his way with Luca now. We need to confront her about her father’s records. After that, I need to deal with Ivy.” He glances at me. “Did you set it up to get Emily away from Ivy so I can confront her?”
I hate this shit.
Hate the constant games.
“Yeah, I told her to meet me upstairs in an hour.”
Gabe nods at that, satisfied I know what the hell I’m doing for the time being.
“That easy, huh?” Mason taps the side of the whiskey bottle against his chair. “Such a fucking slut.”
At the first twitch of my body lunging forward, Damon slaps his palm against my chest and shoots me a look. He doesn’t need to say what we both are thinking. Not that we have to say much to each other. We’re mirror images in most things.
While Emily has never been more than fun for him, something I dragged him into years ago, for me it’s -
Fuck.
More?
Less?
I’m not even sure. But I can’t think about her without remembering the look in her eyes every time she saw us bruised. I can’t forget her unshed tears and the way she’d hug me, her body trembling with the same anger I felt.
Why did she have to care so much?
We never told her what was happening to us.
Nobody knows.
And if this game our group is playing wouldn’t destroy my father as much as it will theirs, I’d walk away from it and handle my dickhead for a dad myself.
Be a man...
His voice filters through my thoughts, the rage lining it from where he stood watching what happened to us.
Is that all you have?
Nightmares upon nightmares.
Never ending.
Always screaming when I see red.
I taught you better than that...
Damon had it worse than me, his rage seared into every muscle and etched on every bone.
I have to shake myself from the memory before I forget where I am and tear this fucking room apart.
“Why do you even care?” I ask instead of trashing Mason’s face for his dig at Emily.
“I don’t. I just want to get this shit over with so I can leave.”
The son of a bitch has a bone to pick when it comes to her. Hell if I know why.
“You sure? Because you always have something to say about it.”
He gives me the finger and goes back to downing the bottle of whiskey.
Clenching my eyes shut, I rub at the skin between them. Shane is staring at me when I open them again, his brow cocked in question.
Among all the Inferno, Shane knows Damon and me best. He tends to be the third side to our triangle, a bastard that loves to cause trouble.
Shane must have been born for chaos. It’s the only place where he feels comfortable.
“Calm down, children. Another couple of hours and we can all get back to our lives.”
Gabe takes a seat and lets his head fall back, his fingers moving to slowly turn the glass he’s holding in circles over the armrest of his chair.
The room goes silent, all of us frustrated and annoyed. My thoughts race back to Emily, to how good she looked in that damn black dress.
It’ll be my funeral...my mother can fuck off if she thinks I’ll wear anything else.
Smiling at the memory, my jaw clenches, and my teeth grind to remember what happened a week after that night.
Sometimes I wonder if Damon can peek into my thoughts. His elbow nudges my side, his head rolling over the backrest so our eyes lock.
“I saw Paul Rollings downstairs.”
My shoulders tense at the mention of that asshole’s name.
“Avoid him. This isn’t the place to remind him we still have a score to settle.”
Not with Emily here.
Not where she could see it.
Not again.
Damon chuckles.
“Fucker tucked tail real fast after seeing me standing there. I’m surprised he came. He had to know we’d be here.”
Thankfully, Shane already told me he’d be all over it if Paul showed up. It’s just one more game among the many.
At this point, I’m finding it extremely hard to stay still.
I’m pissed at Mason.
At Paul.
At Tanner for taking so fucking long.
And at myself for a mistake I made ten years ago.
Damn it. Emily’s even more beautiful now. Still wild. Still trying to hide it.
Leaving her in that service hall was damn near impossible.
Finally, fucking finally, the door opens and Tanner steps through with Luca. Her eyes slowly take us all in, distrust and fear rolling behind them.
Seeing her now reminds me of the last time I saw her at Yale. Her eyes were frightened