Page 3 of Blood Moon (La Famiglia De Luca)

Chapter 2

Tinsley

“ Outside” — Hollywood Undead

M y 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.

A knock on my door had me spinning to face the sound. I shot a hand out to grab the post of the footboard.

“Yeah?” I assumed it was my brother coming back to hang out.

“Tinsley? Can I come in?” Mom asked from the other side.

As I swayed on my feet, I eyed the distance between me and the door. The odds of me making it there without falling over weren’t good. The mattress was so much closer. So I cautiously made my way up toward the pillows and fell back into the cushy mattress. “Yep!”

My mom entered my room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Tink, are you sober enough to listen to me?”

“Of course!” I assured her as I struggled to get back up. Once I was upright, I tucked my legs up to sit cross-legged. That’s when I noticed that my mother carried a small box about the size of a paving brick.

She had one brow cocked in disbelief as she eyed me.

“I’m gooood,” I promised, and she gave a soft snort of laughter but nodded.

“I have one last gift for you today,” she began. “This box has been passed down in a matrilineal progression for centuries. The difference this time is that it ’ s specifically yours,” she explained with a soft smile.

“What do you mean, it ’ s specifically mine? If it’s been passed down through the generations, then it was yours too,” I shot back with a giggle because my mom sounded a bit looney tunes. Also, I was still a bit tipsy.

“No, Tink, I was merely holding it in safe keeping for you. I’m giving it to you, knowing you ’ re the one who will open it,” she replied with a humored shake of her head. “This box belongs to the first female child born in our family every one hundred years. Before you, it was your great-great-grandmother’s.”

“Umm, okay? Well, what if someone had five girls?” I joked.

My mother gave me a stern glance. “ It would still go to the first one born on that hundredth year—but that doesn’t happen. For as long as our family history has been documented, there is always one girl born to each female—and only one girl.”

“Umm, okay?”

She set the ornately detailed box into my lap.

“What’s in it?” I asked, eying it suspiciously.

“I honestly don’t know. I can’t open it.”

“Huh?”

“According to the tale, only the intended is able to open it, and not until her twenty-first birthday.”

Realizing I had quickly sobered, I stared at the black wood. The woman intricately carved onto the top wore what appeared to be a diaphanous gown that hinted at her delicate form beneath it, and she was surrounded by flowers and vines. Without realizing, I had been tracing it with my fingertip. That’s when I saw that the tips of her ears drew up into points.

I reached for the clasp, but my mother gently rested her hand over mine to still its movement. “Wait. Let me leave first.”

My brow pinched in the center as I stared at the box, then at my mom. “You don’t want to see what’s inside?” I asked.

“If I was meant to see, I would’ve been able to open it,” she replied with a shrug and a smirk. She got to her feet and kissed my head. “What I do know about that box is that it was stressed to me that it was a tightly kept secret that shouldn’t be shared outside our family. Do you understand?”

I nodded my understanding.

“The legend says that besides your family, only your ‘fated mate’ is allowed to know about it. They are the only one who will kill to protect you and what’s in there. He is one you will be able to trust implicitly,” my mother sagely explained, then left my room.

This time, when my fingertips touched the clasp, there was a tingling sensation that started where I made contact. There was a soft click as the latch popped. Cautiously, I opened the lid to reveal the contents. Inside, there was an embroidered black velvet bag. Beneath it, a small leather-bound book.

Nothing could’ve prepared me for what was on those pages.

* * *

After opening that box, my life was never the same again.

Of course, I’d shared what had happened with my twin. We had come up with the idea of me going back in time to retrieve highly sought-after collectibles from a time when they were common, everyday items. What started as a small online selling opportunity had quickly become Neverland Acquisitions.

That had eventually morphed into the black market, thanks to my brother and his shrewd thinking.

There were very few rules to my time-traveling abilities, and the ones that existed didn’t really matter for our purposes. The limitations I had were that I could only go back in time, with the exception of returning to my time. According to what I believed to be a legend written in the book, my male ancestors had the gift of traveling to the future. It hadn’t said what the determining criteria were for that, and I had no idea who those descendants would be after all the centuries. There wasn’t a lot of documentation on that in the little journal. All it mentioned was that my supposed ancestor and her brother were children of Chronos.

It wasn’t a “gift” for noble causes with a bunch of moral stipulations. In a way, there was a darkness to it. Each time I traveled in time, I had to keep myself focused and exercise self-control like I’d never had to in my life. Traveling through time had a strange effect on me. It essentially acted like an extremely powerful aphrodisiac, and when I got back, I wanted to fuck.

