Fraud (Antihero Inferno #2) - Lily White Page 0,44
that will be thrown in his face as Governor of the state, and he’ll hold my feet to the fire for letting it happen.
This is especially bad after everything I did in high school, all of it connected in some way or another to Gabriel Dane.
My father knows it.
I know it.
And he won’t stand for it.
Fuck...
“Honey, seriously. It’ll be fine. I’ll go in his house with you. I’m sure once you explain that Gabriel is pulling another fucked-up stunt like he always does, your dad will see that you are innocent in this and had nothing to do with it. Wasn’t Scott with you the entire time you were in California? He can tell your dad that you were alone.”
She has a point. Scott most likely returned to the mansion to be an alternate driver for my mom or dad. He would know that Gabriel wasn’t with me.
I’m just not sure it will matter. The articles are out. The connection has been made. And that’s all that will matter to my father.
Dread rolls through me hard as we race down the streets, a crack of lightning shooting across the sky just before the clouds open up and release their rain.
Emily has to slow down so we don’t slide across the pavement and wreck the car, the extra time it adds to our commute driving me insane.
I stare out at the sheets of rain and want to cry. For this situation mostly, but also for the memories the rain always causes.
Even while I was away at college and a hundred miles separated Gabriel and me, the storms always brought him closer, the lightning striking down always planting him right next to me.
He hurts my heart, even when he’s nowhere near me. He twists my soul when he draws close. It’s the reason I fight so hard against him. I’m not only trying to remove him from my life, I’m attempting to erase his name from the places he’d carved it into my bones.
I get why he hides. And I understand why he’s such as conniving jerk. But why I seem to be the only target he wants to destroy is a question I can’t answer.
People piss him off all the time. The Inferno is known for their bullshit. But when it comes to Gabriel and me, the war is on an entirely new level, and I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve it.
Not to this extreme, at least.
Emily comes to a screeching stop at the gate to my father’s mansion. The security guard gives us a quick glance before hitting the button to let us in. The gates slide open slowly, and Emily almost clips one with the car in her bid to get to the house faster.
She’s always been like this. In my corner. Our problems and victories are shared because we’ve always stuck up for one another.
Ava used to be in that mix as well, but since her relationship with Mason, she hasn’t been as close as she used to be.
Pulling up to the front porch, Emily throws the car in park, and we both jump out to run through the rain and up the steps, our clothes and hair fully soaked by the time the butler opens the door.
“Miss Callahan and Miss Donahue,” he says with censure in his tone. “Can I get you a towel before you leave puddles all over the floors?”
“That would be great, Harrison. Thank you.”
He nods his head as we stand drip-drying over the foyer rug, both of us shivering from the cold.
Emily’s hair is plastered to her back, and my dress is stuck to my legs, but I can’t worry that we both look like a mess when my entire life is the biggest mess at the moment.
Harrison returns with two large towels. Wrapping myself in one of them, I ask, “Is my dad upstairs?”
“He is,” Harrison nods. “You’ll find him in his office. Although, just in fair warning, he’s in a mood. It seems he has a bit of drama to deal with at the moment.”
Cocking his brow, he makes it clear that drama has my name written all over it.
Exhaling on a heavy sigh, I fight the urge to cower like a child being scolded by the staff. I’m twenty-seven years old, damn it. The days of nannies and other handlers are long past.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say.
“That’s what you said when you were younger, as I recall.”