His Little Lamb || bxb

9.0

| Milan |

Still no word from Valencio but by now my mind was consumed with thoughts of my brother ever since lunch with my friends. This always happened. I would find ways to distract myself and not think about the things I witnessed the night León killed our uncle and then things I later heard of all the other stuff Phillip had done. But now, these were the only thoughts that filled my head. Thoughts of being in the court too, trying to prove to the authorities that my brother was innocent and acting in self-defence, having to tell them what I saw that night and León having to recount everything else that had been done to him a different day in front of others as he broke down. He wasn't charged luckily but then I spent so many sleepless nights with León in my bed, as he cried himself to sleep, where I was too afraid to fall asleep myself in case anything else happened to him. My father's cries at the thought of what his brother had been doing could be heard deep in the night, my mother would put eyedrops in her eyes because they were bloodshot from crying. My older sister would try to bring everyone together, to make things better, but I think we were all just too far gone into our despair that our perfect little family couldn't be fixed.

I considered getting some alcohol, but I knew what I could be like when I drank while upset and my friends have had to worry about me too much by now. Instead, I went to my art room and got out a new canvas. I had no plan, no idea what I wanted to paint so I just brought out some paints and slathered different colours onto the canvas in abstract patterns hoping to get my frustrations and my sadness out.

When I was finished an hour later, the canvas had mainly black and red and grey and brown on its surface. I decided this made a great background and decided to draw an outline of an eye with a teardrop in the centre of the canvas. I started to draw the eye with pencil once I was sure the paint had dried a couple hours later which I had passed by watching nostalgic shows from my childhood. Once the pencil drawing was done, I went over the whole thing in black paint with a very fine paintbrush. I liked to use oil paints in my work because I got along with it a lot better.

In my creative madness, I hadn't checked my phone once and when I was completely done with my painting and headed to the kitchen to finally make dinner, my phone started ringing. As soon as I saw the caller ID, I picked it up instantly.

"Milan," Valencio said on the other line.

"Hi Val," I said with a little smile. Somehow hearing his voice made me feel a little better than I was feeling earlier.

"Are you alright?" he asked me quickly sounding concerned.

"Yeah, I'm okay, why?" I asked back confused.

"I thought you might have been upset with me. I know I told you I would try to text you this morning, I'm sorry I didn't. I ended up sleeping in but I sent you a couple texts earlier and you didn't reply."

"Oh sorry! I was painting so I didn't check my phone. I didn't see any of your texts," I said with a frown.

"I see. That's alright, I'm sorry about not texting you sooner."

"That's okay! Did you have a busy night?"

"Not very busy, just a late one. There was something work related I needed to take care of," he replied. Something work related? I wondered what it could be and that made me think of all the stuff we had read about him online and I couldn't stop myself when my next words came out of my mouth.

"My friends googled you..."

"Oh?"

"Yeah... I didn't tell them to or anything, they just kind of did."

"And what did they find?"

"Umm..."

"Go on, I'm not mad sweetheart," he said and I could hear the sincerity in his voice which made me feel more relaxed.

"That you own like a bunch of businesses, you're a billionaire and high in the ranks too. You have some sort of hotel merger thing or something going on right now and some people think you're in the mafia," I rushed out.

"Hmm... and how does that make you feel baby?"

God, I was so glad he couldn't see me right now because I was blushing so hard at being called 'baby' that my cheeks could have burned off from how hot they were.

"Umm... kind of intimidated..." I replied honestly. "But also very impressed. When they looked into you some more, they told me that you inherited a lot of like your empire, I suppose you could call it, from your dad but a lot of it you've built yourself as well and that's very impressive."

"Thank you, kitten. That's very kind of you to say."

"You're... are you really in the mafia though?" I asked feeling braver than I should have been.

"I wouldn't tell you outright if I was now, would I?" he chuckled in reply. I noticed he didn't actually answer my question but I decided to leave it for now because maybe I just didn't want to know yet. Ignorance is bliss as they say, and I could use a little bliss at the moment.

"That's true," I replied. "Umm Val? Wait it's okay that I call you Val, right?"

"That's quite alright, yes."

"Okay, thanks! Umm so, Val, when can I see you again?"

"That's just what I wanted to ask you actually. I was wondering if you would want to come to my home soon? I'd love to show you around and there's someone very special I'd like you to meet!"

"I'd love to!" I said a little too loudly. I wondered who he wanted me to meet.

"When will you be free, love?"

"Umm any day should be fine now that I'm not working."

"Tomorrow then?" he asked, and I happily told him yes.

We ended our call soon after but continued to text late into the night. We said goodnight before going to bed and I tried my best to sleep but I was so excited and a little anxious about tomorrow that I couldn't sleep for hours.

I went back to my art room and set aside the canvas I had been working on earlier. I marvelled at how quickly my mood had changed from this morning to afternoon and then to evening. Today was turning out to be a very weird day and I couldn't get to sleep again until I finished the final detail work on the landscape painting, the one I had been working on before today's piece.

~~~~~~~~~~

Pro tip, don't drink alcohol when you're sad

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