Title: Buttons & Death
Author: Penelope Sky
Genre: Romance, Dark Romance, Fiction
What It's About: Bones returns home and tells Vanessa what happened in her father's office. Two days later, he leaves for good, telling her good bye, while giving her an envelope that she should open after he leaves. Vanessa is heartbroken enough that she doesn't look at it for a couple of days, and when she finally does open it, she finds that it's an address. She goes to the address, which a building, and finds that Bones left her an apartment , a gallery and a car--so she can start anew--as a last ode of love to her. She's unable to face her father out of anger for what he did, and when Crow tries to visit her at the gallery--having followed her around for a couple of days, she kicks him out of the gallery.
A month or so later, Conway shows up with Sapphire, who wants to get married as soon as possible as she is five months pregnant and doesn't want to look bigger in her wedding dress, but at the same time she's trying to be sensitive to Vanessa's loss. Vanessa gives her blessing to go ahead with the wedding, and Conway decides to do a bachelor party with Carter, Carmen and Vanessa so that they can keep an eye on Vanessa. At the bachelor party, Vanessa and Conway get into a disagreement because Conway agrees with Crow about his actions with Bones, but Vanessa points out that what he did to Sapphire is no different than what Bones did with her, making Conway hypocritical. At the day of the wedding, Vanessa apologizes to Conway for her harsh words, and then she talks to her dad telling him that she loves him. Still, she calls him out on his hypocrisy about how it's ok for Conway to do what Bones did to her, but not okay for Bones to do that. Crow yells at her, and Vanessa storms out, hiding in her own bedroom. He later comes to her and makes up with her. After the wedding, Conway takes Sapphire to Positano for their honeymoon since she cannot fly.
In Florence, Vanessa continues to paint and be in her own bubble, not going out. Bones, on the other hand, ends up wrapped up around a pole and then in the hospital, having gotten extremely drunk as a result of the breakup. He promises Max to lay off the alcohol, and asks him not to tell Vanessa. On their way back, Conway and Sapphire decide to move to Tuscany and begin a house search. Vanessa in the meantime sells a piece of artwork to a man named Antonio, and then she walks by an art gallery and falls in love with a piece, so she ends up buying it from the artist, who turns out to be Antonio. He visits her a couple of days later and asks her out while her dad is in the gallery. Vanessa turns him down, but Crow ends up telling everyone in the family about Antonio, and Carmen convinces Vanessa to give Antonio a chance by grabbing coffee with him as a friend, which he had offered. Antonio shows up again, being relentless in his pursuit of Vanessa, and she takes him up on his offer for coffee. The meet up goes really well, and they are so effortless together, and at the end of the night, they hug, which is very intimate for Vanessa and makes her feel something. They sit on the stoop and she tells Antonio a bit about Griffin, and her feelings for him are very deep. Antonio tells her that he'll wait and stick around for her so that he can be the first on the list to get her attention when she gets over the other guy.
Conway, Sapphire and Carmen go out with Vanessa for coffee and Conway and Sapphire tell them the news that they are moving to Tuscany, which makes Vanessa very excited. They want to know more about Antonio, but Vanessa doesn't want to share. Antonio shows up, and Conway invites him to join them. When Vanessa protests, he tells her that he's tired of her shit, and she needs to get over Bones. After the meet up, Conway tells her that Antonio is everything that Bones wasn't, and is a perfect fit for her and their family. Vanessa spends time with Antonio, and one night at her gallery after eating dinner at the gallery, he invites her for a date--three months after Griffin walked out of her life. She accepts and that night, they entwine their fingers while they look at her work, while she leans her head on his shoulder. Unbeknownst to her, Griffin sees them together.
Griffin had been drinking water only since his accident and had taken on all of the jobs that his team had been receiving, giving the other men a break. Max comes over and Griffin tells him that he's fine, and he'll be selling gate apartment in Milan that he lives in. Max points out that he hadn't looked at Vanessa's studio for three months--he had closed the door and ignored it. Griffin chooses to drive down to Florence and watches Vanessa with a man as they intertwine their fingers and look at her paintings. He feels rage and wants to kill the guy (though he never sees the man's face) but then realizes that he has no right to do that--after all, he wants Vanessa to be happy. He then drives off.
Carter is working on his next car design when he gets a call from an unknown number. The man introduces himself as Egor Sokolov, a Russian, and asks him to go buy his sister from the Underground. Carter declines the offer, and keeps declining it, with the intention of keeping his promise to his father, until Egor offers $150 million. Egor tells Carter to keep the girl around until he returns from his trip and he'll pick her up. Carter agrees, and goes to the Underground, where he gets in using Conway's name. He purchases the girl, who had been the only one on the stage who was unafraid of what was going on. Once the bidding is done on all the others, he takes her home, driving through the red lights. She convinces him at one point to slow down so that she doesn't throw up, and when he least suspects it, she jumps out of the car. Carter stops the car, finds her, knocks her out, gets her to his home and chains her. Egor calls him and tells Carter to not tell her that Egor saved her, but to instill fear in her. That's when Carter realizes that she's not Egor's sister. When the girl is awake, Carter threatens her but never goes through with the threat. Conway ends up calling him, and asks him what he was doing because the Skull Kings called him and started to ask him questions. Carter tells him some of the ruth and then tells Conway to not worry about it as it is a one time thing. Conway tells him that he doesn't want to be dragged back into the criminal world especially as he has a wife and a kid on the way.
Bones comes out to the bar to meet with Max who then tells him that he had passed on a weird request not wanting to hurt Bones further. Now that he sees Bones is okay, he is okay sharing it. Bones gets a strange feeling, and when Max tells him that the target he passed on was Conway Barsetti and his wife, Bones' heart sinks, especially as Conway's wife is pregnant. Max tells him that the Skull Kings had put it out because Conway crossed them in some way. He asks Max to find out how the hit will go down, and Max comes back with the details--Conway will be killed leaving his event in Milan, while his wife will be killed in her home. Bones calls Crow, who is rude to him, and tells him what will happen. Then he asks Max to help him alongside with their group, but Max refuses to do so. Bones then tells him that Vanessa is and always will be his second, no matter what, at which point Max finally agrees to help him save her family.
My Thoughts: Ohhhh nooooo, Bones left and Vanessa is such a wreck. Everyone continues to crap on Bones and think that he's not good enough for her, while simultaneously trying to push her towards Antonio, for whom she's starting to develop feelings because they are both artists. This is absolutely heartbreaking, and I hope something changes so that Bones and Vanessa can be together, because I truly like them as a couple. And what the hell is wrong with Carter? Why is he getting involved? For a guy who makes a lot of money with his car designs, he sure acts like he doesn't make enough money if $150 million is worth him risking his neck and Conway's. I'm pretty certain that the reason why the Skull Kings are after Conway is because they are getting suspicious why Carter showed up, so if Conway dies in the next book or even Sapphire dies in the next book, Carter is going to have to deal with so much guilt. But the girl that he's got is spunky, and full of daring--clearly she has someone to live for, not just because she continues to say so but also because of her own actions--she's trying to get away. Also, I'm kind of surprised that with how much sex Bones and Vanessa have in the books, she's not yet pregnant--I feel like this would be an interesting way to explore the way the family would react to that news, and whether they would accept him if he's the father of their grandchild. Of course, the way this is playing out, it's more dramatic, but either way I'm still rooting for Vanessa and Bones.
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