MY STEPBROTHERS, MY MATES

CHAPTER ONE VIOLETTA The freeway had disappeared an hour ago and now there was nothing outside the window but countryside and the occasional small village that blinked past before I could fully register it. I had my feet up on the dashboard and my book open in my lap, but I had not read a single word in the last forty minutes. I was just staring at the pages while my brain ran circles around the same thought it had been running circles around for a week. How did I end up here? I knew exactly how. That was the problem. It was a Wednesday evening, and I was lying on my bed reading the romantasy novel Bridget had been pestering me for about two months, finally giving it a proper chance, and I was actually getting into it when the front door flew open so hard it bounced off the wall. My mother rushed in and immediately started whirling around the sitting room with her left hand stretched out in front of her like she was showing it to an invisible audience. I dropped my book and sat up. "Mum, what's wrong with you?" "My finger!" She thrust her hand toward my face. "Look at my finger, Lettie!" She had left that morning for what she called a beach date with Rafael, her boyfriend of the past year. She had come back looking like an entirely different woman. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright, and she was practically vibrating on the spot. I took her hand carefully and looked at her finger. There was a ring on it. A big, beautiful, very real diamond ring. My mouth fell open. "Holy f*****g shit." "Violetta!" she shrieked. "Your language!" "Sorry, sorry." I could not take my eyes off the ring. "Mum, you're engaged?" She beamed at me and nodded like a teenager who had just fallen in love for the very first time, her whole face radiant and open and so completely happy it almost hurt to look at it. "Rafael proposed on the beach, just as the sun was setting." She pressed both hands to her cheeks. "It was perfect." I stared at her. "And you said yes?" She pulled her face back. "Excuse me, young lady. This is my boyfriend we are talking about. Was I supposed to say no?" "I just thought—" I stopped and tried to find the right words. "I thought you were dating him for fun, Mum. We agreed. We said after Dad that You weren't going to—" "That was years ago." "We had an agreement." "Times change, Violetta." Her voice firmed up. "I am going to marry Rafael and that is decided." Something hot climbed up the back of my throat. "That's not fair. You can't just wake up one day and make that decision without involving me. Without even asking how I feel about it." Her eyes flashed. "I do not need your permission to make decisions about my own life." "I'm not saying permission, I'm saying—" "You're saying I should put my happiness on hold because you're uncomfortable. That's what you're saying." "I'm saying Dad hasn't even been gone that long and you're already—" "Ten years." Her voice came out sharp and quiet, and it cut right through me. "Your father has been gone for ten years, Violetta. I have mourned him for ten years and I have the right to move on with my life." She paused and when she spoke again her voice had an edge I had not heard in a long time. "And besides. You have no right to bring your father into this. You of all people. Not after you are the reason he's gone." The room was very still. I felt the words land in my chest and sit there, heavy and burning. I picked up my book from the bed and opened it without looking at her. She exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry that came out. Just start packing. You're coming to Lunadora whether you like it or not." I said nothing. I turned to a page I did not read. "Violetta." "I heard you." She stood there for a moment and then walked toward the door and stopped. "Rafael has two sons from his first marriage. They're both grown. I want you to be on your best behavior when you meet them. No sass. Not toward Rafael and not toward his sons." "Fine." "I mean it." "I said fine, Mum." She looked at me for a moment longer and then left. I waited until I heard her bedroom door close before I picked up my phone and called Bridget. She answered on the second ring. "What's happened, you sound like someone's died." "My mother is getting married." Silence. Then, "What?" "Rafael proposed. She said yes. We're moving to Italy. To his house with his children." I fell back against my pillow. "And she mentioned me being the cause of my dad's death again." "Violetta." Bridget's voice dropped immediately. "Are you okay?" "I don't know. Maybe. I don't want to think about anything else right now." I stared at the ceiling. "She's moving us to some small town called Lunadora, that should be northeast of Italy. We're going to live with this man and his two grown sons and I'm supposed to just be fine with it." "Wait." Bridget's tone shifted into something I recognized immediately. "Two sons. How old?" "Bridget." "I'm just asking." "I'm not doing this." "Are they hot though?" "I have literally no idea and I don't care and that is not the point—" "Because if they're hot—" "Bridget!" I sat up. "My mother is uprooting my entire life, and you're asking me if my stepbrothers are attractive. Be serious!" She laughed. The absolute nerve. "I'm just saying! A little motivation