My Secret Crippled Billionaire

NADIA:

Being the only girl in the Romano family had really impacted on my dating life in high school and my older brothers had played their parts in threatening anyone who showed the least interest in me and honestly, it was starting to get tiring because how the hell did they have numerous girlfriends and tell me I was too young to have one?

I was turning sixteen today and introducing my new boyfriend to the family at dinner tonight and they better accept him with goodwill.

"Honey, are you sure you're making the right choice?" My nanny, Griselda, asked as she brushed my hair down my back. I'd just slipped into one of the most beautiful silver dresses with burgundy heels to complement the dress. She had swiped a deep red lipstick over my lips, turning me into a model that had just walked out of a vogue magazine. "I know humans and our kind, Werewolves, have lived in harmony for years, but we can not ignore the gap that has yet to be bridged between us and them. Your father detests them even if most of his business associates are humans. What makes you think he's going to like this boy?"

Sometimes, Griselda didn't speak to me like a nanny. None of the petting or kind words which were usually lies. She wasn't an asslicker. She said things as they were and she had somehow shaped me into that person- a girl who spoke wisely.

Coupled with the obstinacy my father said I got from my late mother, it was a combination for disaster. A sharp mouth and a strong head.

"I really don't care what my father or brother's think anymore. Drake is a boy I really like and if they try to scare him, I'll make sure to fill the water tank with much more chlorine than usual. They'll have diarrhea for weeks."

Griselda sighed, already tired in advance of my antics. "Child, how are you even going to relate with people if you think paying them back by doing something worse would solve the issue?"

"I learnt it from the best." I winked at her and pushed to my feet. "Thank you for this dress. My father is going to berate you for letting me wear this dress but don't fret, I'll make his coffee the way he hates it."

Winking, I made my way out of my room and down the hall, towards the great dining table.

I lived in a monstrous mansion with my brothers, all older than I was. The first, Mario, was married with two kids and only visited once a year, during the festival of the Lunatic, celebrated by our species- Lycans and Werewolves.

Diego was the second. Also almost absent, as he worked as a Biomedical engineer at Orion Labs, on the suburbs of the city. He only visited once every month and fortunately, he was also going to be here. He was my best brother and that was because he seemed to be the only one who understood my crazy tendencies. Mario didn't really get involved when it came to me. All he did was sit at the side and watch in amusement whenever I got into a brawl with our other brothers.

Luca. The absolute son of the devil. His hair, eyes and dark features preceded him. He had been the bane of my existence since I was able to walk, tossing me into rivers, leaving me in bathtubs to soak and under the rain to catch a cold. I'd almost died of hyperthermia one day in June when I was eight. Had Mario not come to the rescue, I would have frozen to death. We were always at loggerheads. Always fighting over on insignificant thing or the other, so much that my father warned us never to stay together.

And the last, my immediate elder brother, Jaime. The sweetest soul I'd ever encountered. He was my best friend and even if he was annoyingly protective when it came to the boys I showed interest in, I knew he still cared for me.

"Here she comes, the courtesan of the house." Luca sang in mockery as soon as I walked into the living room. "Why the hell do you have a red lipstick on? Do you know what message it passes on?"

"That I look like the women you masturbate to every waking moment of your life? Don't tell me you're about to sexualize me, brother."

My father, who had just gotten off a call, turned and faced his son with a frown. "Did I hear correctly? You watch porn?"

Luca began to stutter. Sticking my tongue out to him, I went to take a seat right beside Jaime who nudged me at the side. "If there's one thing I am sure about, it's that you'll never stop being this annoyingly right. Mom was always like that."

I lowered my head to my lap and brushed the fabric of my dress. My mum had died a few days after my delivery and Luca made it a point of duty to remind me that it was all my fault that she died. Had my head been a little bit smaller, maybe she would have survived.

The door bell rang and I snapped my head up, feeling my heart race with fear and excitement. Pushing my seat back and standing to my feet, I grinned at everyone, including Mario and his wife, Jane, who had been too busy talking to notice I was in the dining room.

"Everyone, act nice. I am about to introduce you to someone special!"

"Who is this person?" My father asked, already looking frustrated. "Trust me, if you walk in here with a pony, I might consider sending you to the convent so you can become a shaman and serve at the temple."

Winking at him, I rushed out of the dining room and went straight for the door.

The bell rang again. "Coming! Give me a sec!"

