Bonnie walked over to the cherry wood vanity and had a seat on the tufted leather stool. Giuseppe had commissioned all of the furniture in this room for her grams' 35th birthday. Bonnie couldn't count the number of times that she had watched her grandmother sit in that very spot. As a little girl, she thought that Sheila looked like a regal queen. Her grandmother exuded grace and confidence no matter the situation. No one could work a room quite like Sheila Renee Bennett. However, a rare few really knew the woman that raised Bonnie. Sheila was as vicious and ruthless as Giuseppe could be. The only difference was that she never directed her fury at her family.
Bonnie picked up the sterling silver brush that once belonged to her grandmother and pulled it through her curly chocolate brown hair. The curly locks hung just below her shoulder blades because Sheila had never allowed Bonnie to cut her hair. She considered doing so once her grandmother died but learned that Damon liked her hair long. It was just one example of the many ways she tried to keep her husband's attention—unsuccessfully. She believed that Damon only slept with her out of necessity. While Sarah was a wonderful child, she was a girl. One day Sarah would be married off to one of Elijah Mikaelson's sons to ensure the alliance for years to come. However, Damon still needed a legitimate male heir to succeed him in the future.
After they were married she so wanted him to fall in love with her. She had been in love with Damon for nearly a decade. However, Bonnie did not become disillusioned when that didn't happen. Her grandmother had warned her about men like Damon. He was a broken soul that hadn't known love a day in his life. He filled his hours with drinking, drugs, and reckless sex with inferior women. Sheila warned her granddaughter that the answer wasn't to despair over his behavior or to nag him about it incessantly. She taught Bonnie to exude the traits that would make Damon love her as a wife and mother to his children.
Sheila also believed the key to a healthy marriage was manipulating your husband into doing your bidding. Bonnie had known for some time that Giuseppe had outlived his usefulness. She too had relatives in Milazzo and knew that he was doing very little to ensure a smooth transition for his son. Giuseppe intended to hold onto to the family until Damon pried it from his cold dead hands. Now Bonnie could have told her husband the truth but he might not have believed her. After all, she was but a young woman, barely old enough to drink the wine that bore her family's name. What did she know about the inner workings of organized crime? If Damon had ever taken the chance to get to know Bonnie, he would know that she knew a great deal about it. Her grandmother had helmed one of the largest arms smuggling rings in North America for more than twenty years. She would have to be a moron not to learn something.
Bonnie knew that killing Giuseppe was the only way that Damon could rise to power. He would only undermine his son even if Damon somehow managed to wrest control of the organization from him. Unfortunately, Damon's feelings about Giuseppe were complicated. His father had been an abusive asshole but he stayed. Lilly abandoned him and Giuseppe stayed. Sometimes you craved the love from the hands that beat you black and blue one day and hugged you the next.
She knew that the recorded conversation about Domenico's death wouldn't be enough. However, she could have never imagined that Giuseppe would attack her. He had been like a father to her. It had been brutal and unexpected but she buried her pain deep. Giuseppe had given her a window of opportunity and she intended to use it wisely. She avoided talking to Damon for nearly two weeks because she needed him at peak guilt. This wasn't just about getting rid of Giuseppe but it was also about excising Katherine from their lives. However, she had to make her loving husband believe that it was his idea. Bonnie was certain that her family's matriarchs were smiling at her from the great beyond.
The women in her family tended to behave as puppet masters with their husbands while remaining in the shadows. Her great-great-grandmother Hannah was an extremely fair-skinned Black woman that chose to pass as an olive skinned Italian woman for obvious reasons. She had married an Italian immigrant named Vincenzo that worked at the bustling port in Vancouver. They made a nice enough living smuggling wine Italian wine and Canadian whisky into the United States. However, the couple saw diminished profits because they were simply the suppliers selling the contraband at wholesale prices. Hannah decided to move her family to the United States to handle distribution and cut out the need for an intermediary.
Despite the rampant misogyny of that time, Vincenzo recognized that his wife had a better head for business than he did. He was the face of the smuggling operation since their clients preferred dealing with other men. However, it was Hannah pouring the words into his ear like Cyrano. Soon after the move to the United States, they began watering down their booze to double and at times triple their profits. Hannah used that money to purchase acres of untouched land to build their homestead in Shadow Hills. In a few years time, they had a successful farm that generated legitimate income. However, it was all Hannah's foresight. She knew that Prohibition wouldn't last forever. When Prohibition ended, their farm went from planting vegetables to wine grapes. They became one of the first wineries in the Pacific Northwest.
