Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Bianca

Bishop’s Landing was the most expensive stretch of real estate in the United States. Half of it was owned by the Constantine family, who defined the meaning of American royalty, and the other half was owned by their rivals, the Morellis. I knew considerably more about the former family, but I’d heard enough rumors about the latter to be wary of them. I hoped I didn’t have cause to run into any of the dark-haired, dark-eyed demon children of Sarah and Bryant Morelli.

I’d had enough drama in my lifetime, thank you very much.

A long time ago, immediately after Dad passed away, I used to dream of Caroline Constantine or Dad’s eldest son, Winston, coming to find us. I dreamt they would take pity on our circumstances and offer to take Brando and I back with them to Bishop’s Landing. I convinced myself that Dad would have planned for his passing, that it was only a matter of time before they arrived to save us from destitution.

They never did, of course.

It was just the dream of a silly, heartbroken girl. But Bishop’s Landing had always been a place of hope and dreams for me.

Of course, Bishop’s Landing was where Tiernan took us.

I squirmed in my seat as I stared out the window at the passing homes, colossal monstrosities all of them, some peeking out past epic gates and high shrubbery and others in open view of the road, proudly bared in all their wealthy glory.

I felt like I was trespassing just looking at the houses, as if the cops would pull us over any moment and demand I go back to where I came from.

“You live here?” Brando asked, nose pressed to the glass. “Are you a king?”

Tiernan’s laugh was low and smoky. “Something like that.”

“What’s your last name?” I demanded, too exhausted and shaken after the funeral and the long flight from Dallas to New York to offer pleasantness. “We should know the name of the man who’s taking us in.”

“McTiernan,” he offered blandly.

I snorted with startled laughter. “Seriously? Tiernan McTiernan? No wonder you don’t offer it up. That’s a terribly unoriginal name.”

“Bianca and Brandon Belcante are so much better?” he asked with an arched brow without looking up from his phone, his fingers flying across the screen.

He’d ignored us for the entire journey, leaving a weepy, tired, and cranky Brando to my care. Elena had traveled with us as far as New York before leaving for her own home after giving me her business card in case I ever needed her. Ezra remained, sitting up with the driver behind the partition.

I rolled my lips under my teeth, too tired to argue with him. Everything felt like a bad dream.

“Ah, here we are,” he murmured after a moment as the car slowed at the end of a road before a massive, moss-covered stone wall bisected by a large iron gate bracketed by huge lion sculptures. “Welcome to Lion Court.”

Through the ornate, scrolling metalwork, I caught a glimpse of the building we would be calling home for the foreseeable future and I lost my breath.

The dark stone edifice was all peaks and turrets, arched windows gleaming like dull eyes beneath the ferocious watch of stone gargoyles leering down from their ledges. It was like something from out of a fairy tale. Not the Disney, rose-tinted fairy tales for minors, but the dark and dangerous tales penned by the Grimm brothers.

It was the setting of nightmares.

“Wow.” Brando’s shocked little breath was loud in the quiet car. He turned to cast a suspicious glance at Tiernan for the first time since he told us we were his new wards. “Are you a vampire?”

Tiernan blinked, then tried to bite off the hard, choking laugh that exploded from his lips. He seemed as surprised as I was by the show of humor.

“No, I am not a vampire.”

Brando continued to look at him askance. “Prove it.”

Laughter rumbled through his tone, but he managed to keep a straight face. “How does one prove they aren’t a vampire?”

My little brother considered this seriously for a moment, then looked at me. “Do you have any garlic, Anca? Or maybe a cross?”

I rolled my lips under my teeth to keep from laughing. “No, Brandy Boy.”

“Dang,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.

It made my heart ache to see him do that because it was a gesture our father had when he was alive, rubbing at the scruff on his chin as he thought something over. Brando hadn’t been old enough to study him, so it was just a natural gesture, somehow embedded in the DNA Dad had passed on to him.

I leaned forward to tuck a wayward piece of hair back from his forehead because I couldn’t resist the urge to touch him. To make sure he was real and alive.

“Let me see your teeth,” he decided finally, already crawling across the seat parallel to Tiernan to get closer to him.

He waited, perched on his knees as the car drove up the hill to the dark house.

Tiernan considered him for a moment, his expression implacable. I worried he would say something mean, maybe call Brando silly for being afraid of something like vampires.

But he didn’t.

