Chapter 3 Aerin
AERIN
I hate him.
Falco wasn’t kidding when he said every aspect of my life would go through him.
My privacy appears to be a thing of the past.
On the first day, I caught him downloading all my contacts onto his phone so he could keep track of them, and the embarrassment that there were only seven fueled my anger toward him.
He asked me four times for the numbers of my friends before it clicked with him that I didn’t have any.
It was humiliating.
The day after, I found him downloading the GPS from the car I’m always driven around in so he could map out every single place I’d been in the last two years.
I took great pleasure in mocking him for that since the only time I’m allowed to leave the estate is for a family function, event, or the occasional take-out with my brother.
On the third day, he plied me with questions regarding my drinking habits and more.
At first I lied to his stupid handsome face about drinking until I couldn’t walk and shooting up with every drug on the market that I could get my hands on.
I had to retract that once I realized it would get Giacomo into a lot of trouble.
Underneath the quiet smiles and words of praise my father gives Giacomo, I see the truth.
They didn’t make me heir because I’m more capable than my brother, or because they think having a dona in charge will set them apart.
They did it because Giacomo lost himself.
Drink and drugs became his lifeline, and while everyone refuses to tell me the whole story, I’m pretty sure we nearly lost him.
Whatever he got up to fuels their over-protectiveness over me, which in turn just stokes my constant desire to break free of this house, this life, and be free somewhere else.
Falco stops drilling me for information by the fourth day, and he settles into becoming my shadow.
Unable to shake him, I throw myself into trying to make him uncomfortable.
A spa day with Mom, complete with a manicure and having my hair done.
Clothes shopping that lasts an entire day.
Hours and hours spent at the salon getting my hair redone until my scalp burns. Even hours at the gym trying to shed the pounds Mom points out without fail.
None of it affects Falco.
He doesn’t falter.
He doesn’t even blink.
It’s like part of him has switched into this quiet, robotic state that only activates when I ask him a direct question or someone walks too close to me for his liking.
It would be sexy if it weren’t completely smothering.
Until one day Giacomo drops by and throws himself dramatically onto my bed.
I sit at my desk, pouring over online catalogs while trying to make it look like I have contact with the outside world that Falco should be worried about, but he’s wise to my games now.
He stands just outside, half of his body visible as he rests against the doorframe and observes the hallway as if he expects a threat to jump out at any second.
“So.” Giacomo grins at me, snatching up the little elephant plushie from beside my pillow. “You still sleep with this guy?”
“Hey!” Rising quickly, I try to snatch Henrietta back from my brother, but he’s far too fast and holds her just out of reach.
“Come on, Aerin. You’re twenty-one now. You can’t be caught sleeping with stuffed animals.”
“Give her back!” I lunge once more, but Giacomo is far too nimble and he slips out of the way as I fall onto the bed. “And I don’t feel twenty-one.”
Laughing, he stops near my dresser and holds her aloft in one hand. “What do you mean?”
Sitting up, I lift one shoulder. “I dunno. Doesn’t matter.”
“What? It does.” In an instant, he’s by my side setting Henrietta back in my lap. “What’s wrong?”
Clutching her close, I play with one well-loved, floppy elephant ear and glance up at him.
“I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like…
it’s like I stopped. Just me. And everything else moved on without me.
I don’t feel twenty-one. I don’t feel like an adult or a woman.
I feel the exact same as I did at eighteen, or sixteen.
I wished so hard for things to be different at twenty-one because you get your life at twenty-one.
And I just get…” Frustrated, I glance past Giacomo and glare at Falco’s back.
“I get a robot shadow and more rules than I ever had before.”
Giacomo follows my gaze and winces. “Oh. Him. Dad told me he was some ex-marine or something. Is he giving you trouble?”
“Yes!” I answer immediately, then my stomach knots and I shake my head. “I mean…not really. He’s just following dad’s orders like everyone else here.”
