Chapter 28
Bella
I did a bad thing.
I remember when Kaiser told me he would never fall in love.
Now he’s gazing at me like I’m his whole world.
My plan worked. The poison I used bound him to me. Not the candles—the lotion I’ve been slathering my skin with. It’s specially compounded to make him love me.
It should make me gleeful, knowing that I’ve got him under my spell.
It doesn’t. It makes me feel like shit. My stomach churns. I’m trying to hide it, but Kaiser is perceptive. He knows something is wrong. That I’m not happy.
It’s all a lie. His attention, his tenderness, is all because I made him feel this way.
He’s obsessed with me, just like I wanted him to be. But not because he actually likes me. The connection he feels with me is manufactured. It’s fake.
I thought I’d enjoy having the upper hand, but now that I have it, I hate it. It was better when he was really fighting me. At least then I knew what we had between us was real.
I tamed the beast, but it’s horrible. Like declawing a lion.
Why did I do this? I don’t want Kaiser to be like this. I want him to be… him. I want him surly and dangerous. Whatever he really feels for me—lust, distrust, even hate—I want it. I want it all. I’m greedy for him, the real him.
Because he was perfect in his own awful way. Evil and bad with a kill count greater than mine. Of all the people on Earth, he would be the one to accept my supervillain tendencies. To encourage them. If I hadn’t used the love potion, we could’ve had something real.
Now I’ll never know. We’ll never have a true connection, communion. He’s taken all my firsts, and I can’t even really be with him. Not while I’m still poisoning him.
How the mighty have fallen. He doesn’t know his obsession with me isn’t real; it’s manufactured by me. But I don’t want to be his captor or the villain in his story.
I want to be with him.
I wish we could have that.
But we can’t. It doesn’t matter if I can’t have Kaiser’s love.
From the beginning, we’ve been locked in a struggle to fight for the upper hand.
Now that I have it, I can’t throw it away.
Not until I free myself and my father from this bogus alliance.
I still need to figure out how to do that.
I’m not just up against Kaiser, but the whole brotherhood.
And then I need to figure out who framed my dad for Alfredo’s death and deal with the Vesuvios.
There’s no room for Kaiser in my life.
I wish it could be different. But it can’t. Kaiser made his choices. I made mine. We’ll always be enemies. Even though my body is sated by the orgasms he’s given me and we’ll sleep tonight in the same bed, we’re not on the same side.
“What’s wrong, Bella?” Kaiser asks.
He sounds so earnest, my heart aches. It’s on the tip of my tongue just to tell him.
Even if I wanted it to be different, what are my options? If I tell Kaiser what I’ve done, it won’t go well. Sure, he shook off my drugging him with the candles, but this is different. It’s so much worse. I’ve toyed with his emotions—him, a big, strong man who prides himself on winning every fight.
If I confess all my secrets, he’ll kill me.
Not immediately. He’d confer with Fraternitas, and they’d figure out how to get my drug out of his system.
I don’t know about mafia contracts, but what I’ve done is probably grounds to break the alliance.
They’d send men to kill my father, and Kaiser would probably take his revenge on me.
His loyalty to his brothers comes first.
Nothing’s changed. It doesn’t matter how sweetly he speaks to me, how softly he strokes my hair. I’m still his enemy, and he is mine.
He says he wants to figure me out, but I can’t let him. He can never know me the way he wants to.
What we have will always be fake. It hurts so much, like my own poison is burning me up from the inside. Worse, I can’t let the hurt show. I have to act like everything’s normal, like Kaiser’s love is real. My life, my father’s life, depends on it.
“Nothing,” I say, forcing a shadow of a smile to my face. "Nothing’s wrong.” I pretend to be tired and hide my face in the pillow. I’m so devastated, I can’t even cry.
This is the price of being a supervillain, and I have to pay it. For my pride’s sake. For my dad’s sake.
I never thought I’d share a bed, a home, a life with someone who loved me and still feel so alone.
The next few days are agony. I wish I could talk this out with my gal pals, but Raine is still locked up in her stepbrother’s castle.
Honey is willing to sit beside me in orientation class again, but she doesn’t have time to hang out afterward anymore.
Which is why, when Kaiser picks me up at university and says, “Your father wants to see you,” I’m relieved.