Instead, slowly, powerful jaw creaking, he opened his mouth to expose the strong, white rows of teeth. Brando bent close, too close to be polite. If he could have, he would have put his head right between those teeth like some kind of reckless lion tamer.

My heart panged as fear plucked at me. He was too trusting, too innocent.

And I knew I was really no better.

We were entering a world of riches and finery, and I knew from Dad that more monsters lurked beneath the diamond watches and silks than could be imagined.

I had no doubt Tiernan was one of them.

But Brando was already sinking deep into fascination with the man, his eyes sparkling as he used the pad of his thumb to test the point of Tiernan’s incisor. He pulled it away with a little hiss, shaking it out as he glared at him.

“They’re sharp!” he said.

The older man shrugged, righting his head and closing his mouth. “How else do you expect me to suck your blood?”

Brando’s mouth fell open, his eyes wide and blue as Spode china saucers.

Tiernan held his gaze, face totally somber.

I didn’t know what to think of the exchange until slowly, a tiny grin curled the scarred side of Tiernan’s face.

Brando watched it spread, the fear draining from his expression to be replaced by a mirrored grin, high on the left side like Tiernan’s.

Suddenly, Tiernan lunged forward, snapping his teeth.

Brando fell back onto the seat in his haste to get away, then burst into raucous giggles, clutching his belly as he laughed so hard he cried.

Something moved through me, thick enough to slow my blood and clog my pores. Something that should have been poisonous because it had everything to do with the man who’d essentially stolen us away, but it wasn’t.

It was bright and beautiful and it made me want to cry for the first time that day with something other than rage and grief.

Watching Brando laugh after the last few days of misery was a gift.

And I had to reconcile with myself the fact that Tiernan had been the one to give it to me.

When I looked over at him, he was watching me with those shrewd eyes that seemed to see right through me. I told myself to look away, but there was a chain linked between us, anchored somewhere behind my eyes that refused to budge. All I could do was stare into those inexpressive eyes and wonder at the mysteries behind them.

Wonder at why a man like him would ever willingly take on two minors.

The moment was broken as Ezra opened the door and bent his head in to offer me his hand. I took his big, rough palm and let him help me from the car, grateful to get out of the enclosed space that smelled of Tiernan’s expensive smoke and pine cologne.

“Oh my God,” I breathed as I looked up from the white gravel driveway to the long, wide house before me.

The property itself extended to the left all the way down to the water, a cliff falling away before the edge of the shore below. I could hear the distant roar of waves, taste the brine on the air and see the weathered effect of its presence on the old, eccentric house.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a gothic revival,” I admitted as Tiernan joined me and Brando took my hand. “More like a modern, generic penthouse in the city. It doesn’t look very energy efficient…have you considered solar panels?”

“It was my grandparents’,” he said, as if that explained it. “Don’t touch anything.”

Then, without waiting to lead us into our new home, he took off on gravel-crunching strides around the side of the house near the water, already dialing someone on his cell.

I rolled my eyes at his retreating form. As if it was reasonable to suggest a seven-year-old not touch anything in the house he was supposed to call his new home.

“Isn’t he gonna show us around?” Brando whispered, shooting a wary look at the house. “There might be, like, ghosts or something in there.”

“There are no ghosts,” I said, though I could believe that if they existed, they’d run rampant in Tiernan’s sketchy gothic home. “Come on, we don’t need to be shown around. If this is our new home, we better make ourselves comfortable.”

Ezra had his head in the trunk of the limo grabbing the four suitcases and a box of Aida’s records that made up our meager belongs, so I squared my shoulders and approached the house with a reluctant Brando clinging to my hand.

The door was massive, built for a Titan, painted a rich, vibrant blue that shone in the light from the iron fixtures to either side of it. A gleaming gold lion’s head was fixed to the center of the door, a heavy gold ring in its mouth.

The lions at the gate to the property and the door knocker, all fitting the name of the expensive, scary mansion set on the bluffs of Bishop’s Landing.

Lion Court.

I took a deep breath as I went to open the door only for it to swing open silently, revealing a murkily lit interior. No one appeared in the opening to greet us and I wondered with a little shiver who had opened it for us.

“Anca, I don’t want to live here,” Brando whispered, clutching Iron Man to his chest. “This place is super creepy.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But don’t worry, you’ve got Iron Man and Wonder Woman to protect you.” I gave his hand a squeeze and moved us forward into the dim house.

