Strangetown, HWC: Mirror, Mirror
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Who's the most glamourous? The most dangerous?
Who has the power?
Dina smiled back at her reflection.
It had been disappointing that Don hadn't been there to see her, she thought as she fussed with her hair. He'd probably already left town. Nina hadn't been there either. The damn fool probably went after him.
She could have him, as far as Dina was concerned. Nina deserved him. Dina had no time for the Dons of the world. They were too messy. Too easy. Too obvious.
She liked her men mysterious. Wise. She like them with more subtlety.
The funeral had been much what she'd expected. They'd all looked, gasped. How dare she wear that dress? So glamourous. So familiar. They'd stared and whispered. Alexander, remote as always, had barely said a word to her.
They'd all watched, gawking, to see if she'd shed a tear. She didn't. She never did. Not at that funeral, nor Michael's, nor her father's. She never cried. It wasn't that she wasn't devastated, but she'd never give anyone the satisfaction of knowing it.
She remembered her father, lying in the casket, just like that. Eyelids shut, never again to betray his secret, for all the good it did him after death.
She remembered those eyes. Those dark secrets he hid behind his sunglasses, only rarely glimpsed. People thought he wore them for character. For the mystery. In that respect, the glasses had served him well. They gave him an unknowable, dangerous edge. Combined with his unnatural strength and his fearlessness, he'd risen quickly in the ranks of the family business.
The mystery had also been his downfall.
But Dina's memory was long, and her grudges long-held. Those who crossed her lived to never know what hit them. She'd had the last laugh. For her father, and for herself. She always did.
She thumbed the necklace at her neck. A family heirloom. Didn't want me in your family, did you? Well look at me now.
She always got what she wanted.