Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven
Cullen
By now you already know I am in love with Bella. I think I always have but in a different way. I liked playing with her and my family loved her especially my mom who called her, her daughter so she always seemed like a cute little sister of my mine. Growing up I thought we were really related and that she was my young sister although were only months apart and I loved her like one too. She liked sleeping at our house and even had her own bed next to mine my parents called her their precious daughter and treated her like Cyrus and I, except she were more gentler with her.
And that is why it was such a shock to me that Bella had a crush on Cyrus back then. It was gross and they were related so why were people making light of the situation and making fun about it? Saying its cute? Prosperous! It drove me so mad and I hated it. Cyrus didn’t seem to mind the attention and Bella liked it when people made fun of her crush on him and teased her about it. What made me angrier were my parents and their parents who seemed to encourage it in my opinion, and then dad called me in his office after one of my outbursts again and explained to me that Bella was my sister but we weren’t actually blood related.
I know it’s funny that I didn’t know Bella had her own parents but that’s the thing about Bella, everyone and absolutely everyone at the family loved her. Her parents especially her father his consigliere was always at the house to talk to my father and play with Bella, Bella called him dad and vice versa and I guess I never thought much about it. During her childhood Bella’s mom was always at the hospital so we saw very little of her and I guess that played a part too.
When I found out I wasn’t actually really related to Bella I started seeing her in a new light as I got older and became more aware of my body and our differences. I was a boy and she was a girl she smelled like apples and cherry and I sometimes thought about kissing her, she became my love and obsession and no one could compare to her or her beauty. She was such a sweet and precious person to me and I knew that she had taken my heart and I would never get it back.
There was a problem though. Women are more intelligent than us and by the time I found out Bella’s want my really sister Bella had known it a few years back. So when we were like eight or nine and she asked me if I liked her, I was scandalized. The question itself made me feel ill, I would never love her like that because she was my sister and the innocent girl she was took it to heart and said that’s good because she really likes my brother Cyrus and she always saw me as her brother and best friend.
It wasn’t easy for me either to just forget after so many years that Bella wasn’t my sister but surprise surprise that turned into love. You see, Bella didn’t like me that. She saw me as her brother while she was in love with my stupid brother who did not give a damn about her. My brother got sworn into the family and got himself engaged with the Irish mobs youngest daughter by the time he was fourteen, he got sworn in so early because he managed to defend himself against an attack and killed a man with a knife, and so he graduated and became a man in the family society.
The attack changed him and he started hanging out with my dad a lot and going places with him all the time. Even the soldiers would be talking to him with respect like a grownup he told me dad had started training him to take his place one day which was fine by me since I wasn’t interested in running the empire. But then he became a little distant and too busy, he especially didn’t find Bella cute anymore. I don’t know why but all of a sudden he just hated the poor innocent girl for no reason. He was mean to her when my parents were not around, mocking her to be a fake princess and made her cry; when she cried he would smile and leave.
Cyrus hated when people made fun of him about Bella’s crush on him and he would always look at her as she smiled at him in anger. He was careful not to get caught but when no one was looking he looked at her with so much anger I thought he wanted to cause her harm. Cyrus’s hate on Bella brought us even closer since she loved him but was a little scared of him and I was her protector. She would tell me everything and I would tell her things that wouldn’t cause her harm or make her sad she would die if I told her what our parents did for a living in detail. She asked me about the rumor that Cyrus killed someone and I lied to her because I wanted her to be happy.
As we grew up keeping our friendship became harder. My father needed me to start learning the ropes so I could be my brothers second in the future and I was a man. I had to be a man and make male friends in the family, do manly things that Bella just couldn’t. She had a limited choice of friends and because she was the princess of our family, it’s not easy making them. But I did everything in my power and spent all my free time with Bella, calling her my sister to keep men away from her there was absolutely no chance for male presence in her life. My friends say I treat her like my girlfriend and make fun of me, I get mad in front of them but inside I hope it were true.
