“Why did you go to Harvard?” Claudia barks at me.
“You know why. I had that meeting—”
“You went because you’re still holding back,” she says, an edge of triumph in her voice. As if she wanted me to disappoint her. As if sherelishesit. “You still believe that after everything that’s happened, after everything you’ve done in my name, that you can still have that Ivy League life, that you can go back to being legitimate. You gave me your word, your blood, Eli. That world is closed to you now. You aremine.”
“That’s not what love is,” I shoot back. “That’s control. That’s what my father did to me and what Noah’s dad did to him and what Gabriel’s dad did to him. You are becoming everything we raged against, everything we ran from.”
Claudia’s face clouds with rage. “You didn’t just fucking say that.”
Even Noah looks shocked. George has slid so far under the table the only thing visible is the top of her blue hair.
“Damn right I said it. And if you really loved me you’d be willing to hear me. We’re not mindless clones who rush to fulfill your every command. You said that I was the angel on your shoulder. Well, here I am, flapping my fucking angel wings. Love means I can tell you when you’re being pigheaded and foolish and making the worst of the mistakes your father made.”
Claws looks around the table, at Noah, at Gabe, at the top of George’s head and Yara and me. She fixes each of us with her Ice Queen glare, searching our souls for the