After Prohibition ended, Hannah and Vincenzo managed the winery and started the cherry and apple orchards as well. However, they were still running a lucrative smuggling operation while raising their children, Emily and Daniel. Prostitution might have been the world's oldest profession but providing illicit contraband had to be a close second. When their son, Daniel, was of age, they sent him to Vincenzo's family in Milazzo. He learned the smuggling business from the point of origin and took it over by the time he was in his 30's. Controlling both ends of the smuggling operation helped them grow the business further. However, their profits and position in the criminal underworld changed forever when Daniel assumed control in Milazzo. He shifted the family's focus to smuggling weapons as the American Italian Mafia began to grow in power. The Salvatore family had been one of their first loyal customers since they both hailed from Milazzo.
A few decades later, Sheila's relationship with Giuseppe had been born out of a need for more power. However, Domenico had stepped on any chance of them marrying because her father had been a dark skinned Black man. She couldn't pass for White the way her mother and grandmother had. Sheila still found a way to make Giuseppe useful. She convinced him to help stamp out the competition to her arms smuggling operation. Sheila was able to expand her operation to the East Coast with his assistance. Unfortunately, dealing with Giuseppe came at a price. He flew into a fit of rage and murdered her husband not long after Abby was born. Sheila didn't particularly love the man but it brought a lot of unwanted attention to her doorstep. However, in true Giuseppe fashion he made it go away by pinning the crime on one of his rivals. The pair never married but they might as well have been. Sheila and Abby spent their summers and holidays with Giuseppe and his family. It was a practice that continued throughout Bonnie's childhood as well. The two pretended as if they were just old friends and business associates. However, Bonnie had known the truth for many years.
Bonnie knew many truths and they were going to ensure that she got everything she wanted out of life. Her ambitions weren't just romantic in nature. Bonnie desired her husband but she wanted more. She wanted her husband as the head of the Salvatore organization because one day she intended to take over their company. She wanted him to remember who made it all possible for him. Merging Velocita with Bennett Technologies had been the smartest thing Sheila ever did for her granddaughter. However, it was up to Bonnie to make sure that she became CEO in the future. She was slowly getting all of her ducks in a row to that affect but first Giuseppe had to go. She finished brushing her hair and smiled at her reflection. She didn't see the bruises marring her beautiful face. All she saw was Giuseppe's undoing.
She unlocked one of the vanity's many drawers and opened a jewelry box. She opened a hidden compartment and retrieved a cheap mobile phone. Bonnie turned on the phone and then typed out a quick message.
Bonnie:He's here. Tell the boys that the wheels are in motion.
She returned the phone to its hiding place and locked the drawer once more. Bonnie looked across the room when she heard Sarah began to stir. She was supposed to wake up the girl an hour ago. Bonnie liked to keep Sarah on a firm schedule since so much of their life was unpredictable. However, Damon's sudden arrival that afternoon threw off everything. She had assumed that her husband wouldn't even notice her absence for another two days. Bonnie could only assume that Rose was responsible for the early ending of his business trip—at least that was the lie he told her. Bonnie slowly rose from the chair and went to sit on the bed. She lightly brushed Sarah's raven curls away from her face. "It's time to wake up, bambolina."
Sarah's bright blue eyes fluttered open at the sound of her mother's voice. The little girl bore an uncanny resemblance to her father despite her darker skin tone. She yawned and stretched as she sat up in the bed. "I'm hungry, Mama."
She couldn't help but laugh softly at the first words to fall from her daughter's mouth. Sarah had an appetite that could put children twice her age to shame. Bonnie didn't know where she put all of the food. Sarah was thin as a rail. "I'll make a snack for you in a moment. First, I have a surprise for you."
The girl perked up at the mention of a surprise. Bonnie had already bought a truckload of toys for her when they first arrived in Shadow Hills. She asked, "What is it?"
"You'll just have to come see," she replied with a mirthful expression. She stood up and extended her hand to Sarah. "Come on."
Sarah hopped down from the tall bed and grasped her mother's hand. Her eyes went wide when she saw the gift bags sitting near the fireplace. She released Bonnie's hand and raced across the room to inspect her gifts.
Bonnie sat down in the chair and watched as Sarah opened a box containing an American Girl's doll. "Isn't she pretty? Her name is Josefina."
The girl nodded in excitement and squeezed her new doll. "Thank you, Mama."
"Well, I didn't buy these for you. Someone else did. Do you want to guess who did?"
"Santa?" she asked in a hopeful voice. She opened another box and found a remote controlled car.
She smiled because Sarah had been talking about Santa Claus for the last three months. She was finally at an age where she understood all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the holiday. "Not yet, bambolina. We have a little over a month before Santa Claus comes to visit us."
