Kings of Anarchy (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #3) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,186

look instead of just shutting me down, I was more than a little surprised.

"When I was six, we spent a few weeks in Barcelona," he said slowly, his gaze darkening as he lost himself in the memory. "Have you ever travelled to Europe?"

"I've only ever been to three states," I deadpanned, offering him a flat look.

"Of course. I forget you come from nothing," he said as if that wasn't offensive as shit. "Well, anyway, Barcelona is an old city. Far older than anything we have here and there are countless old buildings and churches and things of the like. Our family were staying in a building that had originally been used as a monastery and dated back to somewhere in the Middle Ages."

"What has this got to do with-"

"If you wish to have an answer to your question then you will allow me to answer how I see fit," Saint said coolly and I huffed out a breath as I indicated for him to go on.

"Anyway, as you can imagine, there wasn't any modern plumbing in the place originally so to the rear of the property in the shadow of the old abbey there was a stone well. Not anything particularly interesting, just a hole in the ground with an old wooden structure over it to hang a bucket from and a circular piece of wood tossed over the top of it to stop anyone from unintentionally falling in."

"I get the picture, you and your family were off staying in some massive estate in Spain with a fucking well on the grounds. Get to the point, Memphis,” I said, still feeling pissy about him breaking in here like he thought he owned the entire goddamn world.

Saint's jaw ticked, but that was the only outward sign I got that he was irritated with my impatience.

"At this point in my upbringing I had already been forced to come to terms with the fact that I would never get any warning of us moving from place to place. Trips were always sprung on me suddenly and instantly. I would quite literally be hauled out of bed, stopped mid meal or even wrenched off of the toilet if I'd chosen the wrong moment to take a shit and then I would be bundled into a car or onto a plane or a boat and taken wherever the fuck my father wanted for an undetermined amount of time. It was rather unsettling, which was of course the point and I was never allowed to bring a single thing with me aside from whatever clothes I'd been wearing at the moment selected. But this time, I happened to overhear my father speaking on the phone with the pilot a few minutes before he came to grab me, so I ran back to my room, lifted the floorboard where I hid the toys my grandmother bought me in secret and took a small, red car from beneath it. I placed the car in my pocket and miraculously, it went unnoticed throughout the flight and for almost an entire week once we had arrived in Spain."

"He wouldn't let you have toys?" I asked with a frown. I'd assumed Saint Memphis had been the kid who had every fucking toy ever created. “Why the fuck not?”

"He didn't allow me to form attachments to anything. Toys, furniture, people. It made me strong."

"I am going to seriously disagree with that logic, but fine, I'll bite. What happened when he found you with the toy car? Did he yell at you? Make you cry?" I could hear the dickish tone to my voice, but I wasn’t capable of reining it in.

Saint scoffed and shook his head slightly. "He didn't say a word. That's really not his style. He just clicked his fingers to make me follow him and led me through the property to the well. When we got there, he lifted the cover and pointed at it, telling me to throw the car away.” Saint paused for half a beat before he went on, but it was enough of a detraction from his monotone that I noticed it. “I made the foolish mistake of crying and begging him to let me keep it."

"Well, you were six, I imagine that would be a pretty standard reaction to losing a toy at that age. I used to have this Power Ranger action figure which I took literally everywhere with me, so I feel the pain of him making you dump it," I said