Knot To Be (Forbiddenverse #3)

Prologue

ROSALIA

Fluffy, pink streaked clouds float above my head, and it almost feels as if the sky is trying to tell me something. Knowing the world I live in, I would think the sky is heralding a death.

That’s not morose at all, Rosa.

Vero plays with my long brown strands as I lay with my head in her lap, oblivious to my thoughts as they trend toward the bloody and obscene.

One day, things will have to change, and I’ll no longer be able to enjoy my time like this with her.

I’m going to soak in every moment because I’m not ready for that to happen.

“Don’t borrow trouble, Rosa,” she murmurs. “My mother is already on a rampage.”

“She’s always angry,” I grumble.

I’m not sure why my father married such a shrew, but I’ll accept it because it brought me Vero.

She’s my sunshine and beauty in a life full of responsibilities.

I hate that we have to hide behind our steadfast friendship as sisters.

I thought my life would be easier at sixteen, but it’s proving to be very complicated.

“That’s why I’m glad to be here with you and your father. He doesn’t bother us much outside of the parties you need to go to for the family,” she says softly.

Those “parties” aren’t as innocent as she thinks.

My father is trying to find a husband for me that’ll align our family with more power, despite the fact that I’m only sixteen.

He’s been grooming me for an arranged marriage for years, reminding me to enjoy my life without losing the most important commodity I have: my virginity.

A part of me thinks he knows how close Vero and I are, he simply turns a blind eye to it because she can’t get me pregnant.

My virginity will also technically be protected since she doesn’t have a penis.

However, that’s not all my father has me do.

I’m a terrible stepsister and I’m keeping too many secrets to count from her.

Closing my eyes, I listen to the birds playing in the trees of our large back yard, feel the sunlight on my skin, and enjoy Vero’s company.

…Right up until a gunshot breaks the tranquility of the day.

“What now?” I sigh, sitting up. I was starting to get sleepy, but that’s gone now. My heart is beating a little faster, my head feels extremely clear as I blink away my sleepiness, and my fingers twitch with the need to do something.

“Shouldn’t we stay here?” Vero asks, watching as I stand up. Her mother and she married into the mafia world. Neither of them really understand what that all means, even now.

There are guards on the property who are armed, yet there are many families in Savannah who have security.

My father’s men are simply paid to kill, and most guards don’t have that in their job description.

It’s a very distinct difference, and the lunches my stepmother attends are with old money, which means she doesn’t completely understand how dangerous my family is either.

I wonder if Vero would be horrified at some of the things I’ve been forced to do, or if she’d love me anyway. Even with the gunshot, my stepsister still thinks my father will be our protector.

She has no idea he’s really the wolf.

“No, my father will want me to see this. He would have made sure the gunshot was inside otherwise. Stay here, please. You know he won’t hurt me.”

My words seem nonsensical with the alpha she knows my father to be, but I can’t help that for now.

I have a sneaking suspicion that he shot Vero’s mother for saying something less than motherly about me. They’ve been married for two years, and my father has been bottling up how angry he gets when Beatrix, my stepmother, complains about me.

The list of my failures in her mind grows every day, and it appears it’s finally reached the end.

“Rosa,” Vero almost growls. Neither of us know our designation yet, but I’m fairly certain she’s going to be an alpha.

“Vero,” I tease, bending down to brush my lips against hers. “Please. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I commit the memory of her long sunset red waves and blue eyes into my mind, remembering every willowy curve before I go handle whatever unpleasantness is awaiting me. Vero’s dress is floral and beautiful, and distinctly different from everything about me.

Light and dark, two sides of the same coin. Hmm.

A second blast of gunfire leads to a man crying out, and I begin to walk down the flagstone path in an attempt to cross the yard at a faster pace without falling in my red flats on the uneven ground.

My red sundress flutters around my calves, something else my stepmother will be sure to bitch about if she’s still alive.

Red is the color of a harlot, and good girls shouldn’t wear it according to her.

This doesn’t cross over to hair color she insists, something that shows her hypocrisy.

However, my signature colors are red, black, and white, so she’ll have to gag on her unhappiness at my choices.

My heart stops as my footsteps stumble in front of my dying stepmother’s body, where she is indeed gagging on her own blood. There is a hole from the bullet wound in her stomach, and someone has cut her throat to make her death last longer as she drowns in the red liquid quickly escaping her body.

I’m not sure who else was shot, but I need to remain focused on what’s in front of me for now.

“A bit performative, don’t you think?” I ask my father, my breath only slightly hitching as I find my balance.

“I wanted you to see this, my beautiful daughter,” he says with a wide, unhinged smile.

“I see.” The words are a promise as I tear my gaze up to my father’s. His usually well groomed hair is filled with flyaways as anger and insanity practically vibrate inside of his body. The only civilized part of his person is his well groomed beard and suit.

Taking a deep breath, I take the time to center myself. The only way to survive my father is to remain calm.

It’s a lesson I have learned from a very young age, because I watched him kill my own mother when I was six years old. I also had to watch as his men buried her in the garden that’s become one of my favorite places to escape to.

