“Where do you think you’re going?” Antony seizes my arm as I head toward the garage.
“I’m hanging out with George tonight.”
“You think that’s wise? Isn’t she trying to steal Captain America from you?”
I can’t help my jaw clenching. “He’s not mine to steal.”
“He’d better be.” Antony’s mouth cocks up into a smirk that takes me right back to the violence of the arena. “You’ve got five days until I put a hit out on that boy. He’s dangerous while he hates you, especially if he’s got your ex-friend in his bed.”
“You wouldn’t dare, and she’s not myex-friend.”
“I don’t care if she’s the queen of fucking Sheba. We don’t know her loyalties and Brutus is still out there.”
I fold my arms. “Let me tell you how this is going to go. I will let you take the lead and boss me around and threaten my friends, even though we both know you’re full of shit. But I have never,everhad a real girl friend before, and I am not going to let Brutus frighten me into losing her. Have Tiberius drive me if you need to get to the club. He can watch her house while I’m there, but I am going to see George tonight, and that’s final.”
Antony shakes his head. He looks pissed as he raises his phone to his ear. “I knew I should never have taught you to have a fucking backbone. Wait here while I figure out how to prevent your reckless ass from getting killed.”
* * *
In the end,Antony drives me over to George’s place himself. I’m hoping it’s a ploy on his part to get me alone so we can talk. Instead, he cranks a party playlist and raps along with Drake. He’s in a good mood, and now I know why. It’s almost Saturnalia, and Brutus is nowhere to be found. From what I saw at the club, even if the guy does come back, Antony – who isn’t even of August blood – will be the new Imperator and our whole plan is shot to hell.
I will have endured four years alone in that house fornothing.
Over my dead fucking body.
George lives in Lethe, one of those forgettable suburbs that sits between the rich assholes of the hills and Tartarus Oaks. She bounces out the door as soon as the car pulls up. Her hair’s dyed bright pink this time and clipped back from her face with barrettes shaped like skeleton cats. On anyone else, she might’ve looked like a five-year-old on molly, but George pulls it off.
“Who’s the dish behind the wheel?” She peers over my shoulder. Her tone is light, but I know she knows who he is. She’s a damn good liar.
“My cousin Antony. He’s a complete pain.” I glare at him, and he drives away. I know he’s just going to circle the block and sit outside, but George doesn’t.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” She pulls me inside. “When you called I was worried something had happened with Alec.”
I force a smile. “No. Not Alec. That bastard has been sent to reform school in Poland. He’s out of our lives forever.”
“And nothing else is up?”
“Nope.”Except that I need you and Eli to stop whatever you’re up to so I can protect you from whatever the fuck Antony and Nero have planned.“I’m just missing my girl time.”
“Yay, me too. I feel like we haven’t hung out much lately. So, this is our place. I’ve lived here all my life. It doesn’t have a turret or an indoor bowling alley like Malloy Manor, but I like it.” George bounds up the steps onto a small patio crowded with flowering plants and dangling crystals. She holds open the kitchen screen door for me. “I dug out some more clothes from the thrift store to show you.”
As I enter the kitchen, a woman glances up from wiping down the counters. She looks like she could be George’s older, less-wacky sister, with the same pixie-shaped face, cropped hairstyle, and brilliant green eyes. She wears a cream-colored maxi dress and leather sandals, a feather necklace, and a frown that deepens when she recognizes me.
“Hi, Mackenzie.” She leans over the counter and sizes me up. “I’m Anne-Maree. It’s nice to see you again.”
That look gets my back up, and I’m ready to snap back at her before I realize what’s happening here. Mackenzie used to be friends with Cleo, and the two of them bullied George in junior prep. Of course we did. That’s what girls like us do to girls like George.
I assume that all kids keep their problems locked away in heart-shaped boxes the way I do. But not George. George is an open book, the pages covered in bold scribbles. Her mother knows Mackenzie bullied her daughter because George would have spilled her guts every day after school, and now that same girl is back in her daughter’s life as a so-called friend. George may have decided she’s forgiven me, but that didn’t mean Anne-Maree Fisher had.
Okay, wow. So that’s what parental love looks like.
I’d forgotten.
Daddy always says that love will be your boldest strength and your greatest weakness. Anne-Maree Fisher wears her love with all the ferociousness of a lioness. My heart aches as I shove back memories of my parents that threaten to overwhelm me. I need to focus on George tonight. This might be my last chance.
“Hi, Anne-Maree.” I look around the faded kitchen with the crystals and rattan planters hanging in the window, the large spice rack shaped like a tree and filled with ingredients I’d never heard of, and the bright-blue refrigerator bulging under the weight of concert posters and sketches and takeout menus and tarot cards stuck to it with magnets shaped like David Bowie’s head. “I love your house.”
Anne-Maree nods, but I can tell from her eyes that she thinks I’m bullshitting. I’m not. I’ve only a foot in the kitchen door and already their house feels warmer, more comfortable, more homely, than anywhere I’ve ever lived. And that’s with Anne-Maree’s frosty reception.
