“Tease,” I call, much to her amusement.
I swear to God time slows down as I stand there waiting for the coffee machine while knowing she’s in my bed wearing nothing but my shirt.
“Fucking finally,” I mutter to myself when the coffee machine has finished. Picking up both of the mugs in one hand and the snacks I pulled from the cupboards in the other, I practically run toward the bedroom.
My breath catches when I find her resting back against my headboard, looking hot as fuck with her fingers twisting together nervously.
“You look scared, Demon,” I comment, lowering the mugs to the side and dropping the packets of crisps and chocolate to the bed.
“I have no idea how bad everything you’ve got to tell me is. I’m terrified.”
I bite my tongue, stopping me from telling her that she probably should be. The things I’ve done over the years, the horrors we’ve all seen and had a hand in… I shudder at the thoughts alone.
“I’m not going to tell you everything today. There’s too much. Most of which I don’t even remember until something triggers the memory. I’ve been in this life a long time, baby. Done a lot of shit that would break most men. But that doesn’t mean I won’t tell you, because I will. All of it. But for now, we’ll focus on the parts you’re involved in, okay?”
She nods and I climb onto the bed, but I don’t sit beside her and pull her into my arms like I crave to do. Instead, I sit opposite her so I can look into her eyes as I say all the things I need to.
Reaching out, I wrap my hand around her thigh, needing some contact with her.
“I told you a lot of it that night, but I know I wasn’t in the right mindset to explain it all properly.”
She nods, reaching out and covering my hand with hers.
I hang my head, preparing to drag up the past, which is going to be painful for both of us.
“You know about my childhood. Every story I told you was true. Jonas ruled our home with an iron fist. Despite knowing I wasn’t his kid, he had my position in the family pegged from the day he discovered I was a boy. Clearly, it didn’t matter to him that I wasn’t his blood, but I was pure Greek Cirillo blood with Mum and Galen. That must have been good enough for him.”
She nods. I already explained this when she asked why Joe wasn’t dragged into this life. He might have been Jonas’s, but with Joanne’s blood in his veins, he wasn’t pure Greek and he wouldn’t have accepted that. I know just how seriously he took the rules about the Family’s legacy. It’s how I ended up in the position I was in. He thought that if he could brainwash me, I could be his perfect heir. Something I was never going to be.
“Life was shit. Mum had suffered too much already, and then to be diagnosed with a brain tumour…” I shake my head. “It was all too much. I’d been working on a way out for us for years, but I had to put it all on the back-burner while Jonas held Mum’s treatment over our heads.
“He probably knew exactly what I was planning. He always found a way to know everything.”
“I met your mum today,” Jodie says softly. “She and Stella came to the house looking for you.”
“That’s why you’re here.” It’s not a question. Jodie wouldn’t have come here by herself.“Anyway, I had no idea Stella existed until she showed up at the beginning of the school year and turned our worlds upside down.”
“Did you really kiss her?” Jodie asks, obviously remembering that little tidbit from my previous confession.
“Yes,” I sigh. “And it’s something the others are never going to let me forget. Galen, our father, pulled me off her and dropped the bomb that we were siblings. Not my finest moment.”
“Oh my God,” Jodie gasps into her hand. “That’s mortifying.”
“Yep. But that revelation was soon forgotten when she got stabbed only a few minutes later.”
“Holy shit.”
“We had no idea, but someone had been threatening her. Seb was a massive cunt to her when she first arrived, and she assumed it was him playing games.”
“It was Jonas,” Jodie states.
“He’d threatened Stella’s life as a baby and forced Galen and Mum’s hands, and they had to keep her safe. Galen moved with her to America. But before Mum’s surgery, they came back.
“Seb, Theo and Alex were tasked to keep her safe by the boss, but it wasn’t enough.”
“Jonas wanted her gone?”
I nod, my heart splintering in my chest at just how close he got to achieving that goal.