Kylie Bray (Love, Hate and Billions)
Chapter 9 (Kylie)

Looking at the rose I wasn't sure what she meant, and I said as much, my mama smiled at me,

"In order to understand love, you would have to understand hatred first, and the only way to learn that is to experience fear."

Mama touched my cheek and walked out, leaving me alone with that single rose in my hand and my own pebbles scattered to the floor.

I never got what she meant that day and I didn't understand it for the eight months I dated Dexter.

I knew I didn't love him, I knew it because when he started liking other girls I didn't even bat an eye-lash.

But I did understand it the day Vincent Stone walked back into my life.

I was seventeen and my brother Kevin was already patched into The Satan Snipers Motorcycle club in Houston, Texas.

I was meeting Kevin for lunch in Seattle at a small restaurant near one of the Universities I was applying to.

I hardly got to see him since he joined the navy years back. And like always whenever an opportunity presented itself to meet with him I took it with both hands.

That day was no different.

I love my Kevin, I understand him as no one else does.

And the fact that he was meeting me, even though he had 'shit' to do, proved that my brother loved me in his own detached way.

I never need the words when his actions speak so loudly.

So that day I made sure I was a couple of minutes early.

I never thought I'd see Vincent walk into the same restaurant. What were the chances, right?

Dressed in a crisp charcoal three piece Italian Suit that screamed money and power Vincent was too overdressed for the small place. I remember the hot flash of nerves riddling my belly. His eyes, his sharp indented nose, the strong jaw that probably got shaved twice a day.

I couldn't really say or pinpoint the exact thing that drew me to Vincent.

What did I see in him that day in the restaurant? I can't tell you because honestly speaking there is no other way to describe my stepbrother besides for what he is, imposing and dangerous. Maybe that's what I see in him, maybe it is the idea of him, but what a god damn idea it is. That day in the restaurant his dark blonde hair was short and neatly cut, no gel or messy do. He was clean shaven and his sharp hazel eyes found me before I even sat my ass on the chair.

I wasn't sure what to do, I didn't know whether to greet him, or pretend I didn't know him.

Because I really didn't know him, if I did I would have informed him that the restaurant was for Varsity Students and locals, while insisting he had the correct outfit.

I also would've switched my dark washed up denims, red and black Jordan's and black Vest for something more feminine.

I didn't do any of that because it was years before that day in the small family owned restaurant when I last saw him.

Then, Vincent Stone was a teenager and I was just a kid who didn't care that he never spent the holidays with us, or was always too busy to ride horses around the property.

That day in that small restaurant' dressed in his four thousand dollar suit he was a full-grown man, and I was barely a woman.

That day I cared and I didn't stop caring.

There are times when I wish I didn't, but God save my tortured soul, I would do it all again.

Vincent didn't greet me that day, he didn't even look at me again.

He sat in the back, ignoring my sly glances until Kevin walked in, then he got up, buttoned his jacket and strode toward us.

He patted Kevin on the back, whispered a few words, and still didn't look at me.

He proceeded to straighten his suit jacket staring right past me before he left the restaurant.

The whole thing was clipped, even my mind couldn't replace a more appealing way to describe the incident, but it oddly hurt, hurt a lot.

Kevin never asked, he never stated, but I knew he knew something was up.

I wished I had the courage to have asked Kevin, I didn't. I was weak then, still learning, still growing, my heart on sleeve, my emotions in my eyes.

It was months later when I saw Vincent again.

After that, I saw him often enough since we frequented the same places and he was for all intent and purposes one of our chaperons.

So a year later here we are- my sappy heart in my eyes and his behind a steel vault.

Sadly, there is no way to suppress the doughy expression that's clearly pasted on my face when my other half begins telling Vincent one of her 'she said, I said' stories.

"Two weeks ago, I spotted this squirrel at the dumpster behind Trilogy, and then I got to thinking about the atoms and fusion. So I called Michael..."

It is Vincent's luck that his cell rings.

Though even luck has a way of turning bad, twisting its wicked intent to master the course of one's destruction.

The paleness of his face as he opens his mouth to speak is the first sign.

The phone slipping from his grip carelessly on his thigh and falling on the car's carpeting is the last.

When he looks at Diamond, I just know.

I know what is coming before it leaves his mouth before it pours the gasoline to the fire that is destined to burn.

"There was a shoot out, the Scottish, I... Reno, I...AA..FUUUCK." His nostrils flare, as he roughly glides his fingers through his light hair, struggling to say it, say that which thousands have said before, and even more, have heard.

My friend doesn't wait to hear the rest before she nods and the tears well up in her eyes.

What did I say about emotions? He has them.

I don't scream like Vincent, nor do I cry silently like Diamond. I just hold my best friend's hand and look into Vincent's destroyed gaze as he barks orders to Larus, promising death, pain, vengeance in the name of a man who wouldn't have wanted any of it.

Giving them both my strength because, maybe I am weak, maybe I'm not yet privy to a tough life but I wouldn't show it, not when those around me need me to be strong. My psych won't allow it.

Death has an odd way of just happening, it is never predicted regardless of what Nostradamus implied unless it's predicted by the one holding the gun, or doing the killing. Diamond would tell you differently. She said so when she completed an equation that could possibly predict one's death.

She once used it on Reno, she said forty-two years it'll take before his death. She predicted she had twenty of those years with him.

This weekend would've been their first month, today it marked his last breath.

I wish I knew now what I would come to know in the future.

This day in the Bentley, across from the man who owned my heart, I console my best friend, thinking that the worst part is over.

She'd be fine, this is just the last hurdle.

I'll say something now- it is just the beginning, I wasn't aware as I sat there in the car, that we didn't even make it to the iceberg. We still had to get there before we fell.000☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