Page 30 of Bitter Prince
I hadn’t thought of that nickname in a while. I’d heard it once while eavesdropping on my papà’s conversation.
“She’s mine, not yours,” a familiar man’s voice boomed through the speaker. My mind didn’t work fast enough to pin it to the name. “Amon is my son and he’s connected to that world. My family. Get the fuck out of our business.” It seemed like a typical day at Papà’s work. “Unless you want to find yourself buried six feet under, back the fuck off.”
It was all I needed to hear to know I never wanted to be part of Papà’s world. It seemed full of tension and hate and murderous threats.
I turned to leave when Papà’s chuckle and words that followed stopped me.
“How are you connected?” Papà challenged with a sneer in his tone. I could almost picture him, leaning back in his chair and smoking a cigar. “You have an illegitimate bastard. He won’t get the Omertà or the Yakuza crown. You’ll end up with an angry, bitter prince once that one grows up.” He scoffed, then added, “You’ll have a real winner there.”
Fury shot through me when I realized who they were speaking about. Nobody was allowed to talk badly about Amon Leone, the boy who took the blame for me. The boy who saved me from his own papà. The boy with the most beautiful dark eyes I had ever seen.
“At least I have sons, Romero.” The man must have struck a nerve because a crash followed, sounding like glass shattering.Grandma’s going to kick his ass, I thought to myself. “And if you are not careful, I’ll have your daughters too. Even the mute and dumb one.”
A string of Italian words that I didn’t understand came next, but I had no time to pull out my phone and have Google translate for me because a shadow loomed behind me. I startled, ready to have my own ass kicked if Grandma caught me being nosy.
“What are you doing?” Phoenix signed silently.
My hand on my chest, I sighed in relief.
“You scared me shitless,” I signed.
She grinned and I rolled my eyes, then gave her an inconspicuous look. “Listening to Papà’s conversation with Mr. Leone. At least I think it’s him. They’re arguing.”
Phoenix didn’t seem fazed at all. “What are they saying?”
I shrugged. “Hard to tell, but Papà’s being mean, calling Amon names.” I didn’t tell her that Mr. Leone called her names too. It’d upset her. If I ever got my hands on that man, I’d strangle him for calling my big sister mute and dumb. She’d lost her hearing, but she was just as smart, compassionate, and beautiful as before. And if you asked me, she played piano better than any other person on this planet.
My cheeks reddened and Phoenix’s gaze fell to them. “You’ve really got to let go of that crush,” she signed, thankfully attributing my flush to Amon and nothing else.
“I don’t have a crush,” I retorted back, my hand movements jerky. It tended to happen when I was pissed or frazzled. “But he saved us when we broke that vase. The least Papà could do is be nice to the boy.”
Phoenix let out an exasperated breath. “Papà would have killed Mr. Leone before he let him lay a finger on us.”
I waved my hand, dismissing that reasoning. Amon saved me, and that was a better, more romantic story than Papà getting into a battle with Mr. Leone.
My thoughts pulled back to the present and the all-grown-up Amon Leone. It was no wonder he was stuck in the darkness and his light had dimmed. People like our fathers tried so hard to extinguish it.
Maybe I could show him the light in this world, I thought to myself. Raven would scold me if she could hear my thoughts. She always said, “You can’t change a man,” but the fact was I didn’t want to change him. I just wanted to show Amon that the world was just as good as it was evil. He just had to know where to look for it.
And I’ll be the one to show him,I determined with a wide grin on my face, drawing a curious glance from Phoenix. I was waving her off when my cell rang. I glanced at the screen and saw “Favorite Grandma” glaring at me. Never mind that she was our only grandma.
Ugh, I wasn’t in the mood for her right now!
And yet, I pressed that green Answer button.
“Hello, Grandma,” I answered the FaceTime call, Grandma Diana’s ear appearing on the screen. For a lady who spent decades on-screen, she sure struggled with this one. “Prop the phone somewhere in front of you so we can see your face, not just your ear.”
“Damn technology,” she muttered, attempting to maneuver it. Her husband appeared shortly after, probably trying to help her, and I listened to their heated discussion on whether the coffee table or TV would be better.
Setting up my own phone, I waved my sister over. “Grandma’s on FaceTime.”
She rolled her eyes. We both knew it’d take at least five minutes for them to figure out how to get it working, and then another five to center their faces in the camera.
“We’re going to see her in a few weeks,” Phoenix signed. “Couldn’t she wait?”
I shrugged. “You know she worries when she doesn’t hear from us.”
“She was in the group chatthismorning.” Phoenix was right, and it had been a lengthy one, involving a lecture on safe sex and STDs. I didn’t know why, but Grandma felt obligated to give us sex education refreshers every few weeks. As if either of us had any use for it.
