Cecily:Oh, please. You have a tyrant’s mentality and think everything is nonnegotiable. But don’t even think I’ll sit there and take it. That’s simply not going to happen. Anyway, thanks for the waffles. Ava and I will enjoy them.
Jeremy:I sent them to you, not Ava.
Cecily:Sharing is caring.
Jeremy:I don’t share. Everything about you is mine.
Besides, I don’t like the way Ava was all over her when they danced at the club. Or how Cecily takes care of her with nauseating affection. Something she doesn’t even do with me.
I’m so tempted to eliminate Ava completely, but that might make me lose Cecily for good.
So I shove that thought to the back of my mind.
For now.
Cecily:Are you seriously jealous of my best friend? Who’s also a girl?
Jeremy:You give her too much of your attention.
Cecily:Okay, Mr. Caveman. Have a nice day, and please try not to hurt anyone *sparkling heart emoji*
I keep staring at that emoji longer than I did the first one.
“Is something wrong?” Ilya asks from his position behind the steering wheel.
“What does a sparkling heart emoji mean?”
Ilya stares at me for a beat, looking stunned for the first time ever, before he focuses back on the road. “Uh, don’t all the heart emojis mean love and affection?”
“But it has sparkles around it. They should mean something else.”
“I’m not sure.”
I’m not sure why I’m focusing on this either. I’m used to Annika sending a newspaper of emojis stickers and GIFs in her texts. And they’re often filled with all sorts of hearts, primarily purple and white ones.
But Cecily rarely talks in emojis. She’s too straightforward for that.
Still, I want to know exactly what she meant by sending it.
“Boss.”
“Hmm?” I answer Ilya absentmindedly, still staring at her text.
“What are your plans regarding Miss Volkov and the guy she’s seeing?”
I turn off my phone’s screen at the reminder of my sister and her unwanted crush.
I’ve let it slide all this time to give her more freedom, but it has recently come to my attention that Creighton King, the guy Annika has chosen to like, is plotting something with Landon.
And while I didn’t give a fuck at the beginning that they’re cousins, mainly because Creighton stays out of anything related to the Elites, Nikolai found out that’s not the case lately.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before I allow that rotten family, especially Landon, to get close to my sister.
So I have to stop it before it’s too late.
Even if I have to hurt her in the process.
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