Envy…

ONE MONTH AGO

"She had everything that I did not. She had love…family…and hope. All of the things that I do not have. Everyone walks all over me, thinking that I'll just five them a pretty smile and nod obediently. I could blame the life I despise so much on many people. But I won't…I have a husband named Tyler Lockwood. We have a son named Charles. I always told myself that if I got pregnant then maybe it would stop. Maybe he wouldn't hit me anymore for making a mistake. He has a very bad temper. On the outside, I may have a deceiving strength that draws I guess people in, but in truth, I am still that abandoned frightened little girl."

"I told myself that if I had found a husband that I would be happy. That that hole in my heart wouldn't be there anymore. Only I didn't find my husband, my father did that. I was now filled with misery, but I was forced to be happy and put on a smile for our guests."

"At first, I wasn't that envious of the girl, but as time grew…that is what I became. Envious. Even when I sat with our friends, I wasn't all here. It could only be described as saying that there was no sound, no music as I watched with a planted smile on my face. They weren't my friends because none of them had known or bothered to ask me how I was. The thought of ending it all had given me a lot to think about. But as I held the razor to my wrist, shaking a little, I looked up at my reflection in the mirror. I saw a girl I did not recognize. My once almost golden skin had turned to an eerie pale, everything about me looked tired and dead."

"I looked back down at my wrist and I-I couldn't do it…because of my son. I did not want him to be motherless and have to grow up being like his father. I lived because of my son. He is the light to my darkness. The cure for my sadness. I love him with all of my heart. He is everything to me."

She went silent and let out a breath she had been holding in for so long. She gave him a wary smile. "How was that?"

He nodded and returned her smile except his was a warm one. "That was…impressive, Rebekah. You're making progress very quickly."

"Thank you, Dr. Saltzman."

"Rebekah, if you keep on getting better like this then you'll be able to go home," he told her.

Rebekah sat up on the lounge chair when she was lying down. A bright and wide smile on her face appeared as she asked, "I can go home?"

"Only if you keep getting better. You know showing emotion and talking to someone about these urges you have to end your life."

She frowned. "How long do I have to wait?"

"Only a month-just to be sure. It's the law."

"You really believe that I can get better," she realized.

He nodded. "I already believe that you are better." She smiled, the widest she had ever smiled as he continued, "Besides once you leave, you won't be alone. You'll have your friend with you when you need to talk. In fact, he came to see you today."

Dr. Saltzman led her to the visiting room. It was elegant because she was put in the top psychiatric hospital in the world. She had been in here for a month now. She had a breakdown in the elevator on her way to a big meeting for her family's company. If he hadn't been there…I was surprised that he was nice and thoughtful. In fact, everything was in royal colors with an elite elegance to the furniture. The visiting room could be described as more as a lounge room with golden colored sofa sets and crystal vases, lamps, and chandeliers. There was a large Empire Crystal chandelier in the middle of the ceiling of the room. It was truly beautiful.

"Damon," Rebekah said softly.

Damon looked up from his stare through the window. He smiled at her and stood up. They hugged and when she looked into his eyes she could tell that something was wrong. She furrowed her eyebrows.

"What's wrong?"

Damon glanced at Dr. Saltzman, distrust in his eyes. Dr. Saltzman seemed to have caught on quickly since he left hurriedly.

Damon shook his head. "I found your friend, Bonnie McCullough."

She widened her eyes in astonishment. "How?!"

"Well, at first I didn't know her," he said as they sat down on the sofa just below a large window that overlooked a glittering lake in the cold winter. The room was empty which was normal. "Then she opened up to me and told me who she was."

"Has Kol found her yet?' she asked worriedly.

Damon sighed. "I don't know, but I'm doing everything to keep them for running into each other whenever he's at the office. I haven't told anyone though."

There was a longing silence between them until she asked softly, "How is she?"

"She's good. She's my assistant; very good. Has her own apartment too…yeah, she's perfect."

Rebekah raised a suspicious eyebrow. "How long has she been there?"

"Four and a half months now."

