Dangerous Beauty: Part Four: Beautifully Broken (57 page)

“I was joking, Sandr,” Maksim sighed, pulling closer to Reanna. “Mama will not kill you. She will only punish you for your behavior.”

“Punish
us
, Maksi,” Aleksandr turned around dramatically. “I’m your twin. We feel the same stuff.”

“You say that all of the time, Sandr. But when I’m outside playing—because I’m not being bad,” he shrugged, “I feel just fine.”

“Liar,” Aleksandr pouted, crossing his arms over his chest. “You hate it when Mama and Papa punish me.”

“Not as much as I dislike the amount of trouble you get in to. If punishment is what it takes for you to learn your lesson, then that is what it has to be, Sandr …”

It was always like this. Maksim, the calmer, quieter twin, always had to step in the midst of Aleksandr’s shenanigans and be his conscience. Help him, and often times, guide him. Reanna had often heard Carter refer to her boys as both sides of Nathan’s personality with a little bit of her and then themselves mixed all up in there. Maksim was the more pragmatic twin, a perfect little gentleman; sweet, kind, and often serious when not behaving like your average four-year-old. His similarity to Carter lied with his brain. Of all of her children, Maksim was by far the most intelligent. Which was why often, when he spoke, he tended to …
startle
if one wasn’t used to the four-year old’s eloquent way of speaking. Reanna adored listening to him talk. He mostly just talked about school or something new that he’d learned from a book he’d read. Carter’s father, Robert, said that he got that from his mother, too. Apparently Carter had been quite the little information junkie in her childhood. On days when Reanna would leave work early just to spend time at Carter’s house with the kids, she loved to just sit and watch him. Watch him read, watch him laugh at what he read, and listen to him talk about it. She could literally spend hours doing just that. Carter and Nathan kept the little bookworms reading supply stocked with new material for him to explore, and Reanna had even contributed to Maksim’s library on more than one occasion just to hear his opinion on certain stories. He loved the chapter books. The ones that had the occasional picture on special pages. That was the phase he was in right now.

Aleksandr, on the other hand, was Nathan’s …
spark
was what she called him. Humorous, a loving little gentleman of course; energetic, terrifyingly fearless, a smartass, and too honest and outspoken for his own good. Well … honest when he wasn’t at risk of punishment. He was every untamed part of his parents wrapped up in an adorably handsome little package; and sometimes, they had no idea what to do with that… with him. From his mother, he of course inherited an interesting charm that drew people to him, an intense dislike for obedience, and an IQ that would surely get him accepted into any college he wished to attend, and, Reanna was pretty sure, at a very young age, too. It wasn’t an IQ as high as his brother’s, but it was still high enough to get him—as well as Maksim— an early invitation into a high IQ society when he’d been but two years old.

Sofia had been three when she’d gotten her invitation. That perfect fact was definitely worth noting.

Watching Aleksandr was just as fascinating as watching his brother and little JoJo and Natalia. All of Nathan and Carter’s children. It was always very high energy at the Salerno household. Even Reanna’s little Sofia was her most energetic when she was around her cousins. Though, even still, she brought a calmness that even little Maksim didn’t possess to their group. She had the voice of reason and a bit of fire. That was what Reanna had been noticing lately, as Sofia continued to grow. She had a spark of her own, one that Reanna admired, one that was surely influenced by the strong women—Anastacia and Carterina—that had had a huge part in raising her thus far. Reanna only hoped that she would be able to have such an influence as Sofia’s step-mother. She hoped that Anastacia and Carter would approve of her being the woman that raised Sofia, that protected, and mothered her from this point on. Okay, well she knew Carter approved of her being in Sofia’s life, so that wasn’t really a fear. Anastacia on the other hand… Reanna had no idea how the woman felt about her. She wasn’t the easiest person to read, that Anastacia Stone.

Plus, Reanna was pretty sure she was terrified of the woman.

“How am I supposed to know what is bad in this family, Maksi. Most of the stuff that Mama and Papa say is bad, I think is fun.”

Tuning back in to the children’s conversation as they neared the Salerno Organization building, Reanna looked forward at Aleksandr right as he turned back to face them, a small smile pulling at her lips.