"Oh," Sarah said with a frown.
Bonnie chuckled softly and said, "These gifts are from Papa. Guess what? He's downstairs right now."
The girl's face lit up at the mention of her father. Sarah was on her feet and out the room in seconds. She had her new doll tucked beneath her arm as she ran. "Papa!"
Damon walked into the foyer when he heard Sarah calling out to him. He stood at the bottom of the staircase and caught her in a bear hug. Few things brought true joy into his life. However, his daughter had become his heartbeat from the moment he held her for the first time.
She grinned up at her father. "Hi, Papa!"
"Hi, bambolina. Do you like your new doll?"
She nodded in excitement. "I love her." She buried her face against his chest and said, "I missed you, Papa."
"I missed you, too," he swore in a thick voice. He tried to ignore the wave of guilt that made his throat tighten. He couldn't believe that he had left his wife and daughter in the path of his unhinged father. For the last hour, he had been replaying Bonnie's words in his head. His daughter…their daughter had witnessed a side of life that he never wanted her to know. He did everything in his power to shield her from the violence and danger that he grew up knowing. He didn't even allow Sarah to attend school. Giuseppe hired tutors to instruct his grandchildren at the Salvatore Manor. He and Bonnie had been raised similarly.
Bonnie walked down the stairs and came to stand beside her husband. She rubbed Sarah's back and asked, "What do you want to eat?"
"Tots," she replied after a moment of thought.
"Tater tots sound yummy. I will go put some in the oven for us while you spend time with Papa," Bonnie said. "Are you hungry, Damon?"
Damon shook his head and said, "No, I'm not hungry. You should be resting, Bonnie. I can put the tater tots in the oven."
She shook her head. Then she gave a pointed look to the way Sarah was clinging to him. "It doesn't take much effort to spread some frozen tater tots on a baking sheet. Besides, I have cooked every day since we have been here. I haven't fainted yet."
The raven-haired playboy frowned in disapproval. However, he knew that Bonnie had a point. There was no need for him to swoop in to play the hero now. She had survived nearly two weeks with her injuries without his assistance. He nodded. "We'll just be in the living room."
Bonnie was surprised to find Rose sitting in the kitchen. She should have realized that the woman would accompany Damon. Rose was his best friend. Bonnie didn't even mind that they were exes. The pair behaved more like brother and sister with the way they bickered. She had come to like Rose in the last few years. She said, "I didn't know that you were with Damon."
The older woman held back a gasp when she saw Bonnie's face. Damon's description didn't do it justice. She said, "I couldn't let him come alone. He was so worried about you, Bonnie. I was worried, too."
"He is lucky to have you, Rose. We both are." She turned on the oven so that it would begin to preheat.
"I know this seems paltry but if there is anything that I can do…"
Bonnie smiled as she washed her hands at the kitchen sink. "Your concern isn't paltry, Rose. I know that your offer is genuine. Besides, you chose such lovely gifts for me. I liked the tickets to Peter Pan the most. I have been looking forward to taking Sarah to the ballet for some time. She's been interested in ballet since she saw a video of me dancing in Swan Lake."
Giuseppe and Damon had both agreed that Bonnie needed to stop dancing after they we were married. Rose always thought it was a tragedy. The girl was a talented classically trained dancer just like her mother was. Rose had attended Bonnie's last show with Damon right before Sheila succumbed to the cancer. She replied, "The gifts are from Damon."
She laughed quietly while putting the baking sheet into the oven. "We both know Damon hasn't bought a gift for anyone in years. Even if he did, I doubt he would do more than buy insanely expensive jewelry that I could afford to buy myself. Thank you for being so thoughtful with your choices, Rose."
Rose shook her head with a small smile. "Well, I did buy a few insanely expensive pieces of jewelry. I like to cover all my bases."
"Yes, I did enjoy the sapphire and diamond tennis bracelet. I might get some use out of that. It will go perfectly with the earrings and necklace you bought for me last Christmas. I can't wait to see what you buy for me this year." It was hard to ignore the tinge of bitterness in her voice. Sometimes it stung that Damon didn't even try.
"He does love you, Bonnie. Damon is just…complicated," Rose explained.
Bonnie smiled sadly. "I've known Damon my whole life. Trust me, I know all about his complications."
Bonnie knew more about Damon's worst impulses than Rose ever would. She had seen him at his worse over the years but loved him anyway. Bonnie could remember when his cocaine addiction wasn't merely recreational. She had seen his violent impulses play out against unlucky foes. He tried to change for Sarah and Bonnie and she was grateful for those changes. However, it seemed that suppressing his baser instincts pushed Damon further into Katherine's arms.
