Page 3 of Blood Moon

“I know.” It was the best I could do.

“Better suck that coffee down. We need to leave in fifteen,” Gabriel clipped as he entered the room with Vittorio on his heels.

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Mom asked Gabriel.

“I wish we could,” Gabriel lied. I knew he was lying because he hated Texas.

None of us could figure out why they moved to Texas of all places. They were happy, so I guess that’s all that mattered. I didn’t mind visiting them, but never in a million years would I want to live there.

Now it was time to go back to Chicago, play the good brother long enough to get Gabriel and Vittorio off my back.

* * *

Approximately one year later…

I was fed the fuck up. Gabe and Vittorio thought that if they kept me on a leash, I would “straighten up.” Alessio got me more than the other two, but he wasn’t around a lot. I knew damn well what he did for a living, and between that and his new family, I rarely saw him.

Not that I held that against him. I was glad my brothers had found love and happiness despite the dark world we were born into. They simply didn’t understand the hollowness that existed in my chest since the day Francesco died. They had no idea.

It was like this angry bitterness was eating away at my insides, and that hollowness was growing with each passing day. No matter how many times I saw my counselor, I couldn’t seem to move on. I was stuck and stagnant—the rage chipping away at my sanity.

None of the stupid “coping skills” the therapist tried to get me to use seemed to work. Not that I’d tried very hard.

The drugs, booze, and women were the only things that had kept me numb. Now, with the help of my brothers and their henchmen, aka my babysitters, I could rarely lose myself in my vices.

Fuckers.

At just shy of twenty-six, I shouldn’t have to answer to a single motherfucker.

I’d contemplated ending it all so many times, I’d lost count. Each time, I couldn’t go through with it. Not because I’d been afraid or chickened out. It was seriously like there were invisible forces that stopped me or sabotaged each attempt. I’d been left with a tingly, almost eerie chill.

They say time heals all wounds, but it didn’t seem like that was true for me.

Each day seemed to get harder and harder.

Chapter2

Tinsley

“Outside” — Hollywood Undead

My brother kissed my cheek before shooting me a smirk. “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

I blinked rapidly to get the two images of my brother to combine again. “Thanks. Happy birthday to you too, oh wise older brother,” I told him before I busted out laughing.

He never liked to let me forget that he was older than me by mere minutes.

“Happy birthday, you two,” my father called out one last time from his office as we passed by and prepared to go upstairs to crash after our first night of drinking—legally.

“Thanks, Dad!” I replied with a cheeky grin.

My brother and I hooked arms as we wobbled up the stairs in our parents’ home. Each time we almost tumbled back down the elegant staircase, we chuckled and attempted to act sober.

While neither of us had planned to celebrate our twenty-first birthday in our childhood home, we had agreed to go home because our dad said it was important to our mom, and we’d never been able to deny her a thing.

“Good night, Tink,” my brother said with a yawn as he left me at the door to my old room.

Once inside, I started to get ready for bed—or I tried, anyway. I’m pretty sure I spent more time giggling and trying to be quiet.

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