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Antony keeps jiggling his foot as he shrugs. “We’ll deal with that if it comes up. But it won’t come up. This building is a problem for the council. It’s a blight on the Harrington Hills landscape. The Malloy legacy degrades the property values and the residents constantly complain. But the council doesn’t want to deal with the family – if it’s sold to a developer who’ll bulldoze the thing and build luxury condos, they’ll look the other way.”
Eli jerks to his feet. “You’re going to sell Mackenzie’s house?”
“For the last time, she’s welcome to stand up and object,” I shoot back, rising to my feet to glare at him. His face twists and I fucking hate myself, but he hates me more, and that’s exactly what I want.
If Eli hates me, he’ll be safe.
His whole body trembles. “This isn’t yours to take. You… you… desecrated it.”
He has his hand over his chest as he sweeps his arm around to indicate the ballroom, and I feel a tinge of annoyance because I’d never had anything that belonged to me in my entire life, but this room, this shard of a life that I clawed for myself from thin-fucking-air, this is mine. But the Golden Boy of Stonehurst Prep – who’s had everything handed to him on a gold-edged plate – will never understand that.
“Don’t be so fucking dramatic. I read Mackenzie’s diaries. She hated this house. It was her fucking prison, just like it is mine. You three think you have it so tough, living in your huge houses with your millions of dollars and your free ride through life. I bet you’ve never even set foot in Tartarus Oaks. You don’t know what it takes to survive there.” I lift my chin.
Noah bites his lip. He looks over at Antony, and then back at me. He wrestles with something he wants to say, but doesn’t. Instead, he asks, “So what did you do to Brentwood that has him trembling in his Brionis at the thought of facing you again?”
“I told you, I don’t have anything to do with this Brentwood. If he’s a killer, then he’s connected to another Tartarus Oaks family, because you can’t get a contract in this town without going through Constantine Dio. If he saw Mackenzie Malloy murder someone, that’s nothing to do with me.”
“But my father thinks you’re Mackenzie.”
“Exactly.” I flop back on my chair. Wordlessly, Gabriel hands me the bottle of rum. I swipe it from his hands and take a swig. “Hence, today’s little problem.”
“We don’t know that for a fact.” Antony taps away on his phone. “I’m going out to chat with our friend Brentwood, see if I can straighten this out.”
“No no no no no.” Eli shakes his head so violently. He has his phone in his hand, and he clutches it against his chest like it’s giving him the strength to stand upright. “This isn’t right. You can’t just sit in her house chatting to hired killers like you’re the queen of Sheba, not after someone just tried to kill Noah. I won’t let you steal from Mackenzie or put my friends in danger. I’m going to the cops right now. Don’t try to stop me.”
Gabriel
“Sit down, Captain America,” the guy with the buzzcut and the hard jaw says. He doesn’t move from his chair and he doesn’t stop jiggling his bloody foot, but he does flip open the lapel of his jacket and caress the gun inside.
At least, I think that’s what happens. I’m a little tipsy. Okay, a lot tipsy. Okay, I’m completely plastered, and the sight of that guy touching his weapon like he’s stroking his dick strikes me as so bloody hilarious. I double over, convulsing with giggles, until I taste bile in my throat. Now I’m the one who’s going to puke everywhere. The thought sends me into another giggling fit.
“What’s his problem?” Buzzcut waves the gun in the air. It looks like a toy.
Eli’s hands ball into fists, and it’s probably the shiteloads of expensive piss I just downed but I fancy I see steam coming out his ears. He’s usually the calm one, the one bringing me back to reality when I get stuck in my own head. To Eli, the world has always been easy to navigate – this is right, this is wrong, black and white, Noah’s perfect, Gabriel’s a fuck-up, nice and simple. And then his father got sent to the clink and Eli’s perfectly black-and-white world got sprayed all over with lurid color… kind of like how I’m about to spray my dinner everywhere.
I can’t help but feel sorry for the chap. He’s just got his life back into some semblance of control. He was going to go to a fancy college where he’d be awarded a gilded stick to shove up his arse. Then along comes Mackenzie Malloy to muss up his perfect golden hair. Only, Mackenzie Malloy isn’t Mackenzie Malloy at all.
She’s Claudia.
A beautiful name for a broken girl with a heart carved in secrets.
I look over to her, frozen on her chair, her icicle eyes darting between her cousin and Eli. Claudia. The name suits her. I asked her on my balcony once if she ever felt like an imposter in her own life. Beneath our banter and my lustful preoccupation with her gorgeous arse, I always knew we shared something deeper.
We’re both practically royalty.
We are both getting away with shit that’s eating us inside.
We are both liars.
We might even both be cold-blooded killers.
“This is bullshit. She’s a lying bitch, and thanks to her, Noah nearly died today. I’m calling them now.” Eli presses his phone to his ear as he heads for the door.
In a flash, Buzzcut and his friend Cave-In Face are on him. I didn’t even see them move. One moment Eli’s striding across the room with purpose. The next, he’s shoved face-first against the wall with Cave-In Face’s knee in his back, his arm twisted at such an obscene angle I know he’s only one twitch away from snapping it.
“Hand over the phone, Captain America.” Buzzcut holds out his hand. “Don’t make Tiberius here break your fingers.”
Eli scowls, but he holds out his free hand, passes the phone over. Buzzcut throws it on the floor and grinds the heel of his boot into it until it sparks and dies. Buzzcut drops Eli. His knees crack against the floor as he sags into himself, the fight gone out of him.
