Page 80

“Go and enjoy some peace,” he says with a laugh. “I can’t imagine you got a lot of that in the past week with that with my girl talking your ear off.”

“She’s not been that bad. She was mostly angry and screaming at me.”

“Well, yes. I can picture that too.”

Can you?

With my face still set in its stone mask, I nod at the two of them and slam the visor of my helmet down, leaving the spare one that Calli wore on the gravel beneath Evan and Nico’s feet. It might be wishful thinking, but maybe, just maybe, I’ll find an excuse to have her on the back of mine again one day.

Without another word, I gun the engine, sending a spray of stones across the driveway as I take off toward the gates. I barely pause long enough to thank the soldiers who allow me to escape as I set my sights on home.

On the quiet solitude of my flat.

I’ve loved that place since before I moved in. The second Dad mentioned Damien and Evan’s plans for the buildings, I was all in.

I’d had every intention of leaving home at the first possible opportunity. I just assumed I would have to finish Knight’s Ridge first. So when the opportunity arose to have my own place sooner, I jumped on it. I’d have moved in with it half-finished if I had to. Anything to get out of Dad’s house and away from the memories—nightmares—I have from that house. The only worse place in the world is my grandparents’ old house. Or more so, our grandfather’s shed.

A shudder runs up my spine just thinking about that place.

Gran was kind enough, but I got the sense, even as a kid, that she’d been jaded by the mafia life. She and Grandad had been together since they were kids, and he was as brutal as they came, so I can’t imagine she had the easiest of lives. She put up with it though. I just have no idea if that was through fear or love. Something tells me it was probably the former.

A pained sigh rips through the enclosed space of my helmet as I turn off the road and into the outside car park for our building. The last time I was here was the beginning of the best week of my life.

I told myself time and time again while we were there that I needed to take every second as if it were going to be our last together.

And I thought I had.

Until it was over.

Now I know I never appreciated her smiles enough, savoured her touch, memorised the sound of her laughter, her moans.

The roller door to the underground car park opens for me as I drive toward it, and I quickly allow myself to be swallowed up by the building.

If I get my way, it’ll be where I stay until I have little choice but to leave for school.

I can’t lie, after revising with Calli and letting her explain things to me in her own way, things do seem a little more possible. But I fear that the second I get those books back out and am forced to try and figure it all out alone again, all the good she achieved will be smashed to jagged, useless pieces that, just like my heart, will never fit back together properly again.

My car is parked exactly where I left it when I dumped it before riding my bike into the back of the van we used for our kidnap mission. The bag of stuff I took in case I did stay in those tipis with the others still sitting on the back seat.

Grabbing it, I walk past Alex’s empty space and head up, more than ready to lock myself in my flat and drown my sorrows in as much alcohol as I can find and stomach.