She sl
id her hand up Granville’s arm, and he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She tore her gaze away from me and returned his smile.
I’d had enough. I downed my drink and turned to Portia. Yeah, I’d been planning to keep an eye on Winter for the rest of the evening, but I couldn’t stomach watching her with Granville anymore. “Want to get out of here, babe?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Portia purred.
We headed out of the main party room without another backwards look, Portia well on her way to being drunk already, prancing along next to me, hanging off my arm.
Nah. Away from the crowds and the sight of Winter with Granville, I remembered this was a bad idea. Bad. Portia was more trouble than she was worth. Abruptly I stopped in the corridor, and she stumbled into me.
“I changed my mind. Go find another cock to suck.” I shook her arm off and strode away, ignoring her outraged whine behind me. She’d get over it. Opening the door to the study, where we normally ended up at these parties, I found Zayde, Cass, and West there already, Cass rolling a joint with a girl on his lap, a huge bottle of vodka in front of him, and West and Zayde playing darts, of all things. I raised a brow.
“You boys having fun?”
My brother spun around, his face splitting into a grin when he saw me.
“Want to join us, bro? We’re playing for money. So far Z owes me three grand.”
“Two.”
“Sorry, mate, it’s three.”
“Whatever,” Zayde muttered, taking aim at the board. I shook my head and left them to it, helping myself to Cass’ vodka and rolling my own joint.
“Winter looked hot tonight, don’t you think?” Cassius gave me a sly smile.
“Not as hot as me, though, right?” the girl on his lap piped up, turning her head towards his and pretending to pout.
“Don’t make me pick. You know you’re fucking sexy, babe,” he murmured, kissing up her neck and sliding his hand between her legs as she moaned in pleasure, her eyes falling shut.
Rolling my eyes, I pulled out my phone, taking a long drag of my joint. Might as well check the security feeds since the boys were all occupied. Tech genius that my little brother was, he’d set up an app where we could check the cameras from our phones. I idly scrolled through the feeds; nothing out of the ordinary. It reminded me, though… “Hey, West?”
“Yeah?” My brother took aim at the dartboard, the dart rebounding off the side and falling to the floor with a clatter. “Shit,” he muttered. “You made me lose my concentration.”
I ignored his comment. Glancing over at the girl with Cassius to make sure she was occupied, I beckoned him over. “Can you install your tracking app on Winter’s phone? We can check her messages on that.”
He frowned. “Yeah, I can, but you can’t check the contents of the messages. Just who she’s sending to and receiving from. It’s a bit of an invasion of privacy, though, isn’t it?”
“Do you trust her? When she’s been hanging around Granville, not to mention I watched her looking very friendly with her mother earlier. Don’t be fooled by her, bro.”
“Whatever. I’ll see if I can get hold of her phone.” He shook his head at me and returned to his game.
Grabbing Cassius’ vodka again, ignoring his frown, I tipped it to my lips, the burning liquid sliding down my throat.
Someone started banging loudly on the door, and my head shot up.
“Who’s that?” Weston called.
“How the fuck would I know?” Since everyone else was occupied, I got up with a sigh, heading over to the door and throwing it open.
Cassius’ younger sister, Lena, burst into the room, her usual sulky pout in place, but I barely noticed her. My attention was caught by a familiar figure, way down the corridor. Winter, looking shifty, glancing around her furtively. Staying back so she didn’t notice me, I watched as she slipped past the roped-off area that marked this corridor as out of bounds to most guests, other than those who were in my dad’s inner circle.
Every one of my senses was on high alert.
What are you up to, Snowflake?
She shuffled down the corridor and suddenly stopped in front of a door, peering in. Bad, bad idea, Winter. I shook my head at her stupidity. Didn’t she know that curiosity killed the cat? She needed to be more careful, otherwise it wouldn’t just be the cat that ended up dead.