Some of the things we used to do as kids got a lot harder to keep up as we grew up. One example is Bella’s behavior to sleep in my room whenever she came over which was 90% of the time. I would come late and there she would be just sleeping in my bed. I had to seep with a pillow between us and wake up early before she did so she would not have a one to one with my morning wood. It was torture and however much Cyrus made fun of me it was worth it and I wouldn’t have given it up for anything, in fact it made me happy to know that I would go home and Bella would be there waiting for me, I looked forward to it. I knew I was getting addicted and I should stop but when has that ever worked.
Bella and Cyrus, specifically Bella’s ridiculous crush on Cyrus. Everybody knows I hated it wasn’t a secret and I didn’t hide it. Bella made a fool out of herself to get his attention and pretended Cyrus didn’t hate her even to herself and Cyrus absolutely loathed the attention Bella gave him and saw her more annoying than a pest but pretended to not hate her ( he never made an effort to show that he liked her) in front of everyone else. Bella clung on to the little boy that played and took care of her when we were young but I knew Cyrus wasn’t that boy anymore.
When I was fifteen and Cyrus was nineteen, I asked me why he hated Bella and we had a huge disagreement that turned into a huge fight that the guards had to intervene. I knew he took it easy on me that night because I had seen him fight people bigger and stronger than me; he came to see me the next morning and told me we shouldn’t be fighting over girls because we are blood brothers and blood was stronger than anything. I told him Bella wasn’t just a girl but our sister and he answered sarcastically “continue telling yourself that” but then he knew he was going to start another argument and we made a promise never to talk about Bella again. That evening he moved out of the house.
Everything that happened tonight was a mistake. I shouldn’t have snuck Bella out of her birthday party and taken her to the club because that opened doors to a whole series of events that cannot be unmade. It was fun at first watching Bella’s eyes wander around shining with delight and it made my heart warm. Tony and Frank warned me that it was not a good idea to sneak out the princess but I was determined to fulfill my promise and make her happy after the news she had just had. I shouldn’t have let her consume so much alcohol and mix it up either but she was like ‘I never had one before can I try? It’s not like my husband is going to let me’ I knew she was manipulating me and tony kept shaking his head in disappointment.
She wanted to go downstairs and dance with everyone and I knew it wasn’t a wise move since we could be recognized and we had no business being there but I still let her. I really really enjoyed our dance and I have to admit she had moves that drove me absolutely crazy. Who knew she could move her waist and shake that ass like that? I had a boner ten minutes on to the dance floor; I couldn’t help myself but hold her waist and grind against her, hoping she wouldn’t remember this by next morning. As we were lost in the groove that’s when tony came in with the alarm that rushed us out of the club and the shoot out outside.
Tony’s father is my father’s right hand man, which means he is the security, attack and defense. Tony is the third born but a second son like me we bonded at the gym and been friends ever since. His father takes him and his brother with him on business, establishing contacts and such so he is a great asset to have around and that’s how he got us out of the mess. But he was shot and we later realized he had to go to the clinic and have the doctor remove his side bullet. The family has a clinic with all equipments and twenty four hour service for injuries we like to keep out of the public.
I should not have taken Bella to Cyrus’s house or put her in Cyrus’s room. I knew what an asshole he was and how he hated Bella but at the time Bella was safe and I had just put Tony’s life in danger I was more focused on getting him medical care. I knew Bella’s feeling for Cyrus ran deep but I always knew she was smart until tonight.
Am I angry about what happen in Cyrus’s room tonight? Definitely. Am I disappointed, hurt, drained and broken about it? Yes. But as I laid in bed with Bella and listen to her plead and apologize to me, trying to make me feel better about my mistakes, I realized that this will affect her more than she thinks. The family and the Bratva have been killing each other for decades and my father and Alex’s father want to put the bloodshed to rest, they have been meeting secretly each leader with their most trusted man for six months to find a deal that would make everyone happy. No one but them knew what went on in those meetings and they decided to seal it with blood. The family blood and the Bratva blood.
Neither of the two had any daughters but my father had the closest thing to one ‘Bella’ it wasn’t a secret and everyone knew it. They promised a clean bride with virtue but Bella wasn’t one anymore. This gave me an opportunity and a chance to be with her, it gave me an idea to make her mine. I loved her too much to let her be disgraced in front of the whole community and bring shame upon her family that would never happen to my princess. I was going to ask for her hand in marriage in the morning by telling the truth, my father would kick my butt but I would get to be with the woman I loved.