Badly.

My brother and I had tested a ton of things. The only thing we hadn’t done was significantly change history and try to see if I could bring him with me. The way traveling seemed to nearly rip me apart at times, I didn’t want to chance it. Though we considered it once when we were both smashed, I’m glad we didn’t. I could never live with myself if anything happened to my brother because of me or my “magic fairy dust,” as he called it.

Could I travel from the privacy of my balcony? No. Though our building had been around for many years before we took possession, it hadn’t been there forever. Also, I couldn’t imagine landing on some poor unsuspecting soul’s balcony in the past and having to find my way down or explain why I was over one hundred stories up and needed to go through their home.

Awkward.

Unfortunately, it was more than that. In order to create a portal that I could be sure to return through, I needed to be grounded to the earth.

As it was, I’d ended up in some very precarious situations in the past. Before I learned more about what I could do, I’d been impulsive and reckless—and had to fight wanting to have sex with some questionable people. It was what ultimately led to my education in history, art history, and historical architecture. It not only helped to know where and when to find things, but it was imperative that I had some inkling of where structures were located in the places I was going.

“The sculpture will be on display this evening, in nineteen twenty-three, from seven this evening until midnight. After tonight, in nineteen twenty-three, it disappeared,” Peter explained as we leaned over to look at the images scattered on the desk in front of us.

The corners of my lips lifted mischievously as I glanced over at him. “Perhaps because I got to it.”

Peter chuckled. “Perhaps. Either way, if we can acquire this item, there will be more business from this client.”

“It’s kind of ugly,” I mused with a curl of my lip.

He snorted. “That it is, but I don’t really give two shits what it looks like, or what this Mr. X does with it once we get paid.”

Peter acted like it was about the money. We had more money than we could spend in two lifetimes. Like me, it was more about the thrill and the challenge when it came to objects like this one. Comic books and random objects were easy. One-of-a-kind pieces were another thing altogether.

Not that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy my standard of living. I was fully aware that I was high maintenance. There were few men who could accept that I didn’t need their money, but nor was I trying to be their sugar mama.

“Why haven’t you started dating again?” he quietly asked.

My shoulders fell a little. It was like he could read my mind. Then again, maybe as my twin, he could.

“Please. How would I explain disappearing? How would I know that they loved me for me and not what I can give them?”

“They aren’t all like Mar?—”

I slapped my hand over his mouth. “Don’t even say his name.”

He effortlessly peeled my fingers away. “Are you sure you don’t want me to have him taken care of? It’s not too late.”

A boisterous laugh escaped me before I could stop it. I threw my arms around my brother and hugged him. “I’m fine, and he’s not worth it.”

He dropped his head to kiss the top of my head. “Tink, there isn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do for you. You’re the only family I have now, and you’re my baby sister.”

He was right. After our parents disappeared shortly after our twenty-second birthday, it was just us. Yes, we had some distant family, but none we were close with. We’d searched for years. I’m pretty sure Peter still did.

My forehead rested on his sternum, then I looked up at his towering six-foot-three height. “By less than three minutes, Petya,” I argued with a grin, using the childhood nickname our Russian nanny had used for him.

The fondness in his gaze was reserved solely for me—most people only saw the serious or scary side of my brother. I wasn’t a fool; I knew my brother was into way more than just acquisitions, but he kept me far away from his other dark dealings.

“I still entered this world before you, making me the older brother. Besides, I’m twice your size.” He shot me a smug smile that had me shaking my head. He wasn’t lying. I was tiny, and I always had been. “Besides, if you don’t start dating, how will you find your ‘fated mate?’”

He made little quote motions with one hand, and I rolled my eyes. That was one part of this whole magical mess that I didn’t believe.

“I need to go,” I announced as I pushed at his chest and stepped back.

Again, he snorted. “It’s not like you have a bus to catch. You literally control every moment.”

“Piss off and mind ya business,” I airily replied as I waved with a wiggle of my fingers and breezed out the door.

“You look beautiful, Tink!” he shouted after me with his tone full of laughter.

My lips twitched as I held my smile back.

I took the elevators down to the ground floor. My kitten heels clicked sharply on the marble floor in the foyer of our high-rise. Neverland Acquisitions owned the entire building, but we leased out a lot of it for office space, with apartments on the top three floors. The penthouse was Peter’s. I wasn’t as pretentious as he was. I had one of the two residences on the floor below.

