surveys the room before he speaks. “Matteo.”
Pure, unadulterated panic flashes across her face.
It’s the same type of panic she’d had when Harley had confronted her about Lance and the bet.
Her voice is nothing more than a croak, “Doc. Doc, do not let her tell him. Fuck, send her away.”
Whoever this Matteo is, he needs to die.
“I’ve tried, she won’t go. She’s got it in her head that they’re in love.”
Lips reaches out and grabs his wrist, shaking it just enough to get his attention, “I’ll give you the money. I’ll pay to get her away, Doc.”
He gives her a grim look. “I’m not stupid. I know she’s going to be forced to abort the baby.”
Lips looks like she’s going to throw up, but she doesn’t say a word. Avery glances over at me and shakes her head again, a sign to shut up and stay out of it, but I really don’t like this.
After another tense minute of silence the doctor looks up and smiles at Lips again, all of the gloom gone from around him. “He’ll be ready to go by midday. Stop worrying about my problems and go get some sleep, my girl.”
When we arrive at the hotel, Lips and Harley leave together to ditch the stolen van. Avery doesn’t seem concerned, even as she threads her arm through mine so I can lead her up to the room without tripping onto her face while she focuses on her phone.
“I have us covered, no one will ever know this happened,” she murmurs to me, her eyes darting over to Blaise, but he’s fucking itching for a high and isn’t paying us any attention.
“And what exactly are you going to say to Harley about it? He won’t let this shit go, Floss.”
The lobby of the hotel is busy, and Blaise catches a lot of interested looks. It’s all men in suits doing the looking so they’re not at all interested in his talent, only the last name his bastard father saddled him with. He looks ready to take a swing at someone over it, so I nudge my sister just a little and then we both flank him to corral him into the elevator without bloodshed.
“Stop giving a shit about some stupid, brainless suit, Morrison,” Avery mutters, throwing an icy look at a group of the men just as the doors to the elevator shut.
Blaise grunts and rubs a hand over his face. “Any second now my phone will be ringing and then—“
I cut him off, “Then what? Your dad will yell at you for not being at school? Turn your fucking phone off, let the cunt rage at your voicemail instead. All he really cares about is his image, and you’re not running around naked or fucking some random Mounty in the lobby.”
Avery huffs at us both and mutters under her breath, “In his dreams. On repeat, every night he’s absolutely fucking a Mounty.”
Dead silence.
None of us say another word the entire way up to the penthouse, Blaise and I both practically vibrating with tension and Avery oozing with smugness. It’s like an itch across my skin, irritating the fuck out of me until I want to break something.
But I would never hurt my sister, and she knows it too.
She swipes us into the penthouse and opens the door up wide for us all, stalking off to one of the rooms and calling out to us, “I’ll leave you two to get absolutely fucking wasted instead of dealing with your issues… typical boy bullshit.”
I refuse to answer her or look Blaise’s way.
The Mounty is like a ticking time bomb in our family, sitting there waiting for the clock to wind down before destroying everything. The worst part is that the more I watch her, the more I realize she has no idea just how much power she has over us right now.
She has no idea we’re all circling her, stuck in her orbit, while she’s busy trying to… survive? Graduate? Fuck knows what she’s completely distracted by. She’s so secretive that every time I think I might have some sort of clue of what her story is, something new happens and I’m back at square one.
Blaise groans, side-eyeing me a little before he stomps through the room and out to the balcony.
That’s where Lips finds us an hour later.
I’m not expecting her to join us but she does, slipping out into the night air without a word. Blaise gives me a look as though I’ll throw her over