Sometimes, I whisper how much I miss her in the direction of her unmarked grave. She has a beautiful pink rose bush where I tell myself she must be buried, and I make sure the gardener takes care of it for me.

If I’m caught pruning and caring for the roses, it’ll enrage my father. I know where the limits to his benevolence lie.

“She couldn’t stop talking about your fucking dress,” Papa snarls. He hates if I call him anything else, which means I can’t slip up while he’s upset. Some days, he’s fine with how I dress, others he’s on her side. His emotions and actions are mercurial at best.

“She has a personal problem with the color red, and now it’s staining the flagstones.” Beatrix’s life doesn’t mean much to me, despite how long she’s been living in my house. I’m uncertain if it was worth this heavy of a price, but that’s not up to me.

I hate the bitch. Her only decent contribution to the world is her daughter.

“Funny,” Papa chuckles, kicking Beatrix in the stomach. “You hear that, whore? My daughter is fucking hysterical! I hope you remember that when you’re in hell.”

My eyes move to where a knife and a gun are presented to me, and I raise my brows in askance.

“Who else is better to send this puttana to hell than the one she hates the most, Rosa?” Papa asks. “Before you ask, not only was she talking shit about you, she was also fucking the gardener. We’re going to bury him as fertilizer for your precious garden.”

I must betray some emotion because my father presses the gun into my hand. I’d much rather use the knife as it’s quieter, but I hesitated for far too long.

“Please don’t take it from me, Papa,” I whisper, referring to the garden. Begging isn’t something I should be doing, but he’s spiteful enough to light the entire thing on fire for shits and giggles when he’s in this kind of mood.

“Then take your dress off,” he growls. “Gag her with the very thing she hates, and I’ll allow you to use the knife in my hand to kill her. Come now.”

I can feel the bored stares of my father’s men as I pull the straps of my dress down my shoulders. I’m not wearing a bra today, and they bounce out happy and perky, not understanding the peril I’m currently in.

“It’s interesting she craved your modesty, yet didn’t think to keep her own clothes on,” Papa growls.

I have no idea if Beatrix’s indiscretion is real or if his jealousy finally got the better of him. It would be better if he didn’t get remarried, so I can get a little bit of peace. I’ll attend any stupid function he needs to attend on his arm as a pretty doll, as long as I get to keep Vero.

I desperately don’t want to lose her sooner than I need to.

He doesn’t mention anything about my cotton black panties, which is a blessing for now.

As soon as my dress hits the ground, my knees follow.

I keep my eyes from watering with extreme embarrassment as the heat in my cheeks expose me, but I still manage to ball up the material of my dress to shove it into my stepmother’s mouth.

It only serves to further choke her, thereby winning me the prize of the knife in my father’s hand. I exchange the gun for it as I incline my head toward him in thanks, the fingers of my free hand wrenching Beatrix’s hair to expose the mess of her throat.

“Do you have a specific way you’d like for her to die?” I ask.

“Stab her in the eye, Rosa. Let’s get some blood over all that pale skin, shall we, daughter?

” Papa suggests. I’ll always be pale compared to him, despite how much time I spend outside due to the sun burning my skin.

The truth is I’m more olive toned than pale.

It’s a fight I refuse to engage in with my father, especially not when he’s like this.

“Franco has the shovel for you to bury her. That’ll be your job alone. ”

I force myself to breathe as I lift the blade and stab it into my stepmother’s eye. I do it swiftly, despite the gurgle of her strangled scream, or the smell of piss as she releases her bladder in fear. Death is messier than the blood of the person you’re killing.

It’s everything else as well.

I’m no innocent, and I’m well aware of that. Twisting the knife deep in her eye socket, I watch as her life drains from her body. Even though she wasn’t my favorite person, Beatrix was Vero’s mother.

The reminder is brought home as my stepsister’s skirt snags in the thorns of a bush not far from me. Raising my eyes though my face remains down, I urge her with a glare to get the fuck out of the garden. The farther the better, as long as she’s not caught here.

“Where is my shovel?” I rasp, pulling the amusement from my father’s men. Franco kicks blood in my face, speckling it across my skin.

Now I definitely look like a murderer out of a horror movie.

“Break down the body with this axe, but take it to the back of the garden before you do that, Rosa,” Papa says.

“I have a meeting in twenty minutes. I’m going to begin telling people I threw Beatrix out, and I’m keeping her brat out of the goodness of my heart.

I’ll be considered a hero for having a child under my roof that doesn’t belong to me. ”

Standing, I exchange the knife for the axe, bending down to grab my stepmother’s ankle to drag her body through the garden. It’ll be slow going since I’m only five foot three, but I’ll get it done. When I glance back at where I saw Vero, I see she’s gone now.

If she knew what’s good for her, she’d leave this house and run far from here. Except, even after this, I doubt she will. I love her and she loves me, even through murder and matricide it seems.

While blood may splatter my skin, it doesn’t hide my nudity. Papa’s men stare at me through dark lashes when they think he’s not looking, one of the only views of me they’re likely to get.

One day, I’ll be gone from here, married to an alpha who’s as insane and angry as my father. All Italian dons are this way it seems.

My life is just a series of deaths until I meet the same end. My only wish is that my transgressions do not hurt Vero any more than they have.