Page 18 of Promise to Break

This is just the beginning of our fucked-up game.

Chapter eight

Killian

The first day I heard my brother had found himself a fiancée, I didn't know what to think. For once, I knew it was coming. Franco had spent years searching for an acceptable bride for Santino, and when I was told he was engaged, I took it as a sign that my father had found some poor girl he was sure would endure my brother's antics. Imagine my surprise when Santino gloated, telling me he found his wife by himself.

I didn't care. Santino's future stopped interesting me the moment he pulled a gun on me. My father's orders or not, I saw the glee in the depths of my brother's eyes when he did it. Santino hates me, and not without reason.

I tried to accept the concept of another woman under our roof. I even tried to look at the bright side of things. Something I don't tend to indulge in. Optimistic people never see what's coming at them until it's too late. I don't have that privilege. A new woman was a great thing. Santino would have a new toy to play with, and my mother would have less attention forced on her.

I don't have many weaknesses in my life, but the most prominent is my mother. My father bought Isabella Fierro when she was only fifteen years old. Franco was twenty-one, and at the time, his father's death was inevitable due to his dementia. Franco accepted Isabella as his wife and the mother of his children, taking no time to get her with child and bring Santino into this world, the carbon copy of my father. Physically, that is.

Santino is reckless, spoiled, and dreadfully foolish. Franco understands that for the mafia, he needs someone like me. A soldier who will do everything in his power to protect someone he cares for. My father would rather I care for the mafia, of course, but he's okay with me caring only for my mother. After all, that way, he gets whatever he wants from me.

Franco noticed me gravitating toward my mother from a very young age. He always told me with obvious scorn what a kind baby I was. I never cried much, always smiled, and continuously looked for my mother.

"I knew I would have to work at your cruelty, Son," he told me when he sent a bullet through my shoulder just after Santino sent one into my arm. He made me my mother's protector, her caregiver. Ever since then, he's held me by my balls. And this is only Isabella. The lives of many others are on my shoulders, and as wide as they may appear, I'm not Atlas, therefore I don't know how long I would last with the world on said shoulders.

So, hearing the news about a spouse for Santino had me cautiously pleased. Another woman in the house could encourage both my brother and father to look elsewhere for their entertainment and stop harassing my mother.

I was right. Franco started taking his lovers to other places, leaving my mother be, and Santino has demanded nothing vile from Isabela or me for two years now.

Nonetheless, life couldn't give me white without pulls of gray in it. I expected the gray, but I've never seen the color that came with it. Blue, green, red and brown came into my life unhinged and unwanted in the form of a little spitfire of a girl who left me on the floor, clutching my dick.

I chuckle as I lift myself, shaking my head at the pain in my balls. That little girl can deliver one hell of a strike. Who knew?

Usually, I begrudge life for what it throws at me, and yet, for the life of me, I can't resent Maricela. Not even with the pain between my legs.

I remember the first time I saw her, thinking that Santino took his "young girls" fetish to the next level by choosing a teenager to be his wife. The spike in my blood pressure at that moment made no sense.

I tried to intimidate her, to destroy her confidence, but the sass in her the moment I told her off stayed with me for a long time. I even thought I would fuck it out of her when my mother arranged Maricela's room next to mine, telling me to keep an eye on her. Isabella was worried that Santino would try something.

I watched the cameras, waiting for Maricela to do something, but all she did was hum to herself in Spanish that first night, forcing me to listen to her melodic voice.

Since that moment, I've tried to do everything in my power to break her. I thought I would do it today. Liam and Kai came up with this ridiculous plan of wooing her. Turns out my way of wooing is unorthodox.

Her face when she saw me was priceless. For the very first time, I caught the wild child unguarded. Yet, a few moments later, she took control and showed me the way out. She wanted to touch me, to explore, to see what I had to offer.

The bottom line is that my first attempt at wooing, as Liam so efficiently put it, was futile.

I let myself roam her room. Maricela isn't organized, to say the least. Everything is in disarray. Her uniforms are tossed over a chair, socks, panties, and other miscellaneous articles of clothing litter the floor. The few bits of makeup she owns are scattered around her desk. One lipstick has been left open, and from the little I know about makeup and how Lila bitches about it all the time, that can't be good. I can admit I want to mess her up, just as she did in this room.

I open Maricela's drawers just to see a mess in there as well. It's like Hurricane Katrina ruined any resemblance of order.

I continue my snooping, going through her mess until I get to the drawer next to her bed. Surprisingly, this compartment is squeaky clean and organized to a T. Picture albums are neatly stacked one upon the other. I open the first album and pursue the pictures. The drawer may be organized, and the albums stacked in a neat pile, but the pictures inside appear to have no order at all.

There are pictures of everything from bugs, the locker room, cars and people passing by, to a lot of pictures of Raven smiling, hugging Julian and eating cake. Pictures of Pedro are there, too, with Marlina, the two of them looking at each other with love. But most of all, there are pictures of Serena hugging her belly, eating, talking to my mom, and smiling.

What I don't see is anything of Maricela's.

Maricela is weird. She's not a normal girl by anyone's standards. She doesn't use social media at all, and after looking through several albums, it seems she prints any photo she takes.

I put everything back as it was and check the time on the clock at her bedside. Shit. It's eleven o'clock already. She probably won't return to her room until late today. My phone is in my pants, and I have soccer practice soon.

Fuck it. I return to her bathroom and clean the remnants of my dried cum on her bedding, breathing in her wild aroma once more before leaving her room. As I strut down the hallway, I take the time to relish the stares I get as I traverse the school grounds. All the eyes of the useless, rich, elite kids in this place are on my bare flesh.

Wild child, you will pay for this.

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