“He’s why you didn’t come to dinner with me last week, isn’t he?”
I nod. “Sorry.”
He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it, squirt.
Listen.” Lowering his voice, he leans in and toys with Henrietta’s other ear.
“I know how you feel. Trust me, I was there. I also thought that it would get better when I got to thirty and here I am.” He huffs softly.
“But I can give you something I never had.”
“What?”
“Me!” Giacomo leans up. “Listen…pick out your best dress, do your hair, and make sure you eat something because I’m taking you out tonight. I’ll take you to my favorite club, okay? It’s the best place in the world. We’ll have a great time, I promise.”
My heart begins to race at the prospect of leaving here and doing something normal, but as soon as my mind embraces the possibility of fun my heart sinks. “Dad will say no. You already know he will.”
“Sure.” Giacomo smirks. “But Mom won’t. I’ve got her wrapped around my finger.”
“Really?” I shove him lightly with my shoulder. “Don’t get my hopes up. Please.”
“Trust me.” He flicks the elephant ear with his finger and stands. “Get ready.”
My heart races faster and faster, but as a bubble of excitement swells in my chest it halts when Falco’s hand shoots out lightning fast to grab Giacomo’s arm as he passes.
“Name of the club,” Falco barks out.
My brother jerks his arm sharply out of Falco’s grip. “You’re not invited.”
“I go where she goes,” Falco remarks dryly. “And she doesn’t go if I don’t know the place.”
Giacomo glances back at me. While my irritation for Falco is strong, my desire to go out and be normal is much stronger. I clasp my hands together and plead silently.
He sighs and adjusts his shirt. “It’s called Syrup. You know it?”
Falco nods just once. “Fine.”
Syrup gets its name from the gigantic glowing pillars dotted about the club, flooded with some kind of slow-moving liquid.
Bubbles rise and sink within the pillars, sending trickles of light across the faces of every dancer filling the floor.
Music pounds so loudly that my back teeth ache, and I cling tightly to Giacomo’s arm as he weaves us effortlessly through the crowds toward the bar.
I can’t believe I’m here.
I’m actually here. How he managed to persuade Mom is a mystery, given how often she mutters that he’s a bad influence.
I’m draped in a silver dress that’s loose enough to hide my rolls and curves, with my hair piled high, my makeup as neat as I can make it, and enough perfume that even Falco had to clear his throat when I passed.
I’m on cloud nine.
This place is beyond my imagination and better than anything I’ve seen online.
The dance floor is an oval with the bar slap bang in the middle, filled with colorful lights, flashing neon signs, and several hundred silver streamers draped over the top shelf of expensive bottles.
I’ve lost count of the sexy women and handsome men that have flitted past me with bright eyes and drunken smiles.
The air’s thick with smoke from a machine and countless perfumes and alcohols clashing together into a scent that faintly stings my nose.
I’m not complaining.
“Hank!” Giacomo yells at someone as we reach the bar. “Hank!”
Placing my hands on the sleek surface, my bag slips from my shoulder and catches in the crook of my elbow.
A warm hand brushes my bare arm, and I glance up to meet Falco’s golden gaze.
“Don’t lose this,” he says sternly as he places my bag back on my shoulder.
I shrug him off and snap, “Leave me alone. The last thing I need is you hanging around.”
Falco doesn’t reply, but he does step further down the bar.
When he rests against it, the muscles in his arms strain against the fabric of his near black shirt, and his dark hair glimmers like liquid silver thanks to the bright lights above the bar.
For a moment, he looks almost human and my heart skips a beat.
How ironic that the only man to ever pay me a lick of attention is a man my father’s paying. It’s almost painful to think about.
“Giacomo?” A topless, tanned man on the other side of the bar approaches us, tucking a rag into his white pants and grinning. “I haven’t seen you in here in a hot minute.”
“It’s been a while!” Giacomo clasps Hank’s outstretched hand and leans across the bar into a half hug. “Hank, this is my sister, Aerin.”