The entry hall was enormous, almost cavernous. Dark wood floors laid in magnificent hexagonal designs, two staircases curving around a central focal point of a tall, beautiful grandfather clock that filled the space with an ominous, hollow toll. There were open entryways on either side of the hall leading to shadowy rooms, but the entryway itself was startlingly empty.

“Hello?” I called, wondering if the person who opened the door lingered somewhere close.

My voice echoed in the space.

“Hello?” Brando called, then giggled at the echo and repeated himself. “Hell-oo!”

“Hello.”

I scanned the room, searching for the voice, then gasped rudely when I finally caught eyes with the person who’d responded.

Oh, he was horribly scarred.

Burn marks mottled the skin across most of his face and skull, leaving only smooth, warped skin tinted various shades from red to pink to shocking white. The scarring disappeared under the collar of his shirt and reappeared on his hands.

I knew this because he stepped forward from behind the shadows of a centaur sculpture near the left staircase to offer his right palm to me in greeting.

There was a soft, shy smile on his mouth and worry in his eyelash-less gaze.

Beside me, Brando made a noise of concern in his throat. “Are you okay?” he asked, with all the artlessness of a child.

The man bent slightly so he could address Brando on his level. “I’m more than okay, Mr. Belcante. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“You are?” Brando asked, shocked. “But how do you know about me?”

“Ah.” He smiled, touching the side of his misshapen nose. “You’ll learn that I know everything that goes on in this house. I am its keeper.”

“Like Jarvis in Iron Man?”

He laughed. “Maybe. Though, you’ll find I don’t have quite as much control over the residences here.” He straightened and offered me his hand again. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Belcante. I am Walcott.”

“A pleasure,” I murmured back, accepting his palm, noting the silky texture of the burns. “I’m sorry for Brandon’s rudeness, he didn’t mean anything by his question.”

“Of course.” He waved the issue away with one hand. “The sincerity of children is a good reminder to adults to be more honest.” He addressed Brando next, as if he were a grown man and not a boy. “I was in an accident ten years ago. My car crashed and caught fire while I was still inside. It left marks, as you can see.”

Brando stepped closer, peering up at Walcott curiously. “That’s really bad luck.”

A startled laugh. “I was drinking and driving, so it wasn’t a matter of luck but stupidity. My own fault. I was twenty and rather famous at the time.”

I frowned at him, trying to see if I recognized his face, but he caught me looking and laughed easily at my embarrassment.

“I hardly look the same, but I was once a male model,” he admitted, and if he could have blushed, I think he would have. “Vain and pretty.”

“Anca always says it’s better to be nice than pretty,” Brando parroted, reaching out to pat Walcott’s hand. “You seem pretty nice.”

Walcott’s smile was wide, pinching his waxy skin and bleaching it white. It could have been an ugly expression, but I found myself smiling back at the warmth in his dark eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Belcante,” he said solemnly. “Now, let me show you to your rooms.”

He led us up the right side of the curving stairs, pointing out some of the notable paintings clustered on nearly every available wall.

“Eamon and Zelda McTiernan, Tiernan’s maternal grandparents, were rather fond of art,” he said drily as he indicated the long hall we entered filled with ornate frames. “There are rooms stuffed full of it.”

“What?” I asked, my chest tightening with excitement. “Has it been catalogued? Some of these are very rare.”

My fingers hovered over the gold frame of a Picasso painting wedged between a Franz Marc and an Andy Warhol print. I could feel my heart knock brutally against my ribs as we descended the dark hall of wonders.

The house itself might have been nightmarish, but this? This was a dream for a girl who loved art as much as I did.

“My sister loves paintings,” Brando was telling Walcott, looking up, up, up at the tall man, so he almost walked into a marble bust. The manservant adjusted his path with a hand on his shoulder, but Brando didn’t pause to stop talking. “She’s a big geek for it.”

“You’re a geek for Marvel comics and movies,” I reminded him, darting forward to squeeze his sides until he laughed and squealed.

“Superheroes are way better than stuffy dead guys who painted pictures of stuffy old things like flowers and things,” he protested, looking up at Walcott for affirmation.

It made my stomach hurt to see how much he yearned for male validation and influence.

“I am fond of the Hulk,” Walcott admitted with a wink.

“Really? But he’s big and ugly and mean!”

“Is he? I suppose I like the idea of being two different people. One on the inside and one for everyone else.”

“All superheroes are like that!”

“But the Hulk is the only one that seems mean and dumb yet still makes a positive impact on the world,” Walcott pointed out and I had a surreal moment of wondering how my life had come to this, philosophical discussions of superheroes in gothic mansions with an actual manservant.

