Page 93 of The Villain's Beast

“Is one of them that you care about me after all?”

“Watch your tone with me, Luca.”

“Francis North is downstairs right now looking for his son. He also looks like he just ran a marathon. If there’s something I need to know, I suggest you tell me now.”

My father was quiet on the other end of the line, and I wondered how much he knew, how much he was willing to tell me. We’d wagered, even with Vince in on the game, there was a chance the Angelini family would descend like vultures, ready to pick Francis off at first sight. There was a chance, albeit small, that Gideon was going to get caught in the crossfire, though we all hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The timing was everything.

“Keep your distance from Gideon until Francis is gone,” he finally said. It wasn’t an answer, but it was a hint. Someone was after Francis North, they were close, and he’d brought them right to our front door.

Adjusting my glasses and pushing off the door, I made a promise to myself.

I’d spent weeks trying to get Gideon into bed because I was bored, because I thought it would benefit me somehow in the end to have his loyalty in mypocket. Gideon was a smart man, a calculating man, and he had to have seen right through me. Had to have understood my intentions were…selfish at best.

My father had taught me at a very young age that sex equaled power, whether you were the one having sex or orchestrating it. And that wasn’t the same kind of thing as what I had with Daren, with Bellamy. What Fletcher had with Gideon. There was love in it, and…that changed my loyalty entirely. Even if Gideon never wanted to take me to bed, he had those feelings for peopleIhad those feelings for, so somehow…that left us tied.

“I don’t think I will,” I said to my father, opening the bedroom door and heading back down the stairs.

“You’re making a mistake,” my father warned.

“I don’t think I am.”

I disconnected the call and slid my phone back into my pocket. Francis was still in the living room, staring down at his phone and tapping out a message. His brow was knit tight above his nose, and he looked so different from how I remembered him, so much smaller than how he’d always existed in my mind. I wasn’t bloodthirsty. He hadn’t harmed me in any direct way, but I had the fleeting thought of killing him myself. It would be a gift to the men I cared for, but no…there was too much to say between Francis and Gideon, and I would never take that away from him.

“Can I get you a drink, Francis?” I asked, giving him my most insincere smile. “I should have asked upon your arrival. My manners must have left me.”

“Did your father talk some sense into you on that call?”

“He made sure I was aware of where my loyalty belonged.”

That made Francis look proud in a sick and twisted way I never wanted to see again.

“No drink,” he said, palming his phone and stepping back. “I’ll go find him at the pool.”

Chapter 65

Daren

“The waiting is killing me,” I said to Fletcher, leaning against the kitchen counter and eating leftover rice out of a white takeout container. I’d been trying to get a hold of Luca, who was stressed because Gideon had gone to swim and wasn’t answering his messages. Luca had texted to let me know Francis had shown up, angry as the devil with Gideon’s name hot on his tongue. Luca had sent him after Gideon to the pool, but I hadn’t heard a single peep since then.

“You have no idea.” He closed the fridge with a bottle of beer in his hand, letting out a long and steady sigh.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

He gave me a perturbed expression. “About what?”

I took my rice to the table and sat down, Fletcher coming in after me and dropping down into the seat beside mine.

“About Gideon. About…anything.”

A lifetime of loss flashed across his face in the blink of an eye, and he chased it away with a huge swallow of beer. “Not particularly.”

I traced my tongue across the front of my teeth, stabbing my fork down into the rice and pushing the container toward the middle of the table. My appetite had been borderline non-existent since our meeting with Vince, my attention span even worse. I’d given up going to class, knowing that it wasn’t relevant to whether I graduated or not anyway. There was no longer any point in holding up the facade of everything because it was all going to change before mid-terms.

“My father, he…” Fletcher paused and frowned. “I suppose he’s no better than Gideon’s.”

“Gideon’s dad locked him into solitary confinement at sixteen,” I said.

“Mine did the same, just…in plain sight.” He took another swallow of beer. “He says my heart is my biggest liability.”