- b e l l a -"Bella, can you hear me?" I heard a lady-like voice question. My arm moved randomly, pulling at something that was held against me. "It's okay. If you can hear me, I want you to squeeze my hand," I said before the feeling of the hand slipping into mine could be felt. Slowly, I squeeze the small hand into a grasp before slowly letting go."That's real good, Bella. I dimmed down the light in here a bit, so now I'm going to need you to open your eyes," she said. Slowly, my eyes peeled back only to be met with the lady's soft brown ones. She sent me a bright smile before nodding her head."Very good! Now look into this light. I know it may hurt, but it is really important. Follow it with your eyes without moving your head," she said. I watched the light shine into my eyes before she began to move it side-to-side. The pain from looking so long began to make me have a headache.She turned off the light, a smile still on her face. Then, she reached over and handed me a cup of
I figured that was a conversation for another time. "So if you and I were never really stepbrother and stepsister, wouldn't that make this whole thing kind of boring and a bit misleading?" I asked jokingly. He had a look of ponder as he looked up towards the tip of the ceiling."I guess it would," he laughed out. I turned over to where the doctors and nurses once were to see that they had already left. I watched as he picked up our sleeping Andrea who must've fallen asleep during our conversation.Just as he grabbed the baby, the door swung open and a very cheerful Anastasia ran into the room. Her hands were on her face as a shocked expression took over her features. A few minutes later, Valentino walked in."I can't believe it! You're awake! Oh, my god am I dreaming again, or is this real?" She asked, her accent coming on strong once again. I can recall the fact that her accent was only stronger when she was overwhelmed with any emotion."Anastasia!" I called out. She quickly walked
"Andrea, I said to stop doing that," I exclaimed. He had come home from school with a call his teacher had given me. Once again, she notified me of his fighting at school."It wasn't my fault! He was picking on a girl for no reason. Papa always told me to defend those who can't defend themselves. Volevo solo aiutare, ma," he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Shaking my head, I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards his father. [I only wanted to help ]"I swear he acts more like Valentino than Valentino acts like himself," I said, rolling my eyes before letting him go. Alex looked at Andrea before his eyes went up to me."What happened?" He asked."Andrea decided it would be fun to get into only his third fight this week. They're talking about suspending him, and he's only nine years old," I explained before sitting right beside Alex on the couch. Andrea stood in front of us, an eyebrow raised in a question."What did I tell you about fighting? Combattere senza scop
"Anastasia!" he shouted back, cheerfully. We have always suspected of the crush he had on Anastasia. He liked her from the second he could talk. I remember how for months he'd been asking if Anastasia could come visit us here in Italy. Now that she's here, I could just feel his excitement.She bent down, but instead of kissing his lips, she kissed his cheek. A pout was present on his face, but it didn't last long when Valentino walked in side-by-side with Alex."You still trying to get a kiss from my wife?" Valentino asked, smirking slightly. Andrea looked over at him before narrowing his eyes. "If you hadn't come first, she would be my wife right now."My eyebrows raised as I watched him roll his eyes. I hoped Valentino's lifestyle wouldn't rub off on him, but it seemed like there was no way of stopping how much he was exactly like his uncle. I thought my son would come out like the man I had him with, but who would have guessed that he'd turn out to be the complete opposite?"I hear
VALENTINOAs I held my weeping baby brother in my arms, I could only stare out at the mess. The blood and dead bodies were littered in front of me, breaking my heart. The faces of my pregnant mother and my stepfather would be burned into my memory forever. I was going to have a sister—our family was going to be complete. Then, in just a blink of an eye, they were gone, leaving me with my younger half-brother, Alex.I could still remember sitting there at the kitchen table eating my favorite soup. My mother had the most beautiful smile on her face as she talked about the weather outside. She loved the rain, she loved everything it represented. As she went on and on about the old times when she would go outside and play in the rain all on her own, I rolled my eyes. Her words were strange, but I wished I could take it all back now. I wished I would have paid more attention and asked more questions to keep that smile on my mother’s face, but I didn’t. I ignored her.Everything happened wa
AnastasiaI was prepared to become a woman when I was just a little girl. Childhood vanished before my eyes. That’s what happens when you rid someone of love. You open the doors to darkness without letting them realize there could ever be color. I want to say that I blamed my mother, but the only way I could do that was to also blame her mother, and then the mother of her mother.The heat that escalated through my body only seemed to grow as I tried to ignore it. The longer I tossed and turned, the more the temperature pricked my skin. A sigh escaped my lips as I just lay there in a pit of sweat, hoping it wasn’t affecting my sister as much as it was affecting me.“Nana,” Aria called out from the other side of the room. “Mum didn’t pay the electricity bill again, did she?”“Stay here, I’ll figure it out,” I whispered before getting up from the mattress.We weren’t fortunate enough to own anything to lift our bed off the ground. We were lucky enough to simply have a mattress.I walked