“That’s fair,” Brando decided. “Anca, can we watch Hulk tonight before bed?”

“Sure, Brandy Boy.”

“You wanna join us?” he asked Walcott next.

The older man blinked, caught off guard as we stopped at a black door with a little plaque on it that read, “Mr. Brandon Belcante.”

It caught me off-guard to see such a permanent proclamation of our residency here. It made me realize some silly part of me had been clinging to the idea that this was only temporary. But this wasn’t a fairytale, it was real life, and there would be no prince charming to save us from the villain who had decided to take us into his haunted home. A shivered slithered down my spine.

“If you’d like,” Walcott finally decided, “I could make time to watch a movie.”

“Cool!” That settled, Brando bounced on his toes and indicated the door. “This is my room? It even has my name on it. That’s so cool.”

Without another word, Walcott opened the door to reveal the room within. It was large, too big for a little boy, and filled with old, heavy furniture that gleamed with care and wealth. Brando immediately ran to the four-poster bed and jumped on the thick, soft covers, rolling over the grey sheets and moaning at their softness.

“This room is bigger than our whole house,” he declared, going into a crunch to look at me from where he lay. “We just have to set up my comic book collection and get some superhero sheets and then it’ll be like…the best room ever.”

I grinned at him, moving over to ruffle his soft head of hair. “We can do that. Why don’t you read some comics in here while I go check out my room, okay? I’ll be back.”

He nodded, rolling over to pull off the little backpack he wore. When he pulled out the latest edition of Spiderman, Walcott and I were immediately forgotten.

I pressed a kiss to his head, my fingers feathering over the pulse point in his neck compulsively. It was a habit I was developing that I didn’t know how to break.

Done, I followed Walcott out of the room and back down the hall.

“I think you’ll like your rooms,” Walcott said with a little smile as he led me through the old, creaking house. “They were once Tiernan’s mother’s.”

I shivered a little at the idea of what Tiernan’s mother might have been like. If her son was anything to go off of, she was probably incredibly intimidating.

But when Walcott opened the door with a small gold plaque labeled with my name, the interior wasn’t cold or bleak at all. The darkness of the rest of the house was absent from the feminine room. Tiny blue flowers peppered the cream wallpaper, the color repeated in the lush silk bedding and the massive Persian carpet over the dark parquet flooring. The rest was all in shades of white and gold, from the quilted headboard to the tufted chair at the gorgeous vanity set in front of the curved turret window.

It was a room out of a fairy tale, a calm, feminine oasis in the otherwise masculine doom and gloom of the larger house.

Despite myself, I loved it.

Walcott laughed lightly at my slack-jawed reaction. “I’m glad it meets with your approval. I aired it out the last few days, but a bit of that unused musk might remain, so feel free to open the window over there by the vanity. The hinge sticks a bit, but most things in this pile of rocks need a little tender loving care, so don’t be alarmed. Just give it a little jostle and it will open right up.”

As he spoke, I shucked my stained Converse and walked over the pale blue, gold, and cream carpet, wiggling my toes in the plush ply. My fingers found the velvet of the footboard, rubbing the softness between my fingers.

A lump formed in my throat, surprising me. It was strange to get emotional about a carpet or a headboard, but they represented so much more than material items.

When I was little, I’d known luxury. Mom had been obsessed with labels and Dad filled our home with them from the clothes in our closets to the car in our driveway. We had a big house with a big yard in a posh neighborhood filled with commuters to the city and their trophy wives.

When I’d asked my dad for a pony for Christmas when I was four, one had appeared in our driveway with a great pink bow around its neck.

Then, they’d found us.

The Morellis.

The family that hated Dad with every fiber of their being.

And they would stop at nothing to end each other.

Even if it meant targeting Dad’s bastard children.

I could still remember the cold, triumphant grin on the Morelli thug’s face when he’d cornered me on the playground at my elementary school and tried to convince me he was a friend of my father’s and that I should go with him.

I could still remember what happened when I refused.

A shiver ripped through me as I stopped in my new room, hardly aware of Walcott asking me if he should start a fire in the mammoth fireplace for me.

Dad had moved us to Texas after that, far away from the home state of his enemies and from him. We’d seen him less and less over the years.

Losing the ridiculous wealth was nothing to me.

Losing time with my dad was everything.

And then, five years ago, both were gone entirely.

