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“That just leaves us two for a night of debauchery.” Gabriel grabs my hand and hauls me to my feet. He fixes me with that devilish grin of his, and a bolt of fire hits me right between the legs. “Allow me to escort you on a night you’ll never forget. I know a place filled with wonders to impress even the Ice Queen herself.”
Noah
I walk to my car in a daze. Every muscle aches, begging me to turn back around and join Gabe and Mackenzie for their ‘night of debauchery,’ to drive off this guilt and rage and hope with pounding music and the sweet oblivion of alcohol.
But what will that achieve? I know where Gabriel will take her – the only place worthy of Mackenzie fucking Malloy. I can’t sit in that magical grotto drinking absinthe with Mackenzie looking tight as fuck in those shorts and heels of hers and not think about… and not consider…
The more I hang around her, the more the hatred I’d held onto all these years weighs like a noose around my neck, dragging me down. But as soon as I contemplate casting it aside – like in the desert when we were eating our cakes – Felix’s face flashes in front of me, staring up at me from an open casket, and I remember. I remember.
Every stirring inside me feels like a betrayal of his memory.
I hurry to the car, my veins on fire. My fingers grip the wheel like it’s the only thing holding me upright. My body aches as it recalls the way she felt at the party – wet, naked flesh pressed against me.
I need to get home.
I need to remember.
The drive is a blur. I don’t see the other cars on the road, only faces zooming past me at high speed. Felix with his glassy eyes peering from his coffin, Howard Malloy and my dad facing off across the courtroom, my mom’s serene expression as she floats in our pool, Gabriel with his come-to-bed smile, Mackenzie with her golden halo of hair, looking every bit as fearsome as she had four years ago… And then the two of them, lips locked under the floating lights of the Midnight Grotto.
Why shouldn’t Mackenzie fuck Gabriel? He’s every girl’s wet dream. And it’s not as if you can have her. No matter how much you might…
I hit the brakes as I nearly drive past my house. Fuck. I back up and stab the button for the garage door. I park up next to my brother’s car. The white cover flaps in the breeze swooping in under the garage door. I launch myself at the car.
I tear at the cover, my nails scraping on the paint beneath, my fingers tight with rage, with a wanting that will never go away.
I wish everything was different.
I wish he never died.
I wish she could be mine.
But wishing is for losers, and nothing will ever be the way I want it.
I fling the cover aside, revealing the gleaming beast beneath. The car my brother deserved. The car he dreamed of. I pick up a brick from a stack the groundskeeper left in the corner and throw it through the windscreen.
Glass shatters everywhere, scattering across the concrete and ruining the leather seats. It’s going to be a bitch to clean up, but I don’t even care. My shoulders heave. My heart stutters in my chest.
Something inside me is tearing open. I’m falling over the edge, and on the other side is only darkness and Mackenzie’s golden hair. I tear from the garage and fly through the house. My boots slam on cold tiles. Everything about this place is cold and dead to me now.
I run my hand over a table in the hallway, sending Felix’s track trophies flying. They scatter across the tiles – metal surfaces scratching and denting, glass dedications shattering into pieces.
“Noah?” Grace leans over the balcony, her face pinched with concern. I can’t bear to look at her. I storm down the hall, heading for the reception room where Dad’s voice booms. I hear a glass smash and someone swear.
I come up short, hesitating on the threshold. Dad’s not alone. He’s not raging into the void. He stands in front of the fireplace, in the shadow of my brother’s portrait. He faces off against a wide set man with broad shoulders practically bursting the seams of his pinstriped suit.
As I study the man’s face, another memory flashes in my mind. Dad had given his evidence at trial, sharing the toxicology report showing how Felix had died, and how the Malloys were responsible. It was the smoking gun that should have sent Howard Malloy to jail for his crime, but the judge dismissed it. We had the verdict – not guilty. Howard Malloy killed my brother and got away with it.
Mom withdrew into herself, and Dad… Dad had a heavyset man in a pinstripe suit over for dinner. They talked all night in the reception room, and I wasn’t allowed anywhere near them.
The next week, Mackenzie and her parents disappeared.
My breath hitches. I press myself against the wall, listening hard. Dad gave no indication he was aware of my presence. He keeps on berating the man.
“You fucked everything up last time, Brentwood. Now you’ll be able to put it right.”
“I’m not doing it,” the man snaps back, his voice rising with every word. “I don’t care what you do to me. I’m not going near that house again, and I won’t send one of my boys, neither.”
“You’re being ridiculous. This is a seventeen-year-old girl we’re talking about. How can she possibly—”
