"She was far from an angel."
Ilaria D'Angeli has never had a normal life. Kidnapped by her father mere months after her birth, she has no idea that she's secretly the lost princess of the Italian mafia. After a series of unfortunate events, she beca...
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THERE'S A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE. I used to think everything was black and white, that someone was either on your side or they weren't. But now that I'm older I realized things weren't as simple as that. I hated my so called "father", no questions to it. But I also loved him in a way, or at least loved the idea of the father he could have been. Whatever strange love I had for him withered away long ago just like his corpse eventually would, and now I had found a different vice: alcohol.
I hated it. I hated what it did to people, what it did to my father, how it played a part in my fucked up childhood... I hated what it did to me.
But I also loved it, craved it the same way I used to crave my father. It was like the thing that I had been searching for my whole life, something to clear my head and eventually it became a way to numb the pain.
As I sat on the floor of the balcony, the guardrails looked like my own personal prison walls. I wanted a drink, badly. Just something to help me cope with the confusing mindfuck of a day. All of it was absurd to me. I didn't understand how the life I knew could be ripped away from under my feet without a second's notice, but I guess in this life you need to expect it. Still, it doesn't make it hurt any less.
I was about to figure a way to get a drink when I heard the door open behind me, pulling me out of my thoughts.
"Hey, sis," Alexei said, a cheerful smile on his face. "Can I sit here?"
Out of all my brothers, I had to say that I was most comfortable around him and Dante. They were still scary when they wanted to be, but right now Alexei looked like an excited puppy so I had to oblige.
"Yeah, why not," I said, and he plopped down next to me, trying to stick his legs between the balcony railing. This won't end well.
"You're gonna get stuck," I said pointedly.
"I'll be fine. I did this all the time when I was a kid," he said confidently. I didn't quite see the logic behind his statement, but I figured it was best not to try and argue with him.
We sat there in sweet silence for about 0.2 seconds before he asked out of the blue, "Do you like Snickers?"
"Yeah, they're my favorite."
He grinned, pulling one out of his pocket. "No way, me too." He broke it in half, offering me one of the halves.
"Thanks," I said, surprised. I was hesitant to take it, but eventually I obliged. He asked me some more questions for a while, which surprised me again because I didn't find myself being annoyed with them. Usually I hated anyone that wasn't Deja, Kaz, or Vik; but I actually... didn't mind spending time with my brother. He was the kind of person you immediately felt comfortable around, but I still remembered to keep my guard partially up. Now was not the time to get hurt or spill my secrets.
"What do you like, Lari? For real," he said, and I went quiet. "Your secret's safe with me," he chuckled, but there was really nothing I could say.
"I... I don't really know that much about myself," I admitted, a look of realization dawning upon him. "What about you, Lex? What do you like?" I asked, giving him a nickname like he gave me. He smiled at the nickname but it soon disappeared. He paused, as if he had never put much thought into it before either.