The headboard under my fingers, the carpet beneath my feet both brought those memories crashing back to the forefront of my mind, leaving me aching and hollow with all kinds of grief.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to admit I’d live on the streets if it meant I could have my parents back.

Instead, I had this opulent bedroom, a baby brother who counted on me for everything, and a new guardian I trusted about as much as I’d trust Satan himself.

A long, weary sigh escaped my mouth.

“Miss Belcante,” Walcott asked, stepping in front of my vacant stare to get my attention. “Are you alright?”

Before I could answer, Tiernan’s dark velvet voice entered the room. “She’s fine. You’re dismissed, Walcott.”

Walcott had no discernable reaction to the impolite dismissal, flashing me a little smile as he turned to leave. He shut the door behind him.

Tiernan locked it with a flick of his wrist, then leaned against the paneled door and glowered at me with his arms crossed. The diamonds at his cuffs winked cruelly at me.

“That was rude,” I pointed out, casually moving to the other end of the room from him as if I were interested in the gossamer curtains and not interested in getting as far away from his dangerous magnetism as I possibly could.

He didn’t reply.

In fact, he was utterly silent and still as I moved from one window to another, fingering the expensive curtains, peering out the old, rippled glass to the stark autumn grounds below. A crow sat on one pointed end of the iron fence around the property, his beady eyes following me from pane to pane.

Even he wasn’t as disconcerting as the animal in the room with me.

Finally, I turned to face him, crossing my own arms over my breasts and affecting the same lean as he did but against the vanity.

“Can I help you?” I snapped, irritated and tired and beneath it all so sad I didn’t even think a good cry would release the sorrow in my bones.

“I was just thinking exactly that,” he finally said, raising his right thumb to rub it across his plush lower lip in that way he had that made my mouth go dry and other, secret, parts of me go wet. “Unfortunately, I doubt you have the ability to live up to my expectations, let alone exceed them.”

“Good thing I don’t give a crap about your expectations,” I said with a pretty grin. “Everything I do, I do for my brother. Whatever is left? That’s for me and me alone.”

His smile was quick as a lightning strike and just as terrifying up close. “Oh, little thing, that is where you are entirely wrong.”

I glared at him, my heart beating like a death march in my throat. “You might be used to pushing people around because they’re scared of you. Because you’re mean and ugly inside and out but rich enough to get away with bad behavior. But I’m not one of your underlings and I’m not cowed by your wealth.”

A long, sinuous hum rose from his throat as he considered me, head cocked and eyes narrowed like a predator trying to decide how best to approach his prey. After a moment, he pushed off the door and stalked slowly toward me. Each step matched that death-march pulse thrumming in my neck.

I tried not to move, not to flinch or blink. It would be far worse to show weakness in front of a man like him. I felt sure he would enjoy it.

I felt sure I would too if I allowed myself to give in to the warmth pooling slowly between my legs. To be studied so intently, to be stalked with single-minded focus was oddly and powerfully sexual.

Finally, he reached me, the toes of his shiny Italian loafers pressed to my bare, chipped-polish toes. That pale green gaze like a serpent was locked on me, pinning me in place even though the primitive urge to flee from him lurched through my limbs.

“You misunderstand the nature of my guardianship over you,” he said, his voice soft and quiet, a direct contrast to the cruel tip of his scarred mouth and the hard words they formed. “I am not interested in coddling you, or tucking you in at night and wishing you sweet dreams. In fact, I am not interested in you at all beyond what you can do for me.” His fingers reached out to run lightly down my cheek before they grasped my chin in a powerful grip. “I am going to put considerable time and money into transforming you from this boring little thing into a woman worthy of the McTiernan household. I am going to send you to the best school, give you the best clothes, and teach you to be a lady and not this pathetic little girl. I am going to make your wildest dreams come true, Bianca. And in return? You are going to obey my rules.”

“What rules?” I whispered, embarrassed by my husky tone.

He was too close, that palpable power and ruthless energy emanating off his body like heat waves, buffeting me again and again until I felt light-headed. When I swayed slightly toward him, the hand tattooed with the rose clamped hard over my hip to steady me.

The bite of pain shouldn’t have sent tingles down my spine straight to my sex, but it did.

It did and I almost hissed with the pleasure of it.

“Oh, they’re simple even for a little girl like you to follow,” he promised, his eyes cold enough to burn my skin while his hands on my flesh felt like fire. “One. You do everything I say as soon as I say it without hesitation or attitude.”

I snorted, then winced as the fingers on my chin flexed tighter. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I think your name has confused you. You are not a lord and I am not your vassal.”

