“Really?” I ask lightly.
“Yeah, really. And as for today, Cruz is downstairs. He really wants to see you.”
I nod, reaching for my mug of cooled coffee.
“Okay, I’ll freshen up and come down.”
“We’re gonna get through this, kiddo. Just be honest with me, yeah? I don’t care how bad it is, how scared you might be to get it off your chest. Nothing, and I literally mean nothing, can be as bad as having Theo turn up on my doorstep looking like he’d just walked out of a war zone and tell me that you’re gone.”
My lips part as I try to picture it, my heart shattering for the broken boy I know hides behind Theo’s impenetrable exterior.
“He did?” I ask, unable to keep the question inside.
“Em,” Dad sighs, his eyes softening as he looks at me. “There are many, many things I could say about that boy and the family he belongs to, but… there’s no point. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I saw the pure, undiluted fear in his eyes yesterday as he stood before me, thinking that something had happened to you.
“I’ve been that boy. And I was about the same age as you when I handed myself over to Piper, knowing that it could only end one way but also knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. She owned me back then and she still does now.
“Sometimes, it’s not worth fighting. Sometimes you just need to let go and grab life by the balls. Not his balls though,” he adds quickly. “I could happily go through life thinking you’ve never seen let alone touched a pair.”
“Dad,” I laugh, both moved and amused by his little speech.
“I know, I know. You’ve been on the pill for years. I know you’ve experienced things already that I never want to know about.”
“You were young once too,” I remind him.
“I remember it well. But let me tell you…” He leans in as if he’s about to whisper the world’s secrets in my ear. “It’s way more fun with someone you care about, someone who would take a bullet for you.”
I gasp, and I’m about to chastise him for talking about things I also don’t need to know about when he glances at my shoulder. I reluctantly allowed Stella to clean and bandage it up last night after my bath.
“Dax is alive, right?” I finally ask the question that’s been burning within me since I woke up in Theo’s car with that acid making my head spin.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Dad assures me. “Theo said it was just a shoulder wound.”
“And you trust him?”
“With that, yeah.”
“With me?”
Dad pushes from my bed and stalks toward my door.
I start to think he’s not going to answer me when he looks over his shoulder.
“Like I said, it’s always more fun with someone who cares enough to take a bullet for you.”
I’m about to tell him that Theo hasn’t taken one for me. Not like Seb did for Stella. But I conclude that it’s just a figure of speech and nod, knowing that Theo has done plenty over the past few weeks to prove his loyalty. And clearly, it’s worked with my father. Something I never thought I’d ever see.
“I swear to fucking God though, if he so much as waves a gun in your direction again, he’s going to be looking down the barrel of mine, and it may just be the last thing he sees.” With that ominous threat hanging in the air, Dad lets himself out of my bedroom, leaving me sitting there with my jaw on the floor.
The second I’ve recovered, I reach for my phone and finally tap out a reply to the messages that went unread last night.
Emmie: You were right… I fell asleep. I hope you slept well, you looked like you needed it. How is your head?
I wait for a few minutes, but when it doesn’t show as read, I finish my coffee and drag my aching arse out of bed.
10
THEO
The second I woke up and found that Emmie had replied, I shot one straight back.
I’d slept harder and longer than I ever remember doing, and I actually felt almost normal—until I rolled out of bed and my muscles twisted and pulled, reminding me of everything I’d been through to get here.
I figured it was a minor price to pay if she was going to continue talking to me.
Although, I started to question that when I emerged from the shower to find that not only had my message not been replied to, but it hadn’t even been read.
So maybe I was jumping the gun, thinking something could actually come out of all of this. She was probably just exhausted and delusional and didn’t really know what she was doing.
But then she wouldn’t have replied this morning, dickhead.
Feeling like a fucking headcase letting myself go crazy over a girl, I dragged on a pair of sweats and headed to the kitchen, taking both my phone and tablet with me, telling myself that just checking in on her wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
I fell onto the sofa with a steaming mug of coffee in my hand and opened my tablet. Logging into the app I had hidden, I discovered her room was empty.
And that’s the way it stayed. All. Fucking. Day.
I spent the day doing fuck all and just waiting for Emmie to appear or even to reply. But I got nothing.
In fact, I had no idea the world still existed outside of my flat until my buzzer went off later that evening.
I knew it was going to be one of the guys. It was the perfect time for them to have finished training and to get home.
The only one of us who’s not moved into the building yet is Alex. If I’d been paying attention to anything outside of my own drama recently, I might know why he’s dragging his heels about it.
I’d have thought he’d have been the first one here, seeing as he practically lived with me in my coach house. He never seemed all that keen on going home, so I’m surprised he wants to now.
Pushing from the sofa, I stalk toward my door and open it without bothering to look at the screen. It was one of four people.
Realistically, probably one of three.
I didn’t think Toby would have come to check on me. He’s got enough of his own shit going on right now to worry about mine.
“All right,” I mutter when I find Seb’s blank expression staring back at me.
He doesn’t say a word as I pull the door wider and invite him in.
I know he’s pissed at me. He’s made that more than clear since I confessed to knowing that he and Emmie were cousins.
“Good day at school?” I ask, pulling the fridge open and grabbing two beers, throwing one at him.
“You heard what your dad’s doing?”
“Hopefully finding and torturing Luis fucking Wolfe.”
“Pretty sure that’s on his list after yesterday. But no.”
“Are you going to tell me or am I meant to guess? Because I gotta tell you, where my dad is concerned, it could be fucking anything.”
“He’s organised for Jonas—the non-mafia, loving father version—to have a fucking funeral.”
My eyes widen.
“But he’s not dead. Is he?” I ask. The last I knew he was still sitting in a puddle of his own piss in a cell for Toby to play with whenever he felt like it.