Soulless Rivalry (Crimson Royals #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

11 years ago. Upper East side, New York

M y hands were trembling.

I hated it and tried hard to keep them from doing so, but I couldn’t.

Next to me, Mamma’s eyes were vacant, as they had been for the last week, ever since baba passed away.

She went through the motions, didn’t even acknowledge the people escorting us to the highest floor of the tallest building I had ever seen in my ten years of existence. We didn’t have anything like these back home.

I had only been there for a few hours but I already hated New York. I wanted to go back home to Italy with Baba and Jedde, but even back then, it was pretty clear to me that I would never see the sun of Sorrento again. I would never see my dad or find comfort in the arms of my grandma ever again.

We didn’t have much; we lived on the ground floor of an old building in the north of the city. I had to share my room with Jedde but I didn’t even mind, I loved hearing stories of her childhood back in Tunisia before going to sleep.

Tears rushed to my eyes and my fingers absentmindedly traced the gold bangles on my wrist. Jedde had given them to me on the morning Mamma’s people found us and came to our home, two days ago.

I lived pretty much my whole life in hiding. My parents never said it out loud and tried their best not to let it show or affect me, but I always knew the reason why Mamma dyed her blond hair brown was not only to look more like me, as she would say whenever I asked. I knew the reason why we never wandered around the country, hell, the city , wasn’t only because money lacked, but also because there were people out there looking for us.

And now, with dad out of the picture, they had found us.

The walls around us suddenly felt like they were closing in, the hallway becoming even more narrow with each step we took. Breathing felt difficult.

There was a red door at the end of it. I knew whatever was awaiting us behind wouldn’t be good.

The two men walking in front of us stopped suddenly, and so did the two behind us.

“They’re all waiting for you.” The guard’s words were in English and I remember wondering what they meant since I only spoke Italian with specks of Arabic back then.

His voice was surprisingly soft. Nothing like the men who came to take us two days ago, forcing us to leave our life, home and family behind.

“Thank you, Leo.” Mamma’s voice was flat but soft. Empty.

When the guard, Leo, nodded, he pushed open the red door and stepped away, signaling for us to step in.

My heart was in my throat and my hand clutched mamma’s even tighter. She didn’t squeeze back.

She used to, before.

It was our thing.

I would squeeze her hand when I needed a little strength and she’d squeeze mine back, giving it to me.

Maybe she just didn’t have any strength to lend me on that day. Maybe she had to save it all for her.

Several new faces looked up at us when we entered the room.

An old man was sitting behind a gigantic desk. It seemed fancy, as did the whole room. All the furniture were made of wood, polished and sparkling clean, certainly custom made. There were gold accents pretty much everywhere; soft-looking, blood red curtains were on either side of two huge windows, giving us a clear view of the buzzing city underneath us.

It may have seemed odd that I was focusing so much on the decor, but for a kid who had only known second hand furniture, handmade quilts and using tin cans as plant pots all her life, being so suddenly thrust into a world of opulence and lavishness made me feel out of breath.

If I’d had to choose, I would’ve chosen Jedde’s makeshift plant pots, mamma’s handsewn quilts and baba’s latest thrift find rather than all of this luxurious nonsense that had been presented to me.

The silence in the room was deafening, cut only by the squeaking sound of my old sneakers on the hardwood floors. I gulped as I took in the people staring at us. They were all so impeccably dressed compared to us. We hadn’t been allowed to change or even shower since they had come to take us.

Mamma’s dress was long with short, puffy sleeves, a beautiful burgundy color, but it looked cheap in comparison to these people’s designer clothes. My jean shorts were dirty from playing outside and my shirt clung to my skin with perspiration from the trip earlier.

The old man behind the desk didn’t take his eyes off mamma, not even bothering to acknowledge me at first, unlike the other people in the room.

I couldn’t help but notice the distinct similarity between them and my mom: blond hair, hazel eyes, pale skin… it made sense they looked so alike.

After all, they were her family.

A family she ran away from ten years ago to be with my dad.

A part of me was a little jealous. They looked so much like they belonged together and I was the odd one out.

With my brown, wavy hair, tan skin and dark eyes, I couldn’t have been more different than the men and women in this room.