Hank glances at me and smiles politely, scarcely able to hide the flicker in his eyes that I always see when my brother and I are together.
Giacomo is thin with shorter hair and a boyishly handsome face.
While my weight keeps me looking young, it’s usually the roundness of my face that causes people to give me that specific look, like it makes sense that I’m Giacomo’s sister because why else would he be with me?
From expensive dinners, galas, and charity parties to here. The look is exactly the same.
Some things never change.
“Nice to meet you,” Hank calls. “What’s the occasion?”
“We’re celebrating her birthday,” Giacomo yells loudly. “So bring me the sweetest drink you have!”
Suddenly, we’re surrounded by people.
“It’s your birthday?”
“Happy Birthday!”
“Oh my god, I love your dress!”
“Let me buy you a drink!”
“You’re Giacomo’s sister? That’s so cute!”
There are so many people I can’t work out who says what, but before I’ve even said hi to the sudden crowd of people around me, a glass is placed down in front of me by Hank.
The contents look like crushed red ice, complete with a slice of strawberry on the edge of the glass and a mini sparkler.
“On the house since it’s your birthday.” Hank smiles.
I look to Giacomo for support as the sudden attention and noise grows overwhelming, but he clutches my hand and presses the glass deeper into it.
“Drink! It tastes good, I promise.”
It really does. The first sip doesn’t even taste like alcohol. I might as well be drinking a strawberry slushy. Three sips in, and I lean toward Hank. “Is there alcohol in this?”
Laughter erupts around me and a pulse of nervousness gathers in my gut, but the more I drink, the less that feeling matters.
By the time I’ve finished my drink, Giacomo’s pressed another into my hand and has a glass of Scotch in his own.
“Happy late birthday!” he yells to the cheers of the small crowd around us.
“You should order champagne,” says a voice next to me.
“You should! That’s the perfect way to celebrate!” cries another.
“Should I?” I turn toward Giacomo, but a stranger stands where he once was, a man who is nodding quickly.
“You should.” He grins.
“Gia?” I turn again, searching for him in the crowd, but he’s vanished. The only person I do see is Falco who sticks out like a sore thumb against the bar, nursing a glass of water while watching me like a hawk.
My cheeks warm.
How pathetic I must look to him.
Twenty-one with no friends in my phone, no one to talk to or go out with, kept a prisoner in my home, and needing my older brother to work some magic just to go out.
I’ll show him.
“Champagne!” I cry out toward Hank. “Champagne for everyone!”
Two hours later, I’ve lost count of the tasty drinks and shots I’ve been plied with.
The music is so loud I can’t discern my own heartbeat from the thumping bass, and the people around me have become my best friends.
My side aches from laughing so hard, and I lean onto the woman next to me, who breaks into soft giggles.
“I wish he’d brought you here sooner, Aerin,” she says. “You’re so sweet!”
“Isn’t she?” says a man. “Hey you wanna get out of here?”
“Do I!” The woman clutches at his arm and steps away but just as my racing heart starts to sink, she turns and takes my hand. “Are you coming?”
I shake my head slightly, fighting to get my eyes to focus through the haze of the club. “Where are we going?”
“Wherever we want to!” the couple laugh.
“Oh, are we leaving?” asks another member of the crowd whose name is lost to me. “We should go to Spice down the block!”
“Oooo I love Spice,” says another voice from behind me.
“Come on Aerin,” says the first woman, her hand still in mine. “Come with us!”
What little doubt I have about leaving fades at the sudden swell of warmth gained from the acceptance of these people and I nod quickly. “I want to!”
“But?” The woman leans in close. “What’s wrong? Got a curfew?”
It might be my imagination, but she almost sounds like she’s mocking me. “No,” I say indignantly as her weight against me causes me to lean back into the bar. “I just have a shadow, that’s all.”
“Oh that’s nothing!” She cackles and tugs at my hand. “Come on. Your shadow won’t know what hit him!”