I stopped in front of the mirror, checking myself out to see if I looked okay. I wanted Drake to see me as perfect today. I wanted him to be awed and unable to speak. And when I finally confirmed that I looked okay enough, I wrapped my fingers around the door knob, yanking it open with a grin wider than anything else.

My heart sank as soon as it soared and my grin disappeared. I staggered backwards, my eyes wide in horror as I took Drake in.

My eyes lowered to his gut. His white shirt was soaked in blood. A knife had been driven through his back and he looked at me, tears streaming down his cheeks as he tried to speak. But all that came out of his mouth was blood.

I screamed. I screamed so hard, I felt my lungs break. And just as I was about to run and get help, a force I'd never experienced in my eighteen years of living yanked me off the floor and flung me over to the other side of the room. I crashed into the mirror as searing pain burned through me.

Shards of glass had pierced a few parts of my body. Shaking and gathering strength, I pushed to my knees, standing on my fours as four men, all dressed and masked in black hurried into the room.

What the hell was happening?

"Drake!" I pushed to my feet, staggering on my broken angles and falling to my knees beside him. "Drake! Please, don't die on me! I beg of you!" I tore his shirt open and pressed my hand into his belly but it didn't seem to stop the blood. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks and I began to sob heavily, forgetting that a few suspicious looking men had walked into the house.

How did I come with so much badluck? First, my mother and now, Drake? None of this made sense.

"He's dead."

I snapped my head up to see a man standing by the door. He was dressed in black also. And he had tattoos peeking out from the sleeve of his shirt and the open buttons of his neck. He looked to be in his early twenties and he wasn't smiling.

Pushing to my feet, my eyes lowered to his hand. He had a dagger and it dripped with blood.

I went blind with rage, hitting him in the chest with all my strength. "You bastard! You killed my boyfriend! You dirty piece of shit! Scumbag! I'll make sure you pay for this! You'll rot in my father's dungeon and he'll make you hate living!"

He grabbed my wrist in a vice-like grip and yanked me away from him, turning me towards the already closed door and pinning me to the wall.

I was breathing heavily by now. It was hard to suppress the anger and fear and hatred but when he stared at me, his icey blue gaze almost boring holes into my skin, I went quiet immediately.

"Good." He nodded. "Because I'd like for you to hear something. Your father's not going to be alive to torture me anyway. Tonight is the night you all die."

Just as soon as he said those words, I heard a piercing scream, unmistakably belonging to Jane. It was a cry of pain and terror. Pushing the man off me, I ran towards the dining, screaming in pain as my ankles continued to hurt.

And when I got to the door, I was met with what was going to become the worst day of my life years later.

I froze. Time stopped. The stench of blood filled my nose. Blood and death and gore. Pleas and memories to be forgotten. I crashed to my knees, grabbing my chest as I watched one of the men slaughter Jane. She dropped dead to the ground, her eyes wide, the horror still there, beside Mario, who was already on the floor. Dead.

My eyes shifted over to Luca. He was still convulsing on the floor, his eyes on me as he tried to speak. Then he stopped. He stopped breathing. Jaime was long gone. His face was in his plate of food and his glasses were sodded. And my father...

My wail tore through the whole mansion and I began to shake violently, grappling to the last thread of sanity I had left. Everyone I ever loved, save for Diego, were all dead.

Their blood. I couldn't get the smell off my head as I crawled from body to body, shaking with sobs and tears as I closed their open eyes. The men were gone. It was just me and whoever was left alive.

I screamed again, feeling sheer agony tear through me. I slid into my father's lap and grabbed his face but he was long gone. There was no sign of life in him. A sabre from the wall behind him had been driven into his chest. I fell to the floor, begging for the moon goddess to take my life too.

Of what essence was it now that I'd lost the people I loved the most?

"You should be glad you aren't dead. You're a lucky one, birdie."

I turned immediately to see the man from the door standing right in front of me. He smiled. It was a dead smile. A smile of someone that was long gone. He didn't look human. Even with his good-looks, you could tell that he was just a shell of himself. A machine with no control.

As he stalked towards me, I staggered backwards until my back hit the wall. The tip of his sharp blade pressed into my skin but not enough to hurt me and tipping my chin towards him, he lowered to my level.

"I couldn't have killed you but you're just too beautiful." His eyes travelled down my body, his lust unhidden. "I can't just end your life like that when you still have a little use in this world. When that body of yours would be delightful to taste and ravish."

With those words, he disappeared, leaving me blanketed in the shadows of darkness.