Chapter 10 Bianca
BIANCA
I didn’t exactly get used to anything, but I learned to adapt. I stopped trying to impress anyone and pulled villain T-shirts from my third suitcase. I wore them every day and didn’t engage or act cordial with anyone.
I started taking my time when the nurse knocked on the door, I left the locks undone for Pepe, and I left a mess everywhere to show that if Bane was going to treat me like a burden, I was going to act like one.
In the first month, I braced for his wrath or anger but all I got was apathy. No desire. No remnants of heat. I didn’t know whether to feel relief or frustration in that.
By the second month, I got irritable and antsy. He had his security detail, Pepe, on me and my room every day that we didn’t speak, and the man was clear that he wasn’t there to cater to me. I wasn’t allowed to leave, either, unless Bane summoned me.
My friends and family abandoned communication. I was now a Black and therefore too much of a liability to engage with.
I lost weight with the constant gluten meals I had to avoid, and I grew less and less healthy.
Bane noticed—but not in the way I wanted. The nurse would come two or three times a day and Bane would stand there, on the edge of the penthouse, cataloguing the mess of my room while she checked my blood sugar and noted numbers down on a chart that she pointed to and showed him.
Now, he’d glare at me and say, “You better do what she says.” It was a command, not a concern for my health or well-being, and I learned to loathe it.
I was good at keeping myself inside the lines for my family, but with Bane I wanted to act out, wanted to beat him at his own game of apathy, and wanted to prove I didn’t care what he said or commanded.
And I tried. I read books. I watched TV. I laid in bed and cried.
I downloaded the Oracle App on my new phone and started leaving journal entries in that too. They were absent ramblings, considering I wasn’t sure who would catalogue them but it felt like I had a friend to talk to a bit when the app pushed an AI bot to respond.
My knife migrated from pillow to nightstand. The syringe somehow ended up in the bathroom cabinet.
I was only summoned for specific dinners or to travel and always told to wear my ear buds. The private planes had rules: I sat away from him, buckled and quiet while he read reports.
I still saw his tendencies when I looked for them, the way he folded papers, lined up pens, the way he checked seat belts more than once and yanked mine three times before flights took off.
Maybe that should have felt like mercy. It didn’t. It felt like being erased—like my edges were being sanded down, piece by piece, until there’d be nothing left but a shadow where I’d been.
So the night I was asked to dinner after we’d had lunch together felt almost surreal, like stepping onto a stage after months in the dark. And I was told my father would be there. My stomach knotted with something between nerves, excitement, and resentment.
I chose a woven dress the way my mother would have wanted—soft blue silk that clung to my shoulders before falling demurely to my knees. It buttoned high at the neck, cinched at the waist, pleated at my hips to fan out and skim my thighs. Classy. Subtle. Controlled.
Not at all how I’d been within my penthouse with my villain T-shirts and bare feet, wandering like a ghost among the expensive furniture. Those shirts had been my quiet rebellion, my middle finger to the invisible cage. Tonight, there would be no rebellion—just the costume.
I even pulled out some of my old heels, the kind my father liked, polished and severe. The click of them on the marble floor felt foreign, like someone else’s life.
I opened the Oracle app and murmured, “Oracle, I get to see my family. Pick a lip gloss for me. Rose gold or pink?”
It told me rose gold, and I swiped it over my lips, layered my lashes with mascara, added just enough highlighter to catch the light.
Contouring my cheekbones became a ritual of war paint, my brush strokes precise and careful.
Putting on a mask of perfection took time, and I wasn’t about to showcase cracks to any of them.
I wanted my father to see his daughter. To remember I was still his blood—not just a commodity. I wanted him to know I deserved a seat at that table, even if they’d long since decided to trade me away.
There was a knock on my door at fifteen minutes past seven. I knew that meant I was late, but I also was used to grating on Bane’s nerves. So when I opened it and Pepe stood before me in an all-black tux, I asked, “Can I help you?”
“You’re late,” he growled begrudgingly, like he hated to open his mouth.
“Oh, and you came to collect me? You my date to dinner?” I asked him, because it was just like Bane to send someone rather than coming to get me himself.
He frowned at my comment, his bushy eyebrows slamming down over his chocolate-brown eyes.
The man had a face carved for scowling—square jaw dusted with perpetual stubble, nose a little crooked.
And then he actually balked, shoulders rising, chest puffing, which coming from a muscle man like him was hilarious.
I couldn’t imagine how someone built like a human wall could look any bigger, but somehow he managed it.
“I’m escorting you,” he grumbled, voice rough like gravel dragged across pavement. “Not dating you. I damn well wouldn’t do that.”
The words should have stung, but they didn’t.
His tone wasn’t cruel, just blunt, like every syllable had been stripped of anything unnecessary.
That was him in a nutshell—gruff to the bone, humorless on the surface, but underneath the rough bark, he didn’t seem all bad.
He carried my bags without being asked, opened doors with one meaty hand like it cost him nothing, and walked two steps ahead to clear hallways no one ever dared block anyway.
If his scowl was permanent, so was his quiet watchfulness.
I appreciated him except for the way he dragged men away.
“I’m not that bad,” I scoffed, turning to grab a little clutch before I waved him on so we could walk toward the elevators.
He grunted under his breath. “Bane finding a creative way to kill me is that bad.”
“Aren’t you the guy that does that dirty work for him?” I pointed out, because I’d seen him drag out a man screaming and as much as I should have been frightened, Bane’s wrath never did scare me in the past.
But maybe I should have been more fearful because Pepe said, “When inclined, Bane saves the best work for himself.”
I absorbed his comment but didn’t let the conversation die. I was happy anyone, even Pepe, was giving me the time of day. “How so?”
He snapped his mouth shut with my question though and stomped down the hall like it was my fault he’d engaged with me whatsoever.
I hurried after him. “Oh, come on. You’re going to escort me everywhere but refuse to talk to me?”
“Yes.” He punched the elevator button with his meaty hand.
“That’s going to get boring real fast.”
He huffed as the elevator doors dinged, and we walked in. “You’ll have plenty of people to talk to at dinner.”
“Fine.” I leaned on the railing and narrowed my eyes at him, trying to figure out what would crack his tough shell. “Who’s all at dinner other than my father?”
He glanced toward the cameras in the elevator and the door before he angled his face so that it was hidden from every lens before saying, “Your mother, too, Ms. Zarelli. And a friend. So I’d prepare to be on your best behavior.”
Friends and family. The ones who’d left me with Bane to rot.