He drives me to New Rome. My happy feelings last until he drops me off at the door of our home. When I walk in, I feel like I’m in the wrong place. There are no plants, no decorations. None of Mom’s paintings are on the wall.
Did Papa remove them all as soon as I moved out to go to school?
I was the one watering all the plants, but I figured he would take over when I left.
The walls look bare, and the breakfast nook feels empty without the giant money tree dominating the space.
It used to feel like a jungle or a garden; now it feels like a tomb.
I’m glad I don’t live here anymore.
I take the elevator to the lower levels and find my father in his secret lab.
“Papa.” It’s a relief to see him. He looks thinner, his skin a little sallow, but so familiar my heart aches. He’s even wearing his microscope goggles that help him work but make him look ridiculous. He invented them when my mother was still alive, and she always teased him about them.
These days, no one teases him. He and I don’t have that sort of relationship.
Right now, I feel the urge to run into his arms, but he’s not a hugger. I rein in that urge—I’m always reining myself in around Papa—and linger in the door.
“Bella.” He looks up from his work, removes his goggles, and looks me over, his expression relieved. So he does care about me. “You’re looking well.”
And you look like you’ve been working too hard, I want to say. I want to ask him if he’s eating enough and scold him about his long hours. My mom would’ve. But I bite my tongue.
“You wanted to see me.” My arms hang awkwardly at my side. I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I fold them in front of me. “Is everything okay?”
“I merely wanted to check on you. I’m told you caused quite a stir at one of Fraternitas’s places of business.”
He called me here to chew me out for Pandemonium. I know it was a ruckus, but what happened to having a little fun?
I shrug. “It was a joke. I’ve already apologized.” To my friends. Not to Fraternitas. If they want this alliance, they’ll have to deal.
He sighs. “I told them I’d address your behavior.”
“Why? Are they going to break the engagement?” My heart speeds up. Last time we spoke by phone, I was frothing at the mouth to get out of this wedding. Now? I still want out, but I feel some reluctance. If the contract ends, will Kaiser leave? Do I want him to?
“No.” My father frowns.
“Right.” I relax, ignoring how relieved I feel, knowing that I’m still shackled to Kaiser. “Then everyone needs to chillax. I’m not a child.”
“And yet you insist on acting like one.”
“I wouldn’t if I were treated like an adult who gets to choose who she wants to marry.” Just because you like Kaiser, doesn’t mean you want to marry anyone, I scold myself. I don’t want Fraternitas to have the upper hand. It’s a matter of principle.
“We’ve been over this.” He picks up his goggles and polishes them with a cloth. I stare at his bare ring finger. He used to wear a wedding ring, but not since Mom died. It bothers me, but I’ve never said anything about it.
“We have not. I’m still waiting for an explanation.” I fold my arms over my chest, holding my breath. It’s hard to stand up to my father like this.
He shakes his head slightly. “Not here.” He glances up toward the corner of the ceiling, and I look, but I don’t see anything. But I get it. He’s warning me about cameras.
Even if this place is bugged and we’re being watched, there are many ways he can communicate with me. All these weeks, waiting, and he couldn’t just slip me a note?
“Papa, you sold me into marriage. I deserve to understand why.” If I understand the politics at play in this alliance, maybe I can craft a new, better solution. “This is all a mistake.” My voice rings out in the quiet lab. “I tried to tell them you didn’t kill Alfredo Vesuvio but—”
“Belladonna,” he snaps, then softens his voice. “It’s done.” He closes his eyes as if he’s very tired. “I admitted that I sold the poison to Livia.”
“What?”
“Livia Vesuvio. Alfredo’s wife. Fraternitas knows she came to me, here, after hours, and I sold her the compound she could use to kill her husband.”
My mouth is open, but I don’t know what to say. I swallow. “That’s not—”
“It’s the truth. It happened. And now I am paying for it. We both have to live with the consequences.”
I shake my head. That’s not what happened, and he knows it. “I—”
“Do you know what happened to her? Livia? After Alfredo died, his father ordered an autopsy. Dominus is the head of the Vesuvio crime family. He has three children, all boys, but Alfredo was the oldest and his favorite. His heir. When the autopsy revealed traces of poison, Dominus was out for blood.” He pauses to let me figure out where this is going.
Out for blood… Livia. “No,” I whisper.