AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Junior winked at me. “Just trying to make it more awkward.”
“Literally all he does,” Ash said under his breath, earning a swift kick in the ass from Junior’s boot and a take down from behind compliments of Serena.
Chase shook his head and walked right back out of the living room. “Children.”
“All I’m saying…” I ignored the brawl taking place next to me and saved the crystal vase, lifting it into the air before the table went flying. ”…is that, you’ve trained me well, and I have several friends plus at least three of our guys actually work at Eagle Elite, so no, I don’t need to take philosophy so that I’m in the safe non-business classes and no it’s not going to convince me to take my own path. I’m in it, blood in no out, you could send me to knitting—”
“—Don’t hate on knitting,” King said under his breath. “It’s a very soothing process.”
“Anyway…” I ignored him. “Even if I took the wonderfully soothing process of a knitting class.”
King gave me what felt like a very sarcastic thumbs up that also somehow managed to communicate that I was seconds away from getting punched.
“I would still be part of this Family and part of this world, so could you just give me a break, let me enroll in my own classes, run my own life and stop shoving your business up my ass?”
“Oh shit,” Junior said before pulling away from Ash. “I’m just going to be outside… the house, touching grass.”
“I need grass,” Ash added.
“Not that kind of grass, dumbass.” Junior grunted.
Serena was the last to leave, taking Bam-Bam with her.
I thought my argument would maybe be over.
I thought everything would be fine.
And then footsteps sounded. Bella had cleaned up the blood and put on a pair of low-slung black sweats and a matching tight black tank top. Was she even wearing a bra? Did she want to die so young? Good, my nemesis was going to get a free show.
She jerked her head toward the kitchen as if to remind me of the Ivan-Bella Rules taped to the fridge and gave me a pointed look.
As a joke, not funny by the way, Chase made them into metal signs for everyone so they could keep them in their houses as a reminder that misbehaving earns punishment.
The first one rule was established after the Kitchen incident—lots of ice cream, a tragically broken freezer and a knife: Always stay three feet apart.
Do not bring weapons to family dinner or picnics.
Never play Hungry Hippo. You would think that one would be self-explanatory, but people always asked why.
Use only kind words, no expletives when addressing one another—this was a really hard one for both of us, so we ended up developing our own language after watching Friends in an attempt to see what the fuss was all about. I sided with Joey, I really did. Anyway, if I gave her a thumbs up it meant F you, if I gave her a thumbs down, it meant, eat shit and die, and any time either of us gave the double thumb up or down it basically meant, we were probably both packing and in genuine need to brawl. Thumbs up was let’s go fight, thumbs down was if you approach me I’ll end you.
I didn’t mind the double thumbs up because it meant I faced her in the ring and I really didn’t mind the double thumbs down because it meant we were going to compete at something to get all the anger out, victor took all. Between archery, axe throwing, swimming, and her genius idea of a barre workout, we were able to at least get some of the aggression out of our systems in a semi-healthy way, while still insulting and competing against each other.
Over the years, they’ve made new signs, added in more and more rules. Not excluding us, just literally avoiding eye contact.
We provoked each other in the worst way; she grew up a mafia princess with a spoiled little attitude and still thinks she’s a badass because her dad trained her and I grew up the pauper nobody that had to be taken in because her dad was the great Nixon Abandonato, her uncle was Senator Chase Abandonato—she was untouchable, and she was the reason for the pain I lived in.
Her.
She also would randomly wear polka dots, then walk by me and ask if I was dizzy—so she purposefully dressed to piss me off. No girl that hot should be that cruel. And the worst part? She was the youngest, so she constantly got away with it.
She could sneeze out a fart then commit murder, say sorry and people would say, “Aw, baby girl, did you have a hard day? Should I wipe your ass for you?”
I gritted my teeth and looked away.
“You guys already drew blood today. Remember the rules.” Phoenix stated in that bored tone that meant I wasn’t allowed to argue, let alone fail at anything in life. He stared down at his folded hands and wrung them together, it wasn’t something I could say I noticed a lot, but when he was really stressed and trying to keep it in or keep the violence in, he did that.
I would never admit it out loud, but I hated knowing it was my fault and in moments like that, I really did want to reach out and say sorry, but all that ended up coming out was sarcasm.
