Page 6 of Original Sins (Dark Odyssey 6)

Today I turn eighteen years old. An age of sentiment every woman should remember.

So, I shouldn’t feel like this—unhinged and unbalanced, like every fiber of my being might rip apart and disintegrate.

I always feel this way when something’s about to change in my life.

The ominous feeling started this morning when Dad told me we’d be having dinner with a special guest tonight at eight.

He’d greeted me with a bunch of roses and my birthday present—a beautifully designed handmade dress.

When he handed me the present, a look of sadness flickered in his eyes.That was what piqued my attention.

My father is the type of man who carries himself in a way that renders you unable to see through his thick skin and stony gaze.But he’s different with me. Some might call it gentler in a way and not so abrasive.That's why I can usually figure him out.

It’s when I can’t that I worry.

I’ve been tense all day and even opted out of lunch with my cousin, Cordelia, the one person Dad allows me as much free time with.

Some might call me the worrier, but the last time this feeling came to screw with me, my older brother, Dante, was killed.

The time before that, Mom took her last breath after years of battling leukemia.

At least after Mom’s death, I knew what was coming.

I was twelve years old, and Dad didn’t know what to do with me, so he sent me to Switzerland to that horrible boarding school I christened Hell.

St. Jude’s was run by a convent, but all sorts of debauchery happened there.

Apart from the one friend I had who was from England, no one spoke to me because they were afraid to.

Out of principle and for protection, people in the outside world don’t know my real name, but at school, they knew who I was.They knew I was the daughter of Donatello Ricci.One of the most powerful men in Chicago with near enough the same net worth as the Bransons.The only difference being, my family has ties to the Sicilian mafia.

I left St. Jude’s after my brother’s death.

Or maybe I should say I never went back.

My father kept me in Chicago, opted to send me to a private school, and became more overprotective than he already was.

That's why today my choices of celebration for my eighteenth birthday were lunch with my cousin or staying home.

We don't do parties because Dad's idea of a birthday party for me is inviting my aunts and his guards.They'd be the ones partying, not me.The only person I'd be remotely interested in talking to is Cordelia.That's why we always do our own thing.

Since I declined lunch, I spent the day getting lost in my designs the way my mother used to when she was alive.

Like her, I want to go into fashion design.She had her own label named after her.Since I inherit her company when I turn twenty-one, and I want to make my own success, I'm usually either drawing or sewing.Or both, like I am now.

I graduate from Raventhorne Academy next month and will be starting my fashion degree at the Otis College of Art and Design in September.That's where Mom went too.

The rumble of deep male voices suddenly cut into my thoughts as they waft in through my opened window.It's only because I know who the voices belong to is why I stop drawing and rush over to the window to get one last look at the two hottest guys on the planet before they leave.

I can't see them yet, so they must be standing on the porch talking to Dad.

It's Dad's voice I can mainly hear now, but way up here in my tower, I can’t quite distinguish what he’s saying.

Whatever it is, I have no desire to find out.He could be telling the world a meteor is about to blow up the planet, but in the presence of those two guys, I wouldn’t hear a word.

The tallest, whose Italian like me, is Georgiou Giordano.The one with slightly more muscle is his best friend, Henry Dubois.

Georgiou is a hundred percent sexy Italian stallion with dark tousled hair, bright brown eyes, olive skin, and an athletic frame.He has the build of a football player.

---