My nostrils flare, anger bubbling up inside me. “Maybe not the way you do it.”
He scoffs, disgust flooding his features, and pulls himself from Caroline’s grasp. The disappointment lacing the firm downward curve of his lips hits me in the gut as he turns, but I steel myself against it.
That doesn’t stop the lump that forms in my throat, a rock I can’t swallow.
Leo throws open the back door as Elia stalks toward the limo; he climbs inside, anger jerking his limbs as he folds himself into the back seat, and then he reaches out to pull the door shut, cutting out the rest of the world.
A few reporters appear on the front lawn, as if conjured by Montalto family drama.
Except, it’s not Montaltofamilydrama, because I’m not one of them. And this night, the sudden and decisive write-off by thecapohimself, proves it.
Caroline exhales, linking her fingers through mine. “I warned you, Jules. Elia and Kieran are rivals.”
“I thought you said they worked together.”
She nods, a strange, distant look in her eyes. Her free hand falls to her belly, rubbing back and forth over the swell. “They did, but I don’t think they spend very much time in the same room. Kieran just helps out whenever Kal can’t.”
“What does Kal do, again?”
Chewing on her lip, she hesitates. “Honestly, I’m not a hundred percent sure. But… he didn’t earn the nickname Doctor Death around town for nothing.”
The lump in my throat expands, cutting off my airway as I think about Kieran’s nickname and the rumors about him.King of darkness.Hermit. Hacker.
Murderer.
Something tells me the death he deals in is less honorable than what Elia does, and as we make our way to the limo, I toss one last look at where the Ivers still stand beside their own vehicle, speaking to one another.
He’s watching me, and it sends a shiver down my spine, because I don’t think he ever looked away.
Chapter 5
Juliet
As she passes by me, digging into her apron pockets for a pen, Caroline knocks my feet off the counter; they fall to the floor with a thick thud, nearly startling me off the barstool I’m propped up on, trying to force myself back to sleep.
It’s proving impossible, though, especially with Poppy babbling to herself on one side of the bakery, traveling the beige ceramic tile with a wooden spoon in one hand and metal bowl in the other. Every few steps the thirteen-month-old takes, a prop drops to the floor, the sound echoing in the mostly-empty storefront.
I’m nursing a slight hangover after last night’s gala and family drama; when we got home, Elia went straight for his room, Caroline following right after, shooting me an apologetic smile as she ascended the wrought-iron staircase.
When Phoebe, Elia’s bartender-turned-babysitter-and-bakery-moonlighter, left moments after our return, I’d slipped into the home office, stole a bottle of forty-year-old Highland Park scotch, and ducked into my makeshift bedroom with it tucked under my arm. I’d crawled in bed, FaceTimed Carter and Avery to lament my woes and have their eyewitness account to my backpedal into Hell.
My phone died and I passed out before my fifth sip.
Cursed with an inability to turn off my biological clock, I found myself waking with the sun and heading to the cemetery; it’s become something of a routine at this point, although part of me continues on, hoping Kieran’s decided to show me mercy and returned my necklace to my father’s grave.
He hasn’t, and I shudder to know what he plans on making me do to win it back. It chills me to think about him watching me when I’ve been there.
Each time I leave the King’s Trace Memorial Gardens, swearing curses on my bastard father’s soul—one for being a bastard, and another for making me miss him still—I end up here, seeking absolution.Care’s Crazy Cupcakes, her dream that’s still in the pre-opening phase.
Caroline doesn’t even know I visit his gravesite, and yet I tiptoe around her as if the evidence of my betrayal might bleed through my skin.
Guilt claws at the corners of my soul, searching for a way to tear it from my body. Part of me wishes it’d find out how and rid me of the crippling shame knotting my insides.
Unfortunately, when you grow up as the family disappointment, you learn to hide the embarrassment. How to ignore the sharp-edged frowns hurled at you by your frosty mother and the complete lack of interest from your father.
You bottle it up, bury it so far beneath the ocean of cataclysmic emotion washing around inside you, because focusing on anything else but the lack of reaction would be detrimental.
Eventually, you lose track of its placement, unable to find where the loss ends and you begin.