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“I don’t need a sitter.”
“Take that up with Fallon, little one.” He snaps his fingers and smirks. “Oh, yeah. He’s not here.”
I stomp down the path toward the lot, gazes burning into me from other students. He definitely doesn’t belong here. I probably look like I’m being taken home by my dad. My very young dad. If he’s around Fallon’s age, he’d have had to start young.
“Don’t call me little one, and I’ll have you know, Fallon knows I don’t need a babysitter. I didn’t even have a fucking family until five years ago.”
He doesn’t respond as I scramble after him.
“You do know I was perfectly happy, perfectly good at looking after myself before Fallon turned up. Because of him, I lost my job” I’d have lost it anyway, the moment they found out my real age and expertise on paper because no one cared I blew all competition out of the water underage and degreeless and fucking the boss was pretty much grounds for firing “and probably millions.”
He rounds on me, those amber eyes of his burning like embers in a flame. “Take up your issues with your brother.”
“I don’t have issues.” I scoff.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
I glare at his back as he continues cutting a path through hapless students.
“I’m just saying I can take care of myself.”
“And complaining about your brother.”
Gripping my bag hard, I stop myself from hurling it at this man like a weapon. Instead, I press my lips together and follow him, too aware of the stares and the gossip behind raised hands.
The thing is, I like Fallon. Maybe I love him, if that’s a thing. Mom wasn’t much, and I have vague memories of fights and tears and a much older brother protecting me until she took off in the middle of the night.
Then it was her and me against the world, fighting for every scrap, and when she tried to use me to make money—I walked.
It’s easy to evade when you have nothing. When you’re smart. No fucks to give. And I found KonCept Games. I found a home, and though I was sixteen, I had a fake ID. I knew how to look older, and over the course of a year, my code changed the way they made games. Better, I created The Pirate Queen, Bellona, whose image is tattooed on my back.
But that and the affair ended when my age got out, along with lack of degree and lies the moment Fallon found me.
“You’re as bad,” I mutter loudly, but speaking more to myself. “Treating me like a child.”
“Maybe because you act like one?”
At his comment, I grab his arm, spinning him as we make it to the edge of the parking lot. Rather I think he turns. There’s no way I could actually spin him around. He’s solid muscle. I don’t think he does anything he doesn’t want to.
And touching him . . . it’s like someone soldered a connector.
Ignoring the beat in my chest that sends waves of heat through me, I say, “No, I’m acting like an autonomous human. One who can think and do things, one who doesn’t need you. And don’t think I’m not grateful to have found my brother again. I am.” I think.
“That’s fucking great to know.”
“But,” I continue, “I don’t need this.”
“College?” He shakes his head. “Little Miss Fast Track, yeah, I get it. Ever think that Fallon wants you to have all the opportunities? And done the right way? You can’t break rules?—”
“If you don’t learn them first,” I mutter.
“Exactly. Annoying when he’s right, isn’t it?”
Shit, he really knows Fallon, because Fallon would never say it like that, but his meaning was and is clear. He took me from New York back to Dallas, made me take the exams, and I gotinto college, this prestigious one with a cutting-edge, coveted program in computing.
Tizio rubs a hand over his eyes. “Fuck. What am I saying?” He drops his hand and looks at me. “I don’t fucking care. You’re under my watch, deal or don’t. Let’s go.”
With that, he strides off to a black SUV parked near the exit ramp. I follow because I wouldn’t put it past this man to come after me.
