Chapter 10
YELENA
“You know what’s fucked up?”
I grin into the phone camera. Mom gave up trying to get Dad to use better language around Massimo and me years ago.
“It is what it is, princess,” he'd sighed one day, grinning at my mom when she’d thrown up her hands after hearing him call someone on TV a “fucking prick” when I, at the ripe old age of maybe six, was sitting on his lap. “Like trying to dry the ocean with a hand towel.”
“Like pissing into the fuckin’ wind, Mama!” I'd crowed back.
It could have been like pouring kerosene on that particular fire.
But then Dad saved both the day and his relationship with his wife when he promptly plopped me onto the couch and chased after Mom, making her shriek and giggle before scooping her into his arms, kissing her, and telling her he’d never do it again.
Pretty sure he dropped another f-bomb, like, nine seconds later. But by then he had Mom sitting on his lap. Those two are so nauseatingly smitten with each other that their arguments only last about sixty seconds before they’re all over each other again.
Gross.
I might not have learned about not using foul language from my father. But what I did learn from him is the power of unconditional love.
I’ve never personally been in love. I don’t know that’ll ever actually happen to me. But if it does, that’s the sort of love I want.
Messy. Crazy. Silly. Unapologetically wild.
“What’s fucked up, dad?”
He sighs into the camera, shaking his handsome face. “At some point we dropped the howling, and I didn’t even notice until it was too late.”
I grin widely.
That was our thing when I was little. He’d walk into a room, spot me and say, “Hey, little wolf”, and I’d respond by literally howling like one. Then, of course, he would start howling, too.
Honestly, it’s a miracle that my mother has survived being married to a complete nut like Dad for so long.
I guess it helps that Nero De Luca is one of the handsomest men I’ve ever seen.
Literally. Tall, dark hair, the same green eyes that I got, and the tanned Italian skin that Massimo got and I unfortunately didn't. He’s also ridiculously in shape, has a bunch of tattoos, and this perpetual swagger that has most people he crosses paths with immediately eating out of the palm of his hand.
Mas asked him last Christmas how he stays in such good shape, even in his late forties. Dad just shrugged and said “Marry a princess.”
The next thing you knew Mom was in his lap kissing him, and Mas and I were groaning “gross” and fleeing the dining room table.
“I mean, we could still do the howl now?” I shrug.
Dad pouts. “Yeah, but wouldn't it be a little forced?”
I grin. “I’m nineteen, dad. Yeah, it’ll be a little forced to wolf howl at you.”
He chuckles. “Fuck it. Let’s do it anyway.” He winks at me. “How’re you doing, little wolf?”
Fuck it indeed.
I throw my head back and howl to the ceiling. Dad immediately joins in, and the combined noise is so loud that I hear Wren hooting in laughter through the open doors of our shared bathroom.
“Hi Nero!” she calls out.
“Wrenaissance!” Dad hollers cheerfully. “What’s going on!”
“Not much!” she bellows back.
“Hey, just so we’re clear,” Dad says, still loud enough for her to hear. “The offer still stands to have that fuckhead ex of yours killed.”
“Nero!”
I laugh as Mom appears behind him in the frame to admonish him for suggesting such a thing.
“Hey Mom!” I wave at her. She grins and instantly rushes over to pluck the phone from Dad’s hands.
“Hi, love bug!” she beams into the camera at me.
God, she’s beautiful.
It would probably give me a complex if she were anything less than the greatest mom ever.
She’s a rockstar, a superhero and my biggest champion, all rolled into one.
Still, it’s hard to not feel…inferior…when you’re in Milena Kalishnik’s presence.
Even if she’s not doing anything at all, she’s just existing.
Staggeringly gorgeous, tall, blonde, and leggy. A legendary ballerina and choreographer. A professional model now that she’s retired from dancing. If that wasn’t enough, she also works with Jude’s dad Kir as CEO of the arts charity he started a few years ago.
So, yeah: Mom may be an amazing enough human being and mother that I managed not to get an eating or anxiety disorder simply by being her daughter. But it really is hard to not compare my average life to her larger-than-life one.
“How’re classes going?” she smiles. “PS hi Wren!” she screams into the phone.
“Hey!” Wren says as she appears in my doorway to our bathroom. “Just saw the email about expanding the foundation's ballet outreach program into the South Bronx. That’s super cool.”
“Thanks, hon!” Mom beams her million-watt smile into the phone. “I think your mother’s gonna be helping with that.”
The phone is suddenly yanked away from my parents and a tanner version of me, with a dusting of facial hair, fills the screen.
“'Sup, Wren?” My brother Massimo says in what I’m sure he thinks is an ultra-smooth voice.