Rose didn't doubt that for a moment. She always thought there was something mildly incestuous about Damon marrying the girl. The Salvatore and Bennett families were inextricably linked. Over the years, she had seen tons of pictures of Bonnie and the Salvatore brothers as children. Perhaps her favorite picture was of four-year-old Bonnie sitting on Damon's lap as he tried to teach her to play the piano. In the picture, Stefan was sitting beside them with an adoring smile on his face. It had to be a shock to Damon's system to go from being her older brother to her husband. However, the cognitive dissonance of the situation didn't excuse his treatment of Bonnie.
She pleaded, "Just don't give up on him, Bonnie. No matter what you think, you make him better."
Bonnie shook her head. "You don't need to worry about that. Damon is my family, Rose. I can't imagine a scenario where I would ever leave him. I'm not even sure who I am without him."
Rose thanked the stars that Bonnie was too inexperienced to know that she could do much better than Damon 'I Can't Keep My Cock In My Pants' Salvatore. Sometimes the moral quandaries of the job made her a little queasy. It was difficult to look at this girl's battered face while simultaneously encouraging her to stay married to the man that let it happen. Perhaps his only redeeming feature was that Rose knew that Damon would never raise a hand to a woman.
The caramel skinned girl prepared to make a fruit salad to go with their snack. However, she stopped in mid-chop when Damon walked into the kitchen with Sarah in his arms.
He placed Sarah in the chair beside Rose and moved closer to Bonnie. He touched her arm and said, "I need to talk to you…in private, bunny."
Bonnie kept her look neutral but she could tell that he wanted something from her. He so rarely called her bunny these days. She figured that it could only be a couple of things. She nodded and looked to Rose. "Could you finish cutting up the fruit and keep an eye on the tater tots?"
Rose eyed her friend/employer but nodded. "Sure. Sarah can keep me company while I finish up in here."
Bonnie dried off her hands and said, "Thank you."
Damon rested a hand on the small of Bonnie's back and ushered her out of the kitchen. He moved them into Sheila's old office where there wasn't a chance of anyone overhearing their conversation.
The girl bit back a smug smile as she sat down on the couch. She now knew exactly where his thoughts had landed. Honestly, she was surprised it wasn't the first question from his mouth. Bonnie wondered if she should feel honored that his concern for her outweighed his concern for the business. Or perhaps she should be offended that he so quickly reverted to covering his own ass. "Is there something wrong?"
Damon took both of Bonnie's hands and kissed both of them. "You said that I am the only person that has heard the recording of Sheila and Giuseppe's conversation."
She nodded. "Yes. Do you think that I am lying to you?"
"No, bunny. I know that you wouldn't lie to me," he swore. "I only wondered if you have told anyone else about what Giuseppe did to you."
Bonnie's mind raced quickly to discern the best way to handle this. "I told Lucy the truth when I talked to her this morning. She was worried after Rose called her. You know how Lucy can be. She's like a dog with a bone sometimes."
Damon tensed at the mention of Bonnie's older cousin. He and Lucy were only a few years apart in age. They had known each other since childhood and she was a loose cannon. Moreover, she spent more time in Milazzo with the Sicilian side of the family than Bonnie did. "Do you think that she will tell anyone?"
Of course, Damon was worried that Lucy would spill the beans to Uncle Johnny or as everyone else called him, Big John Benedetto. He was Sheila's first cousin and the head of the Benedetto family in Milazzo. He would flay Giuseppe alive if he knew what the man did to Bonnie. Moreover, he would likely push her to divorce Damon for his neglect. Big John had fought with Sheila for weeks after he learned of Bonnie and Damon's engagement. He thought it would be better to marry the girl off to her third cousin, Cristian.
She shook her head. Bonnie didn't want outside meddling anymore than he did. Her family getting involved would derail her plans. "No, I asked Lucy not to say anything. I don't want other people to know. It's bad enough having you and Rose see me this way. I would have tried to cover up the worst of the damage if I knew that you were coming."
Damon relaxed considerable after Bonnie's reply. He cupped her bruised cheek. "You don't need to hide from me, Bon."
She averted her gaze because looking into Damon's eyes was dangerous. Bonnie's heart was a traitor to her plans because it began to beat faster from a mere touch of his hand. Too often lately, her heart was at odds with her mind. Her mind warned her to protect her heart from Damon because he would only hurt her. However, after four years she just wasn't willing to give up on him yet. This was her last best chance. There would never be a better opportunity to get everything she wanted.