Page 8 of The Brat: Prequel

“Where are you going?” Shay hisses.

But I ignore him.

At my approach, the SUV doesn’t drive off. Like it would if it was someone scoping me out and tracking me.

If anything, the driver’s window lowers.

The second I see Maxim, maintaining my poker face is only possible thanks to fifteen years of misery under my father’s roof.

“What are you doing here?” I hate that my voice is sharp, that I don’t sound grateful to see him.

I am!

God, I am.

Having grown used to catching up with him twice a day at minimum, I miss him.

“I’m heading to Moscow for a while.” My eyes widen in horror as he tries to soothe, “I wanted to talk to you before I leave.”

“We should get to the library before our guards freak out.”

My head whips to the side. “Shay?”

“You’re not supposed to get into stranger’s rides, Victoria. Brennan and Eoghan will be furious if they find out.”

For the first time since we met, his expression’s flat. Unimpressed.

I glance between them both, unsure of what’s happening here.

How did Shay shift from fluffy Labrador puppy to potential teenage Doberman?

Huh. So, he’s not all pointy elbows and big feet tripping over himself? Interesting!

“Max isn’t a stranger!” I protest.

“Seamus, I mean Victoria no harm⁠—”

“No harm?! You sent her a fucking head, dude! You scarred her for life!”

And there’s the rub. The head of my enemy was supposed to send me into a meltdown. Inessa cried when she saw Lukov, then puked. Eoghan, I’ve already come to realize, is as much of a psycho as I am because he didn’t even blink, just refused to touch it.

Me?

I should have been my father’s son.

Years of feeling inadequate, of thinking that I wasn’t good enough, of anxiety and freezing up and blending in…

That head unraveled what being kidnapped hadn’t fully revealed.

“I’m not going to kidnap or hurt her. I want only to say goodbye to her,” Maxim says calmly.

I press a hand to his forearm. “Shay, I’ll be okay.”

“You don’t know that!” He snags my elbow. “Clearly, you’re not even safe a few feet off the school grounds.”

Shay and I attend different academies—our guards multitask by collecting him first and then me after.

“You’re exaggerating. Please. Ten minutes then we’ll head to the library and get some work done.”