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“Where did you go?” Bennett asked.
“Best we go,” Gunnar said excitedly, as he fixed the buttons on his shirt. “I’ve upset one of them.”
I turned around to see the man in question who was probably a closeted gay man but had been busted with Gunnar. He was coming for Gunnar who I could see was delighted by the fact he had got what he wanted.
“Wait,” I said to Gunnar. “Who is that girl?”
He looked to where I was pointing and he chuckled. “Wow, Rose not enough for you?”
“Rose is ancient history. I need fresh meat.”
Bennett came over to stand next to me. “Cuz, she’s not for you.”
“Anyone is for my taking,” I told him, annoyed he would question me. “Who is she?”
“That, my good friend,” Gunnar said, slinging his arm around my neck. “Is the most prized possession Edward has. It’s his only child, Jolie. Newly eighteen and fresh out of an all girls academy.”
“She’s untouchable,” Bennett said, hauling both of us away, and out of the doors of the foyer. We headed to the car. I could see Jolie from the window, standing in front of the man named Paul, but she didn’t seem at all interested in what he was saying.
All I could think was how sweet and innocent she seemed.
I was going to love corrupting that girl.
Better yet, she was the heir to the Caldwell side of the city.
I could claim this entire damn city before I hit 25.
Rose had just given me the gift of a lifetime, too bad she thought she had any sway over our dealings. Now, I was going to take her sweet and probably virginal cousin and make her mine.
Jolie
I ran up to Rose as she rejoined the party and asked her about the man who had just left. I’d felt his eyes on me and had seen him talking to her earlier. Something about the way he looked at me told me he was someone I wanted to know. There was an air of danger about him, and yet I wasn’t scared.
If anything, I needed to know him.
“Hey cuz,” she said, wearily. “Are you having fun?”
“Sure, but that guy who just left…the one you were talking to…who is he?”
Her demeanor changed and she instantly became defensive. “He’s no one.”
“I saw you talking to him.”
“Drop it, Jolie. He’s not someone you want to mess with. Don’t ask around either, no one knows who he is and it's best we keep it that way.”
She headed off to where Tyler was standing with his goons. The man who had been with them, I’d recognised him as Gunnar Escalet, the sheriff’s son and the other guy was familiar too. The only one who wasn’t familiar was the one who had been staring at me.
The one I wanted to know about.
I headed upstairs to my room, already bored with this evening’s events. Paul hadn’t left me alone since Diane had introduced us and it was getting tiring. All he wanted to talk about was how rich he was, or where he’d holidayed. Since I had felt the guy’s gaze on me, I’d not been able to pay attention to Paul properly. Surely I could find something about him. I looked at the guest list on the company’s register. The one my parents didn’t know I had access to. St Augustine’s had been great for so many reasons but learning to hack had been one of my favorite lessons of all. It was going to be easier than ever to destroy this family who had so easily forgotten their only child.
I saw Amir Escalet’s name, but every other name I knew as acquaintances or families linked to my father. Who did Gunnar know that wouldn’t be on our guest list?
It was annoying to think I wasn’t going to ever find out who he was. That’s when I saw it.
The photo of him on the news app that appeared on my computer screen. It was a news article on the warring families, mine and the Moreno’s. A gun battle that I’d heard about had escalated a warning from the sheriff that if there was one more in public he would banish whoever it was. The picture of Tyler popped up first, then the picture of the man who had been looking at me as if I were a tasty treat.
The name underneath sent shivers down my spine. His eyes were dark, even if it was a photo, I could see the darkness in that man’s eyes.
