There are deep furrows in the grounds where the two tunnels collapsed and tents set up everywhere for those displaced in the attack. Willow and I are using a metal detector to locate one of the weapons lockers covered in rubble and dig it up. The smell of stale smoke is still everywhere; in our clothes, our hair.
“Her main concern is securing all the weapons, not something you want your average carpenter to stumble upon.”
Students were leaving one by one as their families arrived with supplies and reinforcements to help rebuild the Academy and take their offspring home.
“When is your brother flying in to pick you up?” I ask as Willow glumly shovels another pile of ash from the weapons storage locker.
“Tomorrow, but Tom is claiming that we should stay for a couple of extra days for moral support,” she sneers.
“I can tell there’s a story behind this,” I prompt, hauling away a piece of charred lumber.
“The pervy bastard has a crush on Dean Christie.”
“Get the hell out!”
“No, I can’t because he’s making me stay so he can make a play for her while she’s ‘vulnerable’ at this moment of crisis,” she groans.
Wiping my filthy gloves on my jeans, I shake my head. “I don’t think the Dean is capable of vulnerability. Or fear. Or weakness.” I can vividly remember her shooting two men in the face - perfectly executed head shots - while bleeding from a stab wound in her torso.
“My brother’s adrongo,”she sighs, “biggest fucking idiot. He’s had a crush on her since he came here eight years ago.”
“Sorry,” I’m trying not to laugh as I give her a side hug, “maybe she’ll crush his fragile hopes quickly and decisively.”
My father’s due to fly in today, and that is not good news. Ordinarily, he’d just send my bodyguard out to get me. He probably wants to put in some schmoozing time with some of the other families here.
We pass by Cormac and one of his mercenaries on the way back to our suite. He’s just as gorgeous in jeans and work boots, and he nods briefly to both of us and it all hits me again, and the loss is so acute that it feels like a punch to the heart.
It doesn’t matter. It will hurt less when I don’t have to see him anymore.
Because my father will always find me at my worst, he’s the next person to step into my path. “Mala, what the hell happened to you? You look like you got spat out of a coal mine.”
He’s a distinguished-looking man, wearing an expensive blue suit, dark hair with a touch of silver at his temples, and the grim expression I’ve come to expect from him.
“I’m sorry Papa, I didn’t know you’d arrived.” An automatic apology every time to head off the inevitable lecture. “We’ve all been helping secure the most sensitive areas on campus.”
“I didn’t think it would include working like a day laborer,” he scowls, wiping his clean hands on his handkerchief as if he’d touched me. “Go get cleaned up,” he orders, “and meet me in the Faculty apartments.”
Willow and I walk in silence for a moment.
“I knew your dad was a major arsehole, but that was an impressive display,” she observes.
“Feeling better about having to deal with Tom lusting after the Dean now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, your day is definitely going to suck more,” she agrees cheerfully.
Once I’m cleaned up and presentable, I go in search of my father. He’s in one of the undamaged offices and he gestures to me when I hover in the doorway.
“Mala darling, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
A chill shoots up my spine. He’s never this nice. “My dear, meet your future husband.” He spins his laptop around so I can seethe screen. “Enzo, my lovely daughter Mala. Mala, Don Accardi. You’ll be married next month.”
My knees buckle, and I sit heavily in the chair next to my father’s. Nothim.My father can’t be giving me to this old bastard.
Fifty is a generous guess for Enzo Accardi or the man’s done some hard living. He has fraying silver hair, a huge mustache, and mean, dark little eyes that are looking me over.
“She looks a little young,” he says, and doesn’t seem unhappy about it.
“Mala is twenty-one, Enzo. Healthy as a horse,” Dad grins broadly.