I looked over at Aria to see that her nose was bleeding. The longer I watched her, the quicker I realized that her eyes were shut as she stared at Mum. I couldn’t help but also notice how unevenly her body seemed to sway.“Aria, are you okay?”I hurriedly walked over to the restroom, grabbing as much toilet paper as I could. Promptly, I held it up to her nose as my heartbeat seemed to race. My brows were furrowed as hope began banging on the door to my heart that Aria would be okay.“Nana, I don’t feel too good,” she whispered. It wasn’t the first time she had her nose bleed. She had been having them for the past few weeks. However, I had never seen her so drained before.I walked her to the bed, and I helped her lay down. My eyes scanned her body and saw many bruises and red spots. She looked terrible, and my constant work made it challenging to notice any of this.“We need to take her to a hospital, now!” I exclaimed.“For a nosebleed? Really, Anastasia? It’s probably just the heat,
AnastasiaLeukemia. My little sister had stage four leukemia. No matter how hard my mind tried to grasp that there was almost nothing the doctors could do, I failed.I stared at my sister, who was sleeping soundly due to the medicine the doctor had given her. I couldn’t help but pace back and forth around the room as I tried calling my mother over and over again. At first, it seemed as if she were ignoring my calls, but it soon turned into every call I made going to voicemail.Throwing myself on the chair, I brought my hands up to my face as tears streamed down my face. I could only focus on the dust that fluttered around the room as I thought about not being able to see my sister again. Never in my life could I imagine having to bury my little sister. She was always supposed to outlive me.A knock sounded on the door, leaving me with a mere moment to wipe my tears away before it opened. A woman strolled in wearing a smile on her face. I knew she could see how I had just been crying
You never needed me, you only needed to believe in yourself.”I could feel my eyes blurring as I looked at my imaginative Aria. “You need to let me go. I have always loved you, my banana, but now you love yourself enough for the both of us.”“Goodbye, Aria. I love you,” I whispered softly.Valerio looked at me with a small smile just as the doors opened. My eyes were quick to look at Valentino, who seemed just as nervous as me. Valerio and I walked in slow strides toward the altar with my smile never leaving my face. As we were walking, my eyes were brimming with tears of joy.We continued down the aisle until we finally made it to the altar, where Valerio kissed my cheek.“Who gives this woman to this man in marriage?” the priest asked.Valerio glanced at me before taking my right hand and placing it into Valentino’s.“I do,” he answered.I smiled at him once more, feeling so thankful to have met him. He then took my left hand and placed it in Valentino’s as well after I had passed m
ANASTASIAIt was definitely not a ‘woo’ experience. Being dressed in an all-white dress that looked so beautiful and elegant should’ve made me feel like a queen. I didn’t feel like a queen at all. My belly was swollen with a baby girl and I couldn’t help feeling nervous.As I stared at myself in the full-length mirror, my hand rubbed my giant baby bump. There was a frown on my face as I looked at myself. I was marrying the man I loved with all of my heart, I was going to have a baby, and I should feel like the happiest person in the world—why was I so scared?“Are you okay?” Isabella asked, coming into the room with Sarah.“Yeah, I just…”Suddenly, I began to cry. I tried my best to not mess up my makeup, but it was already too late. Everything was going to change after this, and I knew it.“Sarah, can you go get her mom?” Isabella asked before walking over to me and bringing me into her embrace.She held me tightly as she rubbed my back up and down.“Don’t cry. If you want, I’ll go s
I got down on my knees and quickly undid his slacks and pushed them down. His erection was long and thick, just perfectly in front of me underneath his boxers. He grabbed my hair and kept my face level with his cock. I pushed down his boxers and bit my lip at the sight of him.I began to stroke it once it was free. I braced myself with my hand on his hip and gripped his shaft with my other hand. I began to jerk him off, slowly at first. When he pulled my hair back, I took that as my cue to stroke him faster and grip his cock tighter.Soon, I started to blow him in earnest. My tongue swirled around his shaft as I brought it into my mouth. Bringing his cock deep into my throat to the point I was at his base before I pulled back while running my tongue along the underside of it. Suddenly, I was bobbing my head faster and faster before I looked up at him. He let out a groan while tossing his head back and shutting his eyes. I sucked him gently, which resulted in me taking his whole shaft