Rebekah counted the days and months in her head and said, "So, May 5, 1969 you met Bonnie," he nodded and she smiled which made him roll his eyes. "Don't start, Bekah."

"What?" she shrugged innocently. "I'm just saying that you…well, do you have feelings for her?"

"I love her," he confessed with no hesitation. "I want so much from her. I am fucked."

She nodded confidently. "Yes, my friend, yes you are. Thank you for visiting me."

"Of course, I still have word that Tyler is still locked up tight in his cell."

"And Charles?"

"My mother loves him."

"What about Margret? I know it mist be difficult for her since Mia isn't there anymore."

He sighed loudly. "She's a handful, but I love that kid to death. She won't let Charles out of her sight, proclaiming the poor boy as her little brother. She only calls him, 'Little Brother'."

They laughed and Rebekah's paranoia that Tyler was fear and had taken their son away from her had been relieved of, finally. She was glad that Isabella was ok with this. They had always been supportive of her, but Rebekah only allowed Damon to see her because he was there when it happened.

She wanted to be happy.

She desired to be happy.

She needed to be happy.

Vanity…

Damon strode into his father's study, the house was empty…a dead silence crept in the air. The bodyguards trailed behind him as he glared at his father, who was sitting at his desk, a smoke in his hand as he looked over some papers. His father's study was always a dark place to Damon even as a boy. He remembered how small he felt when he stood in front of it with his hands behind his back as he father lectured him from his awfully large and intimidating desk. There was always a bright ray of light seeping in through the blood red curtains of his father's office, it went straight at them from behind his father which made his father seem more powerful and dominant in a way.

Damon glanced at his father's bodyguards, Antonio, who was broad and largely muscled with black hair gelled back, he had a mean face on him, but had a big heart. Then there was the other one, Bruno, who was the complete opposite of Antonio. He was mean, but had a nice face, firm muscled and he had a killer's look in his eyes. They'd been with his father since Damon was a boy. They seemed old, but they weren't in appearance wise. They both towered over Damon, but now neither one intimidated him like they used when he was a boy.

"Leave," his father commanded sternly.

They obeyed silently and left the study. Damon glared at him and said, "So is this how you get my attention? You get your minions to drag me from my home and to you?"

"I called you and you didn't answer." his father said simply.

"You called once," Damon informed him.

"Don't talk back to me," his father snapped. "Show some respect. When I call you, I expect you to answer the first time."

"What is it," Damon asked lowly, straining to keep in his anger.

His father looked up from his papers and burned his cigarette in the ash try. Damon suddenly remembered when his father would burn the cigarette on his arm one time because Damon was eavesdropping on one of his father's conversations with a whore named Annabelle. Damon knew why he had done this and it was to warn him not to tell anyone about it. He had done the same thing to his brother, but not for the same reason. Stefan had taken one of his father's cigars and lit it, but then threw it away because of the taste. It was a very expensive and rare cigar that was one of his father's favorites…Stefan was six at the time it happened. Giuseppe looked like an old man, but he had the bones of a twenty-year-old. His father stood up, taking Damon away from his thoughts. His father came from around his desk.

"I'm not happy, Damon." he said.

Damon wanted to roll his eyes. He's never happy, Damon thought, he's only happy with his whores, but even then…he is never satisfied.

"Why, dare I ask?"

"Because of your assistant."

Damon froze and he tensed. "Why? Has she done something?"

"It's not what she did, but what you did." his father's fell was cold as he continued, "We have an appearance to keep up with, boy. I may be old, but my eyes aren't."

"What are you saying, father?"

"That girl is not like us."

"Just because she is a different skin color."

"Because she is apart of the lower-class, weare better than her. Besides you can't be with her, it's against the law to marry a nigger."

Damon scoffed and tightened his fists. "That will change, it's a different time. Besides, where did you get the sniff of marriage from?"

His father eyed him carefully. "You're in love with her."

"And?"

"Careful, Damon, we wouldn't history to repeat itself." His father gave him a cruel smirk. "Besides, she has a much prettier face than Katherine…after, I mean."

