Page 25 of Thorns of Death

Shutting the door behind her with a soft click, she padded barefoot over to me. Reina was the youngest of us, appearing even younger now wearing her boy shorts and a white tank top. We all viewed her like a little sister we had to protect, even when she often acted more like our mother with her controlling ways. I wondered if maybe she wasn’t the strongest one of all of us, while also the most vulnerable.

The mattress shifted as she climbed onto the bed. “I can’t sleep either,” she admitted.

I smiled sympathetically. “Engagement jitters?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

Watching her, I waited for her to say something. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, closing her eyes softly.

“Reina?”

“Hmmm.”

I swallowed. “A-aren’t you worried that Dante will find out what we did if you marry him?”

Under the light of the full moon, her blue eyes found mine in the dark and I could see anguish in them. The pained expression that flickered on her face.

“I should be worried about that,” she whispered. “But all I worry about is Phoenix.”

My brows furrowed, confusion washing over me.

“Your sister, Phoenix?” I asked stupidly, as if I knew another Phoenix.

She nodded, yet I still couldn’t grasp the meaning behind it. What did Phoenix have to do with it?

“I don’t follow,” I admitted.

She let out a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumping. “She has a thing for Dante.”

My eyes widened. “No,” I gasped.

“Yes,” she countered. She’d know. Reina and her sister were very close; sometimes it felt like they were twins. “I fucking hate it,” she muttered. “I fell for Dante’s brother and it almost killed me. Now my own sister is in love with Dante.” She inhaled a deep breath, then slowly exhaled it.

“Dante—whom you’re marrying,” I stated incredulously. She nodded her head. Damn, talk about coincidences.

“This will end well,” she added wryly, her tone full of sarcasm. “Anyhow, better me than her.” Reina’s voice was firm, but the tremor in her hands didn’t escape me. “Dante would smother her. Destroy her. So I’ll do this. We need the Leones’ protection.”

That didn’t bode well for Reina either. Why was she always sacrificing herself? She and Phoenix should push back. Tell their father to fuck off. They didn’t need him. They didn’t need the Leone brothers either. Fucking pricks!

I knew things were different in the Romero family. Reina and Phoenix rarely discussed their father, but the little they said painted a fairly clear picture of the criminal organizations he belonged to. He kept them away from it all, probably to protect them, but Reina and Phoenix were a lot stronger than all three of the men combined.

I pushed my hand through my unruly hair. “Fuck. I never saw this coming.”

“I wish I could say the same thing,” she whispered absentmindedly.

“What do you mean?” I questioned her. “You knew Dante Leone was going to ask to marry you?”

“I had a feeling over the last few months that Papà was planning to marry one of us.”

I watched her sympathetically. “And you knew it’d be you, not your sister.”

“Yeah.” Her fingers traced the threads of the bedsheets. Left and right. Up and down.

“Why don’t you refuse?” I said softly. The question was dumb, because I knew the answer. “Maybe it will put the marriage on Phoenix, and since she already has a thing for him…”

She shook her head sadly. “Men like Dante consider anything less than perfection a fault. Papà said Dante found Phoenix lacking.”

Red steam shot through my system, threatening to explode. I had to take several calming breaths before saying anything that I might regret. LikeLet’s murder Dante and Amon. Might as well wipe out the entire Leone family. We were nothing if not overachievers.