll bend you over a fucking tombstone and spank you until you cry pretty tears.”

“I hate you,” I told him through my swollen throat. There were tears in my eyes but I couldn’t tell if they were from rage or sorrow. “You’re a monster.”

His laugh clanged like crashing symbols. “A monster who is your new daddy. Now, get in the car.”

“Fuck you.” I’d never been a fan of curse words, but there was something about Tiernan that provoked me to swear like a sailor. They were the only words that came close enough to expressing the seething mass of toxic emotions he concocted in my heart.

He chuckled under his breath as I turned on my heel and stormed toward the lone car waiting on the road off to the left of the gravesite. I paused before the hole in the earth harboring my mother’s casket, sadness seeping through the cracks in my fury.

“Bye, Mom,” I whispered brokenly, raising my shaking fingers to my lips as if I could drop a kiss right into the ground to rest with her forevermore.

“Here.”

I almost didn’t turn around, but something soft bumped my elbow. When I looked down, Tiernan was holding out a bloodred rose to me, obviously plucked from the arrangement beside the large photo of her.

Deja vu hit me so hard my mind reeled. I wondered hatefully if Aida would have died if I’d refused to take that first rose from him even though I knew that wasn’t true. She’d had a brain aneurism that burst in her sleep. She’d been there one moment and gone the next.

It wasn’t his fault as much as I wanted it to be.

I took the rose, surprised when thorns didn’t prick my skin. Still, I felt the phantom pain in my hand, echoed tenfold in my soul. I raised the bloom to my mouth, kissed the fragrant, furled center and then dropped it into the gaping earth to lie on top of my mom.

“I’ll love you always,” I promised her, ignoring the hot brand of Tiernan’s eyes on me as a tear dropped from my cheek into the chasm.

Without acknowledging my new guardian, I moved on toward the limo lingering at the curb, shaking my head at the ostentatiousness of it. It was only when I curled my hand around the handle to open the door that Tiernan stopped me, his hand clamping down on my own, his torso pressed lightly to my back with his breath in my ear.

“Say goodbye to your insignificant life, Bianca,” he whispered with a dark sense of finality. “And welcome to my cruel world.”