Damon's lips twitched in anger as he put on a smile. "It must make you angry, knowing that you can't get this one then. After all, Katherine was your assistant and she didn't want you."

"Katherine was beautiful, but very dumb."

"No, your whores are dumb. She was far from it and Bonnie is further away that it's like a dot to her."

His father laughed like a mad man. "Even now, you still are protecting her. You know what she's done to you and yet here you are. Like a boy with her hand still around his cock, being her little bitch."

"So what do you plan to do now?" Damon asked, changing the subject. He didn't want to think about her anymore. Bonnie is his future and he knew that he would marry her someday.

"I plan to stop whatever is it that is going on between you two. It was bad enough that Stefan got this notion into is head just like you did."

Damon froze and knitted his eyebrows in fear. "What did you do?"

His father straightened himself. "I did what any father would do."

"So, you beat him." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"I'm his father, I can do what I please to him just like with you and your mother."

Damon gave a mirthless chuckle. "Should we reflect then about how you killed Mia then?"

"Damon," he warned.

"No, don't. You know it, I know it, and even Mama and Stefan know it. You beat the shit out of her for God knows why and you killed her. I blame you for leaving my niece motherless."

"If you keep on being this way then I'll tell. Everything. All of it. I know everything and I hear everything. I'll tell Kol Mikaelson about her and his sister. I'll fire her. I'll ruin her reputation…I'll do it all."

"You're so cruel." he snapped lowly.

"No, my son…I'm just wicked. I have an appearance to keep up with and so do you. Elena was supposed to be that as well, but you divorced her."

Damon scoffed. "Your vanity is the only thing you love. Not even Mama could fill that organ you call a heart."

"I will do it."

"If you lay a fucking finger on Bonnie, I will do more than just destroy. I will kill you. So go ahead, give it your best shot because I know that you won't succeed." Damon seethed angrily.

Suddenly, Damon fell onto the floor. His father had punched him in the cheek. Before Damon could react, his father beat him over and over and over again in the face. Damon felt his face numb, but could taste the coppery taste of blood in his mouth and it tasted even worse when he swallowed. Damon felt this unpleasant shock of pain go through him, all on his face. He couldn't see that was for sure, but his father stood up and then kicked him in the gut four times then stopped. He heard his father stand up and sigh. Damon felt his face was puffy and probably bruised from the top of his hairline to the bottom of his chin.

"If you ever, ever see Bonnie Bennet again then rest be assure that I will take everything away from her." His father said before Damon blacked out.

Gluttony…

TWO WEEKS LATER

Where is she? Where could she have possibly gone to? Is she dead? Is she even alive? Where are you, Bon?

The tall man went to the front desk of St. Jude's Hospital. He smiled politely at the black-haired and pale skinned nurse with lively red colored lips behind the desk and asked, "Hi, what is Damon Salvatore's room number?"

The woman looked at him with a shocked look on her face and she stuttered, "Um, h-he's in r-room 3027. Suite."

He smiled again at her. "Thank so much. Have a good day now, Miss."

She nodded and he felt her eyes on him when he went in the direction of Damon Salvatore's room. He got that a lot from women and girls. He was charming. Nice. Good looking for someone like him. He always thought they were dumbfounded when they met him.

He knocked on the door and someone called for him to enter. He went inside the room and saw the infamous jet black-haired man sitting up in his bed. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he asked, "Do I know you?"

He shook his head. "No, but I know you."

"What do you want?"

He closed the door and sat in the chair near the man's beside. He would never admit this aloud, but Damon Salvatore was indeed the most handsome man he had ever met with the exception of a man named Elijah Mikaelson, of course.

"I need to pick your brain f you don't mind."

"Actually I mind very much."

How could Bonnie be with or know a man like this? "Well, it concerns Bonnie."

"Bonnie who?"

"Don't play dumb with me. Do you know where she is?"

Damon shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't."

He gave an amused chuckle and told him, "I know you're lying to me because I had to be sure that it was you."

"What do you want with Bonnie?" Damon urged.

He sighed, "I'm her brother. I've been looking for her ever since my parents kicked her out."

