“Or—” I say, folding my arms across my chest, “something happened that made you say all those lies to Matteo?”
“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” he says, averting his eyes back to Matteo’s car.
He’s freaking lying to me.
Why is he lying to me?
What the hell is going on?
“I thought that there was something—"
Vaughn groans and jumps at me, thrusting his hand into my coat pocket.
I scrabble away, slapping his hand away. “What the fuck, Montgomery!” I scream.
“Yeah. I thought there was something too, until I watched you go back into that drawer last night and sneak what you found out of it and hide it in here,” he mutters, yanking and gripping at my coat pocket.
I slip and slide on the snowy walkway as he struggles to get his way.
“No, don’t!” I screech, “You don’t understand. Stop!” I let go of his hands and slap him hard across the face.
His eyes, angry and violent, glare into mine. My handprint reddens his cheek and I desperately want to add another one to the other side of his stupid face.
He yanks the pocket, ripping it right off my coat, getting his way. I’m embarrassed and hurt, but I’m too full of rage to cry. “You thought I found the accounts, didn’t you?” I whisper, in disbelief. That’s what this was all about. All the hate he just spewed on me, all that hurt? “I didn’t find them.”
He holds up what I hid in my pocket the night before, between us. His eyes zone in on it and his face instantly blanches.Good, I hope it hurts.
It’s a ripped picture of me and my mother. It was one of the last times we were good together, before everything in my family went to hell. In the picture I’m fifteen and I’ve just won an award at school. I was inducted in the National Junior’s Honor Society and she was so proud of me, she came to the school assembly and even took me out to dinner to celebrate.
“I found it and I couldn’t leave it there. It’s the only thing I had left of her and me.” The damn breaks and tears rush down my cheeks. “You thought I found the accounts? The whole night I laid in your arms?” I shove my hands at his chest, over and over. “Don’t ever come near me again! I hate you. I fucking hate you…you…you Montgomery!”
I fumble with the key and the door. I can’t see through the blur of tears. When I get it open, I rush through and slam it closed in his face. I sob into the back of it for what feels like an eternity until no more tears will come and hiccups and panic breathing take over.
When I turn around, I scream in absolute shock.
My apartment is ransacked—completely destroyed—and it sounds like whoever did it is still here.