As I approached the front doors, my attention was pulled to one of the seating areas in the lobby. A dark-haired man looked up from his phone and toward the desk as Thomas, one of our agents, approached him. They shook hands as my steps faltered for a split second. There was something incredibly familiar about those cheekbones and that smile. Yet, I was sure I’d never seen the man before. I’d certainly have remembered.

Shaking off the bizarre feeling, I wrapped the decadent fur stole around my shoulders and stepped out into the brisk Chicago afternoon. Two blocks down, I entered Millennium Park, then slipped into a copse of trees.

Not once did anyone in the crowd look twice at a small, blonde woman dressed in a long, shimmering gown disappearing into the shadows and stepping out of her shoes. Not even when I reached into my small black velvet bag for a pinch of fairy dust, flicked it into the air, and stepped through it. A myriad of sparkling colors swirled around me as an unseen force seemed to pull me in a million different directions at once. I concentrated on where I wanted to be, and eventually, the colors dimmed and muted. Then, I calmly walked through the dark hole that appeared before me.

The sounds of a party floated through the air, coming from the mansion ahead. All the windows were lit with a golden glow, and laughter rang out, followed by the tinkling of crystal.

Squaring my shoulders, my lips curved into a coy smile before I sauntered across the manicured lawn, pausing only long enough to slide my shoes back on before I entered through the back door.

* * *

“You got it?” Peter asked in way of greeting, to which I rolled my eyes.

“Hello to you too,” I muttered. I didn’t even bother telling him about the fact that I almost got caught this time. He’d freak out, and it would become a thing. What I needed to do was pull my head out of my ass and be more alert when I was traveling.

My brother sighed. “Sorry, my client is breathing down my neck. I don’t like feeling like I’m making promises I can’t keep.”

“Then don’t. Stop telling your clients you can acquire things until you have them in hand,” I huffed as I crossed my arms and cocked a hip.

“Now why would I do that? I have the ultimate procurer on my payroll,” he drawled as he leaned back in his chair and gave me the dashing grin that had always gotten him his way. Too bad it didn’t work on me—for the most part.

Growing up, my brother got me in more trouble than I could remember. He was always the adventurous one, and he dragged me along as his partner in crime. Usually, I was an unwitting partner to those crimes. Until my twenty-first birthday, that is.

With a flourish, I set the velvet-wrapped bundle on his desk.

He carefully folded back the top of the fabric, and a broad grin spread from cheek to cheek. “That’s my Tink. You never let me down,” he crooned as he unwrapped it to pull the small gold dog statue from the bag.

He set it on his desk, and the light from the floor-to-ceiling window caught the gems embedded in its collar. Little dots of light sparkled around the room.

“I still think that’s the ugliest thing I’ve seen in ages,” I grumbled as I curled my lip at the offensive little thing.

It looked like a five-year-old carved it and some dumbass used it as a mold. “You’re sure that thing is solid gold?” I skeptically questioned, eying the weird pattern etched into its coat.

“Oh yes. The details of the statue itself were well documented for years, but without any specific location ever mentioned, it was hard to track it down. At least until I found out about that party showcasing it.”

“You said it was in a random letter that turned up in a desk we auctioned?” I leaned back, resting my ass on the edge of his credenza as I studied the odd little thing.

“Yep. Crazy, huh?”

“Pretty much.”

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked me as he rewrapped the gold dog.

“Sitting in my hot bath with bubbles up to my ears,” I replied before kicking off my shoes and wiggling my toes in the plush carpet.

“You should go to a dinner party with me,” he said in a tone that seemed a bit too innocent.

My gaze narrowed as I studied him. “Why?”

He lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I thought you might like to get out.”

“I just went out,” I drily replied. “To a dinner party, as a matter of fact.”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s not the same. That was work.”

“And this wouldn’t be?” I huffed. “I know you, Peter. Any social event you go to is an opportunity.”

Though he tried not to, the corner of his mouth twitched before it lifted. He didn’t say anything; he simply stared at me. Refusing to rise to the bait, I remained silent—so did he.

As usual, I caved first.

“Fine. I’ll go,” I huffed.

My shithead brother grinned.

This was likely going to be a disaster. My inner thighs had been wet since the second I hurriedly re-entered the portal with the small statue. I was practically throbbing with need—which was why I’d intended to lock myself up in my condo for the night.

Alone.

I’d never told him about the reaction I had to time traveling. It was a slightly embarrassing topic to have with one’s twin brother. It would also make him ten times as protective.

Maybe I needed to invest in a chastity belt.

On the way, I was doing some online shopping.