it’s true that we can’t control her, what else can we do? I sigh into the silent interior of the car. We’ll just have to have her removed. Eastpoint is no longer an option for her. With her gone, things will return to normal. Even with that thought, however, I still can’t help regretting it. It might’ve been nice, for a change, to keep a girl like her around. At the very least, she’s not like the others—she’s not conniving or boring. She lays it all out there. Reluctantly, I admit it. I admire her.
We pull up to the warehouse district—the district usually reserved for these kinds of meetings, not necessarily the kind of backroom deals the world expects people like us to make, but it's the actual reality of the rich and powerful, not the televised reality. Everyone's corrupt in some way. The richer you are, the dirtier you are.
"Did they say what this was about?" Abel asks as he puts the top of the car down and Brax immediately jumps out. We sit in the idling vehicle as we watch Brax run up to the metal doors. He locates the locking system, puts in his code, and the whir of locks disengaging hits my ears.
"They didn't say.” I stare through the windshield, tapping my fingers along my thigh, feeling the muscle jump as my mind rolls back to the feeling of Avalon’s body. Like fire and fucking more goddamn fire, she’s a pistol ready to go off, and I find that I want to know what happens if I pull the trigger. "They never fucking do."
Abel grits his teeth and presses lightly down on the gas as the door slides open far enough. Brax waits until we're completely through before closing them. Only then does Abel shut off the engine and we both get out. I put the hood on my jacket up to ward off the chill inside the warehouse and pull out my keys.
The three of us make our way to the very back of the warehouse where I can already see the dim illuminating light coming from the row of grime encrusted windows. I put my keys back. There's no need. They're already here.
No one makes a sound as we head up the creaky metal steps to the rust colored door marking the entrance to hell.
"Welcome, boys." I grit my teeth but don't comment on the fact that none of us are fucking boys anymore and haven't been since the first time we put a bullet in someone's head. Instead, I move to the round table in the center of the room. The three men across from us each mark the current head of the Eastpoint families.
Elric Smalls.
Lionel Frazier.
And the man in the middle, Nicholas fucking Carter. My father.
"Glad you could make it on time," Lionel says. It's less than five minutes to midnight and we're usually here fifteen minutes early, so I know by the sharp, caustic tone that he isn't happy about the change.
Had I not had to deal with a skinny little brat with a full mouth and even fuller ass, we might've kept to our usual schedule. But these three men are the very reason Avalon fucking Manning is now throwing our entire system out of whack. They're the ones who find and recruit the program students. The best of the best. To work for us. But whichever of these fuckers thought they could tame a wild chick like her, they really fucked up. Hell, I've only known her less than a week and I’m already doubting if she'll manage to stick around for the full semester. As things stand, I'll have to be very careful how I spin her actions against Kate.
We take our seats and for several long moments, nothing but silence greets us. Elric watches Braxton. Lionel watches Abel. And my father watches me. Round and round, here we fucking go. These circles never cease. They’re always testing us, testing me.
"Do you know why you've been called here?" Elric is the first to speak and as he does, his attention zeroes in on Braxton. I hesitate to look over. I don't want to see if Brax’s gaze is growing hazy as it always does when he's faced with his father. An age-old anger that usually simmers deep beneath my surface when I think of Elric Smalls starts to boil up. Nicholas may be a shit dad, but Elric’s the real monster and only the people in this room