“How am I supposed to know when I’m about to do something wrong?”

Of course to that, Maksim answered his twin in the way only he could. “Well …” he thought for a moment, then snapped his little fingers. “I got it,” he smiled. “How about you make a list of the stuff you like to do, then Sofia and I will look over it and tell you what on the list will get your butt kicked.”

Next to Reanna, Sofia burst into laughter, making Reanna close her eyes in effort to contain her own.

Sofia had the most contagious laugh; full on and loud just like Kyle’s father.

In response to his brother’s words, Aleksandr’s small smile dropped immediately. “She’s gonna kick my butt?” he asked, looking from person to person frantically. “Maksi, is she gonna?”

Maksim shrugged in response.

“I think Zia will just yell at you, Sandr,” Sofia spoke up, as if seeking to calm her cousin. “She will be upset.”

“And she’ll take away all my toys and make me give my animals away! It’ll be weeks before she lets me see my dogs again, and by then, they won’t even remember that I’m their master, and then what?” He threw up his hands. “All that time I spent training them gone to waste!”

“She will not take your animals—”

“You don’t understand!” Aleksandr shouted, stopping abruptly in front of them.

Holding on tightly to Maksim and Sofia’s hands, Reanna stopped quickly to avoid colliding with the hysterical child.

Reanna huffed. “Aleksandr!” She snapped, angry that the child had nearly gotten himself trampled. “You can’t just stop in front of us like that. We have people walking behind us.”

Turning to look at Michele and the men standing behind her, Reanna apologized for the abrupt halt before Aleksandr’s frantic ranting stole her attention once again.

“I’m sorry, Zia,” he whined. “But we have to go back. I can’t go to my Mama and Papa. Not yet. We gotta go back.”

Frowning, Reanna shook her head at the boy’s panic. “Absolutely not,” she replied, motioning him forward. “Now get your little butt going, boy. We have a schedule to keep.”

“Yeah, come on, Sandr,” Sofia spoke up. “I wanna go see my papa.”

Looking down at Sofia when she said the words, Reanna smiled.

Aww
… She was so cute. Reanna couldn’t wait until they got to see Kyle either. It’d be the first time the three of them were together as a family since she and Kyle made their relationship official. She couldn’t wait to tell Sofia the news and see how she’d react to things changing so quickly.

“You don’t understand!” Aleksandr yelled, bringing Reanna from her thoughts. “Mama’s not gonna be happy about what I did.”

“Of course she won’t be, Sandr!” Maksim yelled at his brother, a hint of laughter in his tone. “You snuck to the high school halls, stole a dead frog from the biology classroom, and put it in your teacher’s purse!”

“I was dared, Maksi.
Double-dared
. It wasn’t a joke.”

“Be that as it may … You’ve been suspended, Sandr. Already. And this is our first year going to school.”

Closing his mouth tightly, Aleksandr’s eyes lowered as if in thought.

“Hmm …” he murmured. “Well, when you say it like that, you make it sound bad.”

The frustrated sighs of Reanna, Sofia, and Maksim, as well as Michele and the rest of security echoed in unison.

“It is bad, baby,” Reanna said. Releasing both Sofia and Maksim’s hands, she squatted down until she and Aleksandr were eye to eye. “What you did to Ms. Honey was wrong and mean …”

“But, Zia it was a—”

Reanna cut him off with a shake of her head. “It being a dare is no excuse, Aleksandr. It doesn’t justify what you did. You frightened her.”

His dark, thick brows furrowed slightly. “I didn’t mean to.”

“But even still,” Reanna nodded. “You did. And that was not a nice thing to do to your teacher.”

She noticed, in his eyes, the moment he was listening to her, actually taking the time to use that exceptional brain of his to truly understand what it was he’d done wrong, and that was the moment that she decided to explain it to him.

“Listen to me, baby,” she sighed, bringing her hands up to gently cup his face. “You can’t do what your friends tell you to do just because they dare you to do it. That’s not right. Most of the things they’ll tell you to do are things that they are too afraid to do themselves.”

Frowning, Aleksandr shook his head. “But Billy …”

Aleksandr’s best friend at school.