Mas is a senior in high school who plans to come to Knightsblood next year. He’s also been drooling after Wren and Galina since he hit puberty.
“Hey Mas,” Wren laughs. “How’s high school?”
He shrugs and makes a “cool” face.
“Oh, you know…” He clicks his tongue against his cheek. “I’m basically already in college.”
Dad snorts in the background. “Not if you don’t yank up those math grades, bud. And gimme my fucking phone back,” he chuckles, pulling it away from my brother.
“Dad, c’mon!” Massimo blurts. “I was talking to Wren!”
I cringe and bury my face in my hands. Wren giggles behind me. “I gotta go anyway, Mas. Good to see you guys!”
Dad makes her promise to “really consider” his offer to skin Bryce alive. Then I close the door to the bathroom to save my friend from my insane family.
“She’s going to think you’re serious if you keep saying that, Dad,” I giggle.
Dad’s brows lift. “You think I’m not? Fuck that douchebag. Wren’s an honorary De Luca at this point. I feel it’s within my purview to go kill the little shit.”
Mom sighs into the phone, rolling her eyes dramatically. “He’s gotten worse since you left for the semester,” she says.
Dad chuckles and then leans in to kiss her, right in front of Massimo and me.
So disgustingly cute.
“You guys totally cock-blocked me with Wren there,” my brother pouts.
“Massimo Marko Vasily De Luca!” My mom gapes at him. “First of all, never say cock-block in front of your mother again, please. And secondly, hon?” She shakes her head. “You’re coming on too strong. It’s borderline creepy.”
Massimo rolls his eyes. “It’s called game, Mom. It’s not creepy.”
Dad snickers. “Nah, that was pretty fucking creepy.”
Mom and I both crack up.
“Whatever, bro,” Mas scowls at our dad. “You and Mom have a literal sex cage in the basement and you’re calling me creepy?”
I make a barfing noise as Dad bursts out laughing. Mom, meanwhile, tries to hide her crimson face from the camera. She's still giggling, though.
“First, it’s not a sex cage,” Dad sighs. “And second, let’s try our best not to call our father bro. Okay? Dude?”
Massimo sighs, grinning. “Well, don’t tell Wren, but…” He shrugs. “Truth be told, Galina’s the one who has me wrapped around her finger.”
Dad laughs again and then starts play-wrestling with Massimo in the background as Mom grabs the phone.
“How are you, hon?”
I grin and shrug. “Oh, you know. Fine.”
I’m always “fine”. Never “really stressed with my course load this semester”. Never “really missing you guys and sometimes feeling like a scared little baby alone here at college, even though you're all barely an hour away”.
And definitely never “really bad because Dad’s business partner’s son got me drunk and maybe drugged me this past summer and sexually assaulted me.
He shoved his fingers into me, and it really hurt, and then he tried to make me give him a blowjob, and the only reason he stopped was because I deliberately peed myself to gross him out, and I’m still really ashamed and shaken up and sometimes wake up crying from nightmares about it”.
I know my family loves me unconditionally. I know my father would literally kill for me. Mom too, probably.
But telling them all that feels like too much.
Hey, I know I’m a grownup but there’s this problem that I walked into and I need you to fix it because apparently I can’t do it myself.
I mean, please.
So I hide it. Bury it. Pretend it didn’t happen. Put on a brave face.
Because I am ashamed, both of what happened and hiding it for so long. I’m a fucking De Luca and I let myself become a victim.
And I can't confess all of that to two people I consider to be superheroes.
“Just fine?” Mom smiles.
I shrug. “I guess? School is a lot right now. But I’m managing.”
She nods, then winks conspiratorially and leans in. “Any boys?”
“WHAT BOYS!”
I snort a laugh as Dad instantly untangles from my brother and lunges back in front of the camera, looking like a wrathful, vengeful god.
“My daughter has a boyfriend?!” he hisses. “Since when? Who is the fucker? Who are his parents? Where does he fucking live?!”
“Oh my God, baby,” Mom sighs, rolling her eyes and pushing her blonde hair out of her face as she leans in to kiss my dad’s handsome, murderous face. “There’s no boyfriend, okay?”
Dad scowls deeper. “I want to hear it from her.”
I laugh. “Dad, seriously. There’s no boyfriend.”
Just a man in a mask who chases me with a knife and it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.
A man who keeps saying I’m his. Who keeps inserting himself into my life.
A man who told me to give him my fucking panties yesterday.
…And I did.
Jesus, what is wrong with me?
Dad frowns. “Well…okay. I also don’t like this Hawthorne Hollow murder shit, by the way.” He shakes his head. “I feel better knowing Laz is going to be up there to keep an eye on you, though.”
My brows knit. “Wait, what?”