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“It was nothing.”
“Nothing,” he repeated, the word loaded like a weapon in his mouth.
He crossed the space between us faster than I could track. One minute, I was cold and steel, still swallowing that word, and the next, I was wrenched forward, hate an inferno in my father’s eyes.“Nothing?Like your mother’s death wasnothing?Like this fucking attack on us…is nothing?”
I tried to pull away, but he had grabbed my shirtfront, daring me to raise my fists. I sank into that pit of fury, our gazes locked as he curled his top lip.
He was pale and pasty, smelling sweet and sickly. The smell plunged deep, rolling with the remnant of the Scotch and acid in my belly. If he was anyone else…anyone else,I’d smash this bottle and gouge him to death with the shards.
But he wasn’t…he was my father.
By blood alone.
“I had it under control,” I said carefully. "I’m watching her every second of the day.”
“Are you? Are you tracking who she messages, who she talks to? Are you finding out where her damn father is?” He released my shirt, leaving creases behind. “Because the sonofabitch hasn’t returned home, and Idon’t have my fucking money.” He shoved me away, hard breaths expanding his massive chest. “I want to know exactly where she is.” He stabbed his thick finger in the center of my chest hard enough to hurt. “And I need your head in the fucking game. There is notnothinghere. They’re either with us, or against us. There can be no middle…not for them…or for you.”
No middle.
That’s what it came down to.
Either I was all in…or I was all out.
“The next time I have to hear something like this from the Commander will be the last fucking time I hear anything about you at all. Do I make myself clear?” His dark eyes shone in the amber lights from the kitchen.
“Yeah,” I answered slowly, hate and rage blistering my insides. “You have.”
22
Anna
Lights flickered and danced in the distance, rising into the sky.
“Looks like they’re leaving,” Kat observed, and stabbed a sliver of smoked salmon on her plate.
The chef was gone and the kitchen had been cleaned, leaving a dinner for two behind. But I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t eventhinkabout eating…not after today. Instead, I felt sick.
I hadn’t seen Finley at all, not in the classes that had passed by in a blur, or standing on the outskirts as the rest of the others gathered. I even found myself on the pathway to his building, staring up at the shimmering glass walls of his suite, too afraid to go to him.
There was a nagging feeling that something was wrong, something more than Baldeon’s death…and more than the sudden arrival ofthe Commission.The Commission that Dominic Salvatore belonged to. Goosebumps raced across my skin…like someone had walked over my grave.
Still, I stared at those flickering lights climbing higher and higher into the darkness. The sparkle slowly faded away and I knew deep down that everything was about to change.
“That salmon was delicious,” Kat sighed as she strode toward the kitchen, swapping her plate for a glass of white wine before heading back to where I stood.
She wasn’t rocked, not like I was…or the other members of the families. The rich and the dangerous. I hadn’t noticed there was a difference…but I did now. It was glaringly obvious that what touched one world didn’t really affect the other. But where did I stand? I had money, more than I needed. But not the status…no, my feet were planted firmly on the wrong side of that line. In a second, all the dangerous shit I’d ever seen came rushing back.
The guy kneeling on the concrete floor in their house.
The hidden accounts.
All the money.
So much money.
The laws that’d been broken and the oaths we'd taken. Ones that hadn’t meant much while Finley’s mother had been alive. But in the wake of her death, everything had changed. I lifted my hand and glanced at my phone. Heaviness settled in my lungs. Each breath was like a belt cinched one notch too tight. I couldn’t ease the strain.
Finley…