“… said that if I didn’t do it, then he’d tell everybody that I was a punk and too scared.”

“Well, that’s because Billy’s a punk and too scared.” Reanna’s eyes widened at her own words.

Shit
… That was not the adult thing to say.

Sighing, she quickly pulled herself together. “Don’t ever repeat that,” she said, quickly retracting her last words. “What I meant was that I know that it may be difficult not to fall into pressure from your friends, but you have to be strong, wise, and you have to be a leader. To know when it is the right thing to say no, even when someone double-dares you.”

“You think I should punk out on a double-dare?”

Trying not to smile at how cute his intensely serious expression was, Reanna shook her head in response. “Knowing and doing the right thing despite someone pressuring you is not
‘punk-ing out’.
It’s showing strength. You don’t have to do anything anyone tells you to do, Aleksandr. Not only that, but you do not have to prove to anyone that you are not a punk.”

“I’m not a punk.”

“Exactly, baby,” Reanna smiled, gently caressing his little face. “You’re strong and perfect, a leader, and smart enough to know that doing something like that to a teacher is the wrong thing to do. You have to say no baby, no matter what … Look at your father.” It was her favorite argument to use when attempting to teach Aleksandr. The boy admired his father so much. “I’m sure he’s been double-dared to do a lot of horrible things that could have gotten him in a lot of trouble, or even hurt …”

Aleksandr gasped softly. “Hurt?”

“Yes,” Reanna nodded. “But you know what?”

“What?” he whispered.

Reanna smiled. “He would never let that happen. Because he knows when it’s right to do something and when it’s wrong. He doesn’t let anyone pressure him into doing anything because that’s what a leader is. Do what you know is best, no matter what people think. To hurt someone that has always been kind to you, like Ms. Honey has, is wrong, baby. That doesn’t make you brave. What makes you brave is knowing when bad friends, like Billy, are testing you and trying to manipulate you.”

“Manipulate me?”

“Control you,” she explained. “Billy knows that he can get you to do whatever he wants you to; all he has to say is your too afraid to do it. That’s not right and he isn’t being a good friend.” Gently caressing his hair, she sighed again. “You have to do better, baby. You have to follow your father’s example and your uncles’. Getting suspended from school is a big deal. You need your classes; you need to learn. If you don’t go to school, then how are you going to be smart enough to help your family run this big organization whenever all the grown-ups get old and tired?”

“Like Nonna and my Nonnos?”

A small burst of laughter escaped Reanna’s lips as she nodded her head in response to Aleksandr’s question. “Yes, sweetheart. Like your grandparents.”

“But I want to help, Zia.”

Nodding her head, she let her hands fall from his face. and gave his little belly a pinch. “And you can, baby. You just have to stay in school first. You have to behave and you have to make good decisions.”

“I can do that,” he said, determination filling his stormy gray eyes.

“Really,” Reanna challenged him playfully, her brows raising slightly in question. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he nodded firmly. “I promise, Zia. I can be good at school.”

“And you’ll apologize to Ms. Honey?”

“Uh uh,” he smiled. “I can write her a note, too. And maybe draw her a picture.”

God
, he was so freaking adorable. “I think she’d like that, baby.” Resting her hands at his waist, Reanna gently tugged Aleksandr forward and kissed his cheeks. “You’re so sweet.”

His response was a smile that twisted Reanna’s heart in the most perfect way. He was learning and perhaps she was just being a big softy, but she really believed her little Aleks when he said he promised to do better. Now, she wanted to help him.

“Well …” she sighed, thinking for a moment about what she was about to say. After a few seconds, she came to the conclusion that it was the right thing to do. “Since you say that you promise, perhaps I can talk to your parents for you. ” When his eyes widened, and he looked as if he were about to say something, Reanna raised a finger to silence him. “But only this once, Aleksandr.” Reanna didn’t want to spoil him, but she knew that if she told Nathan and Carter that she had had a talk with him, then they’d go a bit easier on him. He’d still be punished of course, but there’d be no yelling and he’d still get to spend as much time as he wanted with all of his dogs. “Now, if I do this, I need you to promise me that you’re serious.”