One man in particular was standing right behind the old guy, a hand gripping the back of his leather chair, his eyes strained on me. Glaring.

I took a step back and hid behind mamma a little, clearly intimidated.

A woman with short straight blond hair was sitting on a corner of the large desk. She was wearing a white blouse with a tight red skirt that stopped right under her knees; her legs were crossed and bright red stilettos adorned her feet. She kept looking between me and mom, pinching her lips together like she was dying to say something but couldn’t. Her eyes were glassy; she was holding back tears.

But it was her face that made me blink twice; it was exactly the same as mamma’s.

Twins.

My mom had a twin sister and it had taken me ten years to discover it.

She had a whole life aside from the one she built with me, and realizing it made it hard to breathe.

I didn’t linger on the other people around us, but there were three men total, including the one glaring daggers at me, and two women. The other woman, taller and a bit older than mamma, was smirking haughtily, like she knew something we didn’t.

But even though they all looked at us, mom didn’t spare anyone a glance, not anyone but the old man behind the desk.

Her father.

When he got up suddenly, my breath caught in my throat, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. I felt mamma tense, her hand trembling in mine.

I squeezed her hand, sending her some of my strength, even though it was scarce.

The woman on the desk sat a little straighter, her eyes finding mine immediately.

Heavy steps echoed around us as the old man walked up to where we’d been standing. He wasn’t the tallest man I’d ever seen, but he still hovered well over me and was a few inches taller than mamma. His suit was black and perfect, not a thread was out of place and it fit him perfectly. A big, silver ring adorned his pinky finger and as he came to stand right in front of us, I saw a feather was engraved on it.

I didn’t have time to linger on it, because next thing I knew, he brought his hand up and delivered a sharp blow right to my mother’s face.

I screamed in fright and surprise.

Mamma didn’t.

As I got older, I understood why.

It was better not to, and she knew it.

The force of the blow was so hard it made her stumble down to the floor.

I threw myself on her, circling her neck with my small arms, ready to act like a human shield, but there was no need.

He was done for now.

Mom’s hand rubbed slowly at my back to reassure me but it was no use, my whole body was shaking with shock and fear.

Baba had never been violent, not once. Neither with me nor mamma and certainly not with Jedde.

When I looked up at my mother, the whole right side of her face was red and starting to swell; her lip was split, blood seeping from it, probably from the impact of the man’s ring.

“I’m okay, roohi ,” she whispered in Italian but used the Arabic endearment that my father used with her.

I sniffled, silent tears running down my cheeks. I’d been trying real hard to be strong like mamma told me, but I couldn’t hold them back anymore.

And when the man crouched next to us and grabbed a handful of mamma’s hair, making her whimper, fright froze my body in place.

“Se pensi che ti perderò mai di vista, ti sbagli, puttana,” he spat heinously and I gasped at his words. If you believe I’ll let you out of my sight now, you’re wrong, whore.

That brought his attention to me. Cruel and cold eyes narrowed on me. He stared for what felt like hours but were merely seconds before spitting on the ground next to us.

The action wasn’t only disgusting, it was also demeaning, a way for him to tell me and everyone else in the room that he didn’t respect us, neither me nor my mother. That we were beneath him.

It was humiliating.

Mom was staring at the ground as he got back up and left the room, evading his gaze, but I couldn’t look away from his retreating form.

Something was born in me that day, a red ball of fury within my gut that would only grow with time.

Hatred.

It was a foreign emotion; I had never felt it before, not in the first ten years of my life.

All it took was one meeting with my grandfather for me to learn what it was.

One after the other, every single person in the room followed after him, not sparing me or mamma another glance, like we were dirt on the floor and not human beings.

The last person to go was the woman with the red skirt. She crouched in front of us and used a handkerchief to softly dab at my mother’s still bleeding lip, silently.

Mamma didn’t say anything, her eyes vacant still.

Then the woman’s eyes fell upon me and she gave me a small, wobbly smile.

“Hey, honey, what’s your name?” she asked me softly in Italian.

I gulped, unsure about her motives, but ultimately decided to answer her, “Elyssa. Elyssa Ayaari.”

She gave me a sad smile, a delicate hand coming up to cup my cheek. “You’re a Bianchi, now. Welcome to the family.”