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“Let’s start with what we can do and figure the rest out.” Dad breathes out, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes with exhaustion. His hands are swollen; he can barely move them with the bandages. His stance is rigid, and just looking at him makes my body sore.
“You should be resting.”
“I’m fine.” Nodding at me, he comes closer. “We have business to take care of.”
“We can handle it,” Freddie tells him.
“Oh please. You can’t handle shit!” Benedict snaps at him. “I’m still cleaning up the fucking mess you made with Jack.”
“We handled it just fine.”
Leo stands beside me, tall and serious. His arms bulge as he crosses them over his chest, touching mine. “If you’re that bothered, maybe you should’ve taken care of him earlier.”
“He would’ve talked!” Slamming his hands down on the table, Benedict glares at each one of us.
“Bullshit.” I lower myself down to his level, meeting his eyes dead on. “He was waiting to be let go. Kingsley would’ve pulled all the strings he needed to…”
“It wasn’t your problem!” Nostrils flaring and spit flicking from his mouth, he shouts.
Kingsley Fairfax is every bit my problem. He betrayed us all, he almost killed Cassie, and he took Carina away from me and Arabella.
He’s my problem all right, and when I find him…when I get my hands on him…I’ll drain every drop of blood coursing through him. I won’t stop until he is grey and lifeless in my hands.
“He’s all of our problem,” Lucian murmurs, bracing over the edge of the table. “He’s the link. He knows everything because he’s the one moving the money. And they’re right, J
ack wouldn’t talk because he knew who the players are.”
Dad stays still, stuck to the spot he’s on. It’s obvious he’s in discomfort. Opening his mouth to speak, he flinches as he takes a step forward, a hoarse cough bursting from him.
“You need to take it easy,” I tell him again. Blood pumps fiercely through me, my frenetic heartbeat swelling in my extremities as I squeeze the balled paper in my hand.
“We need to discuss this,” he croaks out with a wheeze.
“There’s nothing to discuss. They’re fake. It’s not the club. I only ever saw him at the club.” She’s panicked and enraged.
“Belles…”
“I did everything you told me to.” Her voice tremors as she looks at our fathers. “That isn’t me!” With a growl, Arabella takes the scrunched-up paper from me and rips it to pieces before walking out of the room.
I thought my heart had done all the breaking it could take, but it appears I was wrong. Pain splices my chest, and I’m unable to watch her walk away without following her.
“Isn’t that just the grown thing to do?”
Ignoring Benedict’s words, I keep walking. One foot in front of the other until I’m out of sight and Arabella’s sobs are the only thing I can hear in the whole house. Following their sound through to the kitchen, I find her in the boot room, pulling her coat on.
“Where are you going?”
She looks up at me with dark smudged eyes and shrugs. Anger, sadness, and disappointment bleed all over her beautiful face like watercolours on wet paper. Without a single word, she goes outside before I’ve had a chance to put on my own coat. Instead of walking off, she sits on the covered porch step, huddled in on herself.
“I was careful. The club was safe…secure…”
Zipping up my coat, I sit beside her. “Stop crying. It doesn’t change anything.”
“I’ve tried. I fought. I lost. Now I’m done. I have nothing left.”
“If you’ve got enough in you to cry, you have it in you to keep fighting. And you have me.” I curl my arm around her shoulders, pressing and nudging her into me until she relents and rests her head on my chest. “Don’t let them win, Belles. We haven’t finished with them yet.”
“Those photos…why? Why would anyone print them without verifying the facts first?”