"Why didn't you fight for her if you started to look right now?"

"I never stopped looking. We live far from here. All the way in a town called, 'Mystic Falls' in West Virginia."

"Mystic Falls," Damon questioned. "What an interesting name?"

"Trust me, it's not that interesting."

"Why didn't you fight for her when your mother and father kicked her out on the streets?"

"I was at Harvard Law school, second year. I didn't come back till a month later when my finals were over. Please, you got to tell me where my little sister is. I've come too far to be shunned away now."

"Does your family know that you're here"

"They do. They know what they did was wrong and I was able to convince them that what they did was wrong. They want her back."

"I know a Bonnie Bennet, not your sister. I happen to like Bonnie Bennet very much."

"Oh, what's she like?"

"She's…" Damon shook his head as he looked off into the distance, a faint smile on his face. "She's perfect. Wonderful."

He knitted his eyebrows in suspicion. "Are you in love with her?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"As clear as blue skies."

"I want her. So badly that it even put me in this hospital? I still want her. I want more from her."

"Careful," he chuckled. "That's my little sis you're talking about."

Damon chuckled as well. "I know, but if you knew her now. You'd be surprised."

"I'm glad she's happy. Truth be told, I never cared for whether she was pregnant or not. She's my little sister."

Damon sighed. "So which brother are you? I know that the infamous McCullough family had two sons and a daughter."

He laughed amusingly. "I'm Marcel."

"Ah," he drawled, "The Charming McCullough."

"Is that what they call me?"

"Yup," he said, popping the "p".

"And now I'm curious as to what they call Connor now."

"They call him, 'The Wicked McCullough'."

"That is very true. And Bonnie?"

Damon sighed. "The Fair McCullough'. I never seen your sister if that's what you're thinking. I didn't even know who she was when she was my assistant."

"Bon was an assistant? How did that go?"

"She called me out on my shit and I was on top of my game." Damon chuckled.

"Yup, that's definitely my little sister. Connor loves her as well though less than me. I miss her so much."

"I'll get you two to meet. Don't worry, I promise."

"Thank you," Marcel responded. "So what happened to your face?"

"Is it really that bad?"

"I can barely see those things you call cheeks. It's…well, I'm sure the swelling has gone down by a lot."

"Oh, it has. So I hope that all of New York knows your family?"

"Really? Well, that would explain why that nurse was looking at me strangely. I though that it was because of my skin color."

"That too. You've made quite a name for yourself, not just you, but you're family as well."

Marcel nodded and sighed loudly. "I've been told, but never listened."

"Your family is known for their company. Your mother's lingerie businesses are blooming and I understand that she's making a new one."

"Yes. Her and a man named Roy Raymond are building this one company named, 'Victoria's secret'."

"What's the secret that your mother has?"

"I don't know nor do I even want to. It's her business so why doesn't she just put her name on it," Marcel shrugged.

Damon laughed. "And let's not forget that your father has his business of McCullough Airlines."

Marcel laughed with Damon. "My family does like to succeed. We're all a bunch of overachievers."

"I can see that…how would you like to work for my company?"

Marcel's face fell into a shocked expression. "A-Are you serious?"

"Yes, I am. I think that you have talent-charm and clients like that. You also have many companies behind you that could prove some use to us. We have an advertising floor as well. We could be useful to your family."

Marcel looked away and considered it for a moment. I'll be closer to Bonnie. Mother and Father have been looking for a company that had more than enough funds and pleasant businesses. They did say that they needed someone that they could trust and if both of their children were there then they have been insured of their state. Marcel nodded. "Yeah…ok. I'll work for you. So what's the job?"

"I was thinking head of the law department. Overseeing the clients, their funds, the background information on how we can make them happy, there's more, but I'm too tired to think about it."

"The pay?"

"$300 a week."

"Done."

Damon held out his hand and Marcel shook it. "I need someone like you on my team."

"Team?" Marcel questioned amusingly.

"A team for well…you'll find out eventually."

"How long?"

Damon sighed and leaned back. "I like to make an entrance."

TBC…