never hurt anyone." "You're unhinged." But despite everything, I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. "Come help me pack whenever you're free. I need moral support and someone to tell me I'm not overreacting." "You're not overreacting. I'll come on Saturday. And I'll need full updates on the sons." "Goodbye, Bridget." **** The town appeared around a long curve in the road and my mother sat up straighter in her seat and smiled to herself. She touched my arm lightly. "We're in Lunadora. We'll be at the house soon." I sat up and took my feet off the dashboard. "Remember what I said," she added. "No sass." I turned to look at her. "Mum. You have said that to me approximately one thousand times since and before we left home. I do not need reminding." She sighed the sigh of a woman who had been having this particular conversation for twenty years. "There's no harm in reminding." The house came into view at the end of a long private road, and it was not what I had been picturing. It was large and pale-stoned with tall windows and green climbing up the front of it and a wide gravel drive bordered by trees. Beautiful in a quiet, settled way. Like it had been standing there for a very long time and was entirely comfortable with the fact. Rafael was already outside waiting for us. He was a large man, broad and tall with dark hair greying at the sides and warm eyes that found my mother first and softened immediately. She got out of the car and went straight to him and he wrapped both arms around her and held her and I looked at the house instead. She pulled back and turned toward me with her hand extended in my direction like she was presenting me. "Rafael, this is Violetta. My daughter." He smiled and stepped toward me with his arms already opening. I took a small step back. "I don't really do hugs." "Violetta." My mother's voice had a warning in it. I looked at her face. She was not angry exactly, just asking. Just wanting this one thing to go smoothly. I let out a quiet breath and stepped forward and hugged Rafael quickly. It was brief and a bit stiff but it was a hug. He patted my back gently. "It's wonderful to meet you, Violetta. Welcome." "Thank you," I said, and meant it well enough. *** A butler appeared from the side of the house and loaded our bags onto a trolley without being asked while my mother went inside with Rafael. I followed and was shown to my room on the upper floor. I stood in the doorway and looked at it properly. It was large. Genuinely large, with high ceilings and a wide bed and furniture that looked expensive without trying too hard about it. And the window. I walked straight to it and looked out and below was a swimming pool, blue and still and catching the afternoon light. I pulled out my phone and switched to video call. Bridget's face filled the screen before it had finished connecting. "Well? Let me see your new home." I turned the camera around and did a slow sweep of the room. Bridget screamed. Genuinely screamed. "Wow! Damn! Violetta girl. I am coming for the holidays. That is not a request." I laughed for the first time in a week. "You're welcome whenever." "Okay but the sons. Have you seen them yet? Are they—" "They're not here as far as I can tell." "Disappointing. Keep me updated. The moment you see them—" "I need to unpack and get my head straight," I cut her off with a glare. "I'll call you later." "Fine. But you better—" I ended the call and set my phone on the bed and stood there in the quiet of the room for a moment. It was a nice room. Nicer than I had expected. That did not fix anything but it was something. By the time I went downstairs I was properly hungry. I found the kitchen without too much trouble and went straight to the fridge and stood in the cold light of it trying to work out what was available. I felt something behind me. Not a sound exactly, more of a presence. A warm, heavy weight of something in the room that had not been there before. I turned around. There was a large animal sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor watching me. It's dark reddish fur, broad head, big dark eyes fixed directly on me. I relaxed immediately. I had always liked dogs. "Oh, you're enormous," I said and walked right over and ruffled the fur on top of its head. "Aren't you a gorgeous thing? Are you lost, big dog?" It stared at me. Then it barked. One single bark so loud and deep it bounced off every wall in the kitchen and I stumbled backward with my heart in my throat. "Okay." I pressed my hand to my chest. "Okay, you've got a set of lungs." And then it changed. Right there in front of me, in the middle of the kitchen floor, it changed. The fur receded and the shape of it stretched upward and the bones rearranged themselves with a sound I was not prepared for and was never going to forget, and where the animal had been a man was now standing. He's so tall, about six foot three, dark hair, black eyes, jaw sharp enough to cut glass, and tattoos running in dark strings up his neck and both arms all the way to his wrists. He looked at me with an unhurried smirk spreading slowly across his face. "Hello," his smirk widened. "You must be Violetta. My new stepsister." I am dreaming, I thought clearly. I am absolutely dreaming right now. And then the floor came up to meet me.