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I give her one last blood-soaked smile. “Watch your back, little doe.”
7
ALINA
Frustrated voices spill out over the threshold and drift into the warm evening air as I open our front door. I sigh as I walk inside and close the door behind me. Angry tension has been pulsing between the walls of our house at all times ever since Kaden Hunter showed up three days ago to deliver his ultimatum.
“Something needs to be done,” Mikhail snaps from somewhere inside our kitchen. Even from out here in the hallway, I can hear the strain in his voice. “If he releases that video, I will be…”
He trails off, but we all know how that sentence ends. Ruined. If Kaden releases that video, Mikhail will be ruined.
“I’m sorry,” Anton says, sounding miserable.
“It’s not your fault,” Mikhail replies.
I slowly set down my bag on the floor, careful not to make any sound.
“Yes, it is,” Anton protests. “If I hadn’t let Rico grab me, you’d never had to—”
“No,” Mikhail interrupts. “Don’t think like that. This is no one’s fault but the fucking Hunters.”
I start through the hallway and towards the staircase on silent feet. When Mikhail is worried, he’s more likely to start restricting my freedom. Which is why I want to make it to my room without him noticing me.
The pale floorboard beneath me lets out a startled creak as I step on it.
“Alina?” Mikhail immediately calls.
I freeze and then shoot an irritated glare down at the offending floorboard.
A moment later, my eldest brother appears in the doorway to the kitchen. Crossing his arms, he gives me a look that makes me squirm.
“Where have you been?” he demands.
Clearing my throat, I brush my hands down over my violet summer dress while trying, and failing, to look unaffected. “I told you this morning that I was going to a friend’s house after class.”
“Who?”
“Carla.”
It’s the truth. Carla and the rest of her housemates were hosting a watch party for the new season of a show that I love as well. When I mentioned that in passing yesterday, she invited me to join them.
Mikhail studies me through narrowed eyes for another few seconds. But he must be able to see that I’m telling the truth because he gives me a nod. Uncrossing his arms, he blows out a long breath and rakes a hand through his blond hair.
“Right,” he says, and gives me a tired smile. “Sorry. I forgot about that.”
“It’s alright,” I reply while starting towards the stairs again. “I’ll just head up to my room and go to bed now.”
He nods. For a moment, he just remains standing there, looking worried and exhausted. Then he returns to the kitchen.
“We need to find a way to delete that video,” Mikhail says, presumably to Anton, and a deep sigh full of worry and tension rips from his lungs. “That video is like a fucking sword hanging over my head. I can’t concentrate on anything.”
I pause with my foot on the first step.
My heart aches at the desperation in my brother’s tone. I glance back towards the kitchen, and then up towards where my room is.
Easing my foot off the step, I start edging backwards instead.
And then I sneak back to the front door and slip out into the dark evening.
