Chapter 30 #2
I’d done a damn good job for a month of not looking, but now all bets were off. She wasn’t going to marry my brother without standing in front of me and at least hashing our shit out.
“No.” My voice cut through the room, soft but sharp enough to slice through steel. Everyone turned, but my eyes were only on the phone, on her. “I’m not going to stop until I find you, Bianca.”
There was a beat of silence, then her reply, ragged and frayed. “I chose this.”
“Did you though?” My chest ached, fury and need coiling so tightly it felt like I might snap. “And don’t you know by now? Whether you chose it or not, I’ll always save you—even if it’s from yourself.”
For a second, I swore I heard her break. That shaky breath. That crack in her armor. And then—“It’s better this way.”
Then the line went dead.
The weight of silence pressed on me enough to suffocate me. My jaw locked so hard it ached, my hands curled into fists. I turned, holding out my hand for the phone. “Give it to me. I’ll trace the call.”
But no one would budge. Bianca had built her own family, and they were willing to stand their ground for her.
I hated but respected it enough that I backed out of the house before I could level the place to the ground. My vision tunneled with one thought and one vow that burned through me like gasoline:
I’d find her.
I always would.
I left and pulled up her Oracle App and listened to every entry she’d added since the night she left.
I listened the way I should have so many nights before.
And I broke apart at what I’d heard. She’d been raped. She’d thought it was my brother until she hadn’t.
She’d never ever chosen anyone but me.
And, fuck, that destroyed me.
Pink
Rafe’s place—if you could call a limestone estate with its own chapel and hedge labyrinth a “place”—was much bigger than I had imagined, and I’d grown up in what most people called a mansion.
Ivy cinched itself around arched windows.
Angels and devils held corners with stone hands, their faces smoothed by a hundred years of rich people pretending they were saints.
Inside, cedar and polish scented the air. We passed oil portraits that had learned to look bored, an indoor pool tucked under a ribbed-glass ceiling that collected light like a reliquary, and a ballroom that would be transformed in a day for my so-called wedding.
Rafe told me I could relax in a room he pointed out to me and that’s where I tried my best to wait patiently.
We weren’t getting married but were hoping Bane came to his senses and got his ass here before everyone else from our past did, which was nerve-racking as hell.
It only took my parents and the pahkan, along with his kids, Angela and Ivan, a day to get there along with others who Rafe extended his guestrooms and homes to.
I told Rafe I wasn’t greeting any of them. I’d outgrown that part of my life.
He shrugged, “We probably have too, but it’ll uphold some sort of facade for my brother when he gets here.”
It didn’t take him much longer.
I was walking through the dining room on the way to the kitchen to grab some food when I saw Bane storming through the foyer.
He wasn’t in his normal suit and tie but rather a dark shirt and jeans that fit him just as well.
His hair had grown out a little, there was extra stubble on his face, and he had dark circles under his eyes but none of it mattered.
If anything, it made him look more dangerous and more volatile.
His sleeves were rolled up as he searched the room and when his eyes snapped to mine, I was locked into place, frozen from how every emotion flew through me.
So much passed between us in the moment that I took a step back only to bump into the table where my hand landed on something rubbery.
Something that felt too odd not to look.
And when I glanced down, I jerked back, a sickness rolling through me right as Ez and Rafe ambled in from the other room.
“Whose mask is this?” I asked, my hand shaking as I pointed to it. “Who’s here?”
Bane looked at Rafe and Rafe looked at him before they both looked at Ezra.
“Oh fuck both of you. I’m not wearing shit like that under my helmet.
” He gave them a mock look of horror and made a sound of disapproval before he chuckled.
He hadn’t picked up on the shift in the air until he turned toward me and saw my face.
He must have felt it then because the smile immediately dropped off his face. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Whose mask?”
Ezra shrugged. “I think it’s Ivan’s, bro. He showed me it earlier and must have left it here on the table. Said he wanted to see if some of the girls still liked it. He’s always going on about some—"
Bane stormed forward but I went after him.
“Bane.” I pulled at his arm, but he kept going. “Bane! What are you doing? What—”
“I listened to your Oracle entries finally, Pink.” His hand went to my cheek. “Fuck, baby girl. I listened to them all just yesterday. I was trying to ignore them, trying to let you go until you and Rafe moved the wedding up. But I listened to every fucking one.”
My eyes widened. I wasn’t sure if he had or hadn’t, but knowing he’d only heard them all yesterday heeled the last part of me that might have been mad at him. He didn’t know what a stranger had done to me…to us until yesterday.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I should have told you—”
“You never should have had to do any fucking thing with regard to that. Don’t ever say that.”
“I didn’t know how,” I told him.
“Don’t explain, it’s not your actions that need an explanation. You understand me? If anything, I should give you a fucking explanation for thinking you would have slept with Rafe in the first place—"
“Hey!” Rafe thew in, and I laughed because we needed the lightheartedness now.
Bane’s eyes cut to his brother. “I should kill you for not telling me immediately.”
Rafe held up his hands. “Let’s kill Ivan first, huh?”
He rubbed my cheek once more and kissed my forehead. Then he murmured, “I’m going to spend the rest of my life making this up to you after I kill him, okay?”
And then he surged around me like he was on a mission.
Shit, I was in a daze before it hit me that he couldn’t. “Wait! You have to stop! Give us a second to think.”
Rafe was behind us. “Think about what? If he doesn’t kill him, I’m going to kill him myself.” How my fiancé had turned into an overprotective big brother, I didn’t know, but Rafe was the worst of them. He was a vicious don in the making, and I had no idea how to stop what was about to happen.
“Ivan’s the pakhan’s son, you guys. You’re not going to do a damn thing to him even if—” My voice broke as the weight of the truth finally hit me, and I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop the dam that wanted to overflow at finally knowing who’d done the unspeakable to me.
“Oh, we’re killing him. There’s no question. He’s mine.” Bane’s voice was so carnal even his brothers took a step back as he moved past me. “No one else’s.”
I ran and then whirled in front of him so he had to halt if he didn’t want to run me over. “No, wait. Wait.” I shoved him back. “I get to make that decision, Bane. You know it.”
“Pink.” My name rumbled out of him in warning.
“Bane,” I replied back with the same tone. “This isn’t your fight.”
“He deserves to die!” the man bellowed in anguish. “And I do too for letting it happen.”
To him, he hadn’t protected me, he’d let this happen, but it wasn’t ever going to be his fault.
“You can’t protect me always,” I rubbed a hand over his heart.
“Please, Bianca.” His voice sounded broken. “You need to allow vengeance.”
“Bane,” I sighed and then looked at him with tears in my eyes. “It will truly disrupt so many partnerships within your family.”
“You’re my family. You always have been.” His stare flicked to his brothers. “She always has and you both know that, right?”
I glanced at the two of them and they were just smiling and nodding. I knew they were giving him a sort of permission and that’s when the rage at what Ivan had taken from me started to build.
I turned back to Bane and licked my lips. “Then plan it, Bane. Plan it like you always do. And check every damn part of it three times. Make it perfect. For me … tonight.”
“For the family. Famiglia prima, sempre,” he murmured and stared at me. “You’re the most important part of that to me now.”