He bent closer until I could count every one of those thick black lashes, see the darker emerald ring of green around the pale irises. I held my breath, from fear or to block the assault of his sinful scent on my senses, I wasn’t entirely sure.

“For all intents and purposes, I own you. So, if I tell you to make me breakfast, you do it. If I command you to wear a certain dress to a specific ball, you do it.” His voice dropped deeper, a vibration I felt conducted through his hands on my body straight into my bloodstream. “If I order you to your knees, Bianca? You get on your knees, and you do it with a gracious smile.”

“You’re a fucking monster,” I hissed. “A perverted, fucked-up monster. If you’re hoping taking in two orphans will do something for your image, think again. There’s no hiding what you are, Tiernan. Not your thousand-dollar suits or your plastic smiles. Not even Brando and me.” I rolled to my tiptoes and snarled the next words. “You’re an unlovable man with a hollow heart.”

He ignored my outburst entirely, but for a tiny muscle that pulsed in the square-cut edge of his strong jaw. “Two.” The word landed like a whip strike, making me jump slightly in his hold. “You do not touch anything in this house outside of Brandon’s room or your own. This is a house, not a home, and you’d do well not to get too comfortable here. There are secrets in the walls and monsters in the attic that eat little girls like you for breakfast.”

“Brando’s seven, I can’t tell him not to be curious,” I argued. “Please, be reasonable.”

“I’ll be reasonable when you show me that you can follow the rules,” he promised. “In fact, why don’t we start right now?”

My heart stopped, snagged in his dangerous web, and then began to thrash.

“Give me your locket,” he ordered, already moving his hand from my chin to the silver chain.

I jerked away, but there was nowhere to go. Pressed up against the vanity by his great hulking body, I was effectively trapped. My hand darted to his wrist, fingers pressing deeply into his skin as I tried to wrench his grip loose.

“No,” I gritted between my clenched teeth as I struggled to stop him from taking the only material possession that was dear to me. “NO!”

He ignored me.

My nails tore through his skin, leaving bleeding welts in his hand and wrist the way the rose had once done to me.

Still, he pulled inexorably on the locket until with one tiny clink that sounded like a gunshot to my ears, the silver chain broke apart in his hands and came clean away from my neck.

When I lunged for it, he held it aloft, dangling easily out of my reach even when I jumped for it. I made another grab for it, but Tiernan’s free hand lashed out to grab my ponytail, yanking it back to keep me away.

Only when I was pinned, struggling helplessly, crying even though I hated myself for showing him how much the locket meant to me, did Tiernan lean close enough for his lips to whisper against my cheek.

“Let this be a lesson to you, little thing. If you will not give me what I want, I will take it from you.”

Abruptly, he released me and turned on his heel to storm out the door. I flew after him, but the door slammed in my face.

“Tiernan!” I called through the heavy wood, banging my fists against the door. “Please. Please, don’t take that from me. I-it was a gift from my father. It’s all I have left from him.”

I stopped pounding on the door to wait for his response. My entire body felt poised on a precipice, quaking in a threatening wind. If he didn’t give me the locket back, I knew I would plummet over the edge and crash into thousands of tiny pieces.

I held my breath as I strained to listen through the thick, old wood.

Finally, there was a sound like rolling metal and then a harsh click.

It took me only a second to realize what he’d done.

Tiernan had locked me in my room.

And without another word, I heard his expensive shoes strike hard against the wood floors, down the hall, and away from me.

My knees gave out from under me and I fell to the ground with an awkward clamor, knocking my elbow into the door, my hip to the floor. My head fell onto the carpet, forehead pressed into the plush material and there I lay.

I lay there and I cried away all my tears.

Tears for my dad and my mom.

Tears for Brando who barely got to know his own parents.

Tears for lost hopes and dreams.

And tears for me, great, body-quaking sobs of self-pity.

Usually, I was stronger than that. Usually, I could remember that there were starving kids in Africa and veterans with PTSD living on the street with their demons. Usually, I could think of Brando’s smile and walking through the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston holding my dad’s hand when I discovered the beauty of art for the very first time.

Usually, I could find the hope and will to carry on.

But just this once, fresh off the death of my mom, burdened with the responsibility of a seven-year-old with epilepsy who deserved every single happiness in the world, deprived of my anchor, the locket my dad had given me before he died, I lay on the ground of Tiernan’s nightmarish house and let myself drown in despair.