Page 128 of Bitter Prince

“Forever,” she whispered her admission, her voice breaking. Except, my heart broke worse. She could have prevented this and she didn’t. She should have told me. “I’m the only one who knows.”

For the first time in my life, the silence between my mother and me was heavy and full of resentment. Not because we didn’t have anything to say, but because no words would change this. No words could take away the fact that Reina Romero was my half sister.

Something tightened in my throat and pierced me in the fucking chest.

“Leave,” I rasped, my cold tone creeping through the room and ready to snap.

“Amon—”

Two quiet moments passed.

“Leave. Now.”

She stood up and moved with a familiar grace, the pink kimono mocking me as she slipped out of my apartment. The moment the door clicked shut behind her, my fury unleashed, a red mist coating my brain.

Before I knew it, I was flipping the table I fucked Reina on only this morning with both hands, the vase with flowers flying and crashing against the floor. I lifted a chair and hurled it across the room, letting it smash against the window and creating a fissure in the glass. I went berserk, hell-bent on destroying everything in my path. I wanted every single item in the apartment shattered into a million pieces, just like my heart.

I tore my kitchen apart. I broke every piece of furniture, destroyed the bed set, and shredded the sheets. I couldn’t get rid of the image of Reina in my apartment. On top of me. Under me. Moaning. Writhing.

Your half sister.

I shoved my hands in my hair and pulled hard on the strands, coming apart at the seams. All of this was wrong. How was it possible to feel this for my half sister?

I didn’t know how I’d survive this, but I knew one thing. She could never know. Reina must never know. I roamed my apartment for my cell phone and found it in the corner of the living room, by some miracle undamaged.

Pulling up my mother’s contact, I typed a message.

Nobody can know. Including Dante.

The reply was instant.

I promise, musuko.

My back against the wall, I slid onto the floor. My breathing was labored, the haze still filled my brain, but it slowly began to clear. My eyes fell to the shattered glass of the framed picture that Reina had given me only days ago.

She was never supposed to be mine.

Us before them.I guess the joke was on me when we made that vow.

51

REINA

“What do you mean, you’re going back to Amon’s place?” Isla crossed her arms and leveled me with a disapproving stare.

“You’re staying here or I’m telling Grandma,” Phoenix signed, angry red blotches on her face. Then, as if that wasn’t enough of a threat, she added, “Or Papà.”

I had barely entered the apartment when my sister and friends surrounded me, but that wasn’t where it ended. They sat me down while a rush of indignation shot down my spine.

“I understand you’re sex-crazed right now,” Raven added. “But you can’t park your ass at his place and be giving it to him all day and night.”

“Maybe he’s giving it to me,” I muttered under my breath.

“You’re being safe, right?” Isla asked, her eyes narrowed on me. “Using protection.”

This time my face turned blotchy and I could feel heat spreading to every inch of my skin.

“Yes,” I gritted, ashamed of my lie. If I admitted there was a time or two we forgot, they’d lock me in my room. “This is not right,” I grumbled while signing. “Nobody gets grilled about boys in this group but me.”