Page 79

“Shut up.” Ethan smacks my arm.

“I don’t still make you nervous, fluster you, turn your stomach into a raging fire?” I ask him as I tilt my head back up. I reach a hand up and slide my fingers along his neck, and his skin warms under my touch.

“I-I didn’t say that,” he mumbles. Then he brushes my hand away. “Stop distracting me. What did your father say?”

I sigh again. “What he said exactly isn’t that important. Just that I better be serious about you, because the Greivans got a stick up their ass over me protecting you.”

“I thought you were having a problem with them before me.”

“Exactly. We were. Father is just trying to force my hand. He wants more power and thinks my feelings for you are gettin’ in the way,” I tell him.

It’s quiet for a second or two.

“Are they?” Ethan asks.

I tilt my head. “Yes. One-hundred-fucking-percent, Ethan. I’m not gonna let them hurt you just so they’ll be more open to negotiating with my father. Though, he ain’t even man enough to do it. He’s sending my Uncle Barry.” I practically spit out his name.

“Barry?”

“Bartholomew. My mother’s brother. All he’s good for is talking. That’s why my father is sending him over. Plus, he knows he won’t try anything like…” I trail off.

“Like your mother,” Ethan finishes for me.

I nod. “Yeah…fuck, I need a smoke. You mind?”

Ethan shakes his head, but gets up and opens a window nearby. I pull my cigarettes out and light one up. Just the action of taking a drag helps ease my nerves.

“How are you going to get your father off your back about us?” he asks.

“I told him I’m serious about you,” I say slowly, exhaling the smoke and locking eyes with Ethan.

I see the anxiety creeping into his expression.

“Serious as in…the ritual?”

“Perhaps,” I say quietly.

“Is that it?”

I take another drag and shake my head. “Not even remotely. There are quite a few kids in the Greivan clan. Three triplet girls born just yesterday make the total seven. They’re all under ten years old,” I explain, my eyes shifting from him to the wall behind him as I smoke. He’s sitting a couple feet away from me now.

“Are they in danger?”

“They might be. If the talkin’ doesn’t go well, my father plans on taking what he wants by force.”

It’s quiet, and I feel tension rolling off Ethan in waves. When I look at him, his eyes are glittering with tears.

“What are you going to do?” he asks.

“You think I’m gonna do something?” I stare back at him.

Ethan moves closer to me and takes the smoke out of my hand, holding it at his side. “You don’t care about those children? Even though they could die?”

I don’t answer him, just look into his eyes.

“You can act like you’re a villain in all this, that the pain and death mean nothing to you, but I think you care about this. You care about them. You don’t want innocent children to die any more than your mother did,” Ethan says.

I swallow hard. “No, I don’t,” I agree. “That’s why if the negotiations don’t work, me and Yvette will get them out.”