ANASTASIASeven months later“I am really going to miss you guys,” I told Isabella and her big baby bump.She was going to name her baby boy Andrea, and I wished I could witness it all. That day after she was shot, she learned she was pregnant. It hurt to think about how we could’ve experienced everything at the same time, but Valentino helped me let that hurt go.Her recovery was very fast. She was able to walk again in less than a month, seeing as the bullet didn’t hit anything too major. Isabella was quick to forgive Valentino, and the same for Alex.Isabella placed one last small bag into the trunk of the car. It was the last day I would be seeing her. She didn’t want to stay in the lifestyle Valentino and Alex were born in, which I understood. I only wished I didn’t have to miss so much with her gone.“We will make sure to visit at every possible chance.” Isabella smiled. My shoulders fell as I looked at her. It was really going to be lonely without her there.“You ready?” Alex a
I couldn’t even allow myself to have an expression. Everything still felt so wrong. Being happy felt wrong. He lifted my shirt off of me before taking off the shorts that the hospital had given. The fresh panties I got from the hospital were already covered in blood, and as I looked down, I sucked in a breath and started crying once more.He was going to realize that I’m incapable of doing something like carrying his baby. I was a disgrace, which is exactly why Aria should be alive instead of me.“Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered before bringing me into his chest.I knew what he was doing—he was trying not to allow me to see it, but it was stuck on repeat in my brain. It was my baby.He peeled off my panties, which only resulted in me crying more as I wrapped my arms around his neck and sobbed into the crook of his neck. He pulled them down until they were off my legs before allowing his hand to climb up to the clasp of my bra. He undid the clasp and then took it off of me.When I turned
He walked right past me as if I meant nothing.As I leaned against my car, I broke down. Sobs were bubbling out of me, and my tears were falling nonstop. Suddenly, a hand gripped my shoulder, shocking me to turn around. Seeing that it was Alex, surprise stirred in me“Are you okay?” he asked. I hiccupped as I nodded with a small smile. My tears still wouldn’t stop falling.“Isabella is going to be fine. They have her sedated to make things less painful for her, but they said she will be awake by tomorrow,” he informed me. I was glad she would be okay, it felt nice to finally receive some good news. “I feel bad for the way I spoke to my brother. He may not be the best person in the world, but he’s done a lot for me and so little for himself. Even if he almost killed my girlfriend, I know he’s beating himself up for it more than anyone else could. I know my brother enough to say that he didn’t mean anything he just said to you. He gets like that sometimes, where he pushes people away. D
ANASTASIASarah had gratefully gotten the location where Isabella and Valentino were. My heart dropped when she told me they were at the hospital. I prayed they were both okay.I hurriedly made my way to the hospital, the place I’d really begun to hate with every fiber in my body. The moment I arrived, I could see Isabella being pushed through the halls. My jaw dropped when I noticed she was covered in blood. Nurses and doctors were rushing her into a room, and I tried to follow but was pushed back.“Isabella!” I shouted, tears falling from my eyes.I tried to find Valentino, but he was nowhere to be found. Worry clouded my mind as I hoped he wasn’t hurt.I picked up my phone and tried dialing Valentino’s number again, but it wouldn’t go through. It kept going straight to voicemail. This undying need to scream settled within me. I couldn’t handle the thought of losing someone I loved again.“I’m sorry, ma’am, but you’re going to have to go back to the waiting room,” one of the nurses
I held my gun with a smirk on my face. It had been so long that I wanted to see him with the barrel of a gun pointed directly at him. It was karma. I remember when I had been in his same position twenty years ago—scared and hurt.“She did.” I laughed. “Isabella, come here, doll.”She hesitated, but with one look at the gun in my hand, she came over to where I stood.“You told me you were going to prove to me where your loyalty lies, so do it. Prove it to me,” I growled.Her eyes widened when I handed her a different gun. It was small, but it could cause just as much damage as any gun could.“What? No! This isn’t part of the plan!” Isabella shouted. Her eyes were wide as she held the gun. Despite it being small, it looked big in her tiny hands.Suddenly, her dad made a move at her, leaving her to aim the gun at him. Her breathing was heavy as she stared at her father. There was a quiver as she held the gun. Perspiration coated her forehead and her chest was rising and falling dramatica
VALENTINOWhen my brother told me about his suspicions of Isabella possibly being pregnant, I almost lost it. There was no way he wanted to take part in the plan we had been constructing our entire lives. Even when I told him that Dmitri was coming in a week with plans to bring down our entire organization to get his daughter, Alex didn’t care.It didn’t make sense to me how he could be so careless over that girl. I wished I actually wanted to respect my brother’s request for us to drop the mission, but I couldn’t. He didn’t have to go through the nightmares of that day―I did. Luckily for him, he couldn’t remember the way our mother’s eyes stared at me as she begged for someone to help her. He wasn’t able to understand that our whole family looked to me in order to save them, and I didn’t. Alex was so fucking lucky that he didn’t have to go downstairs and clean up all the splatters of blood left in the house. He didn’t have to live through that shit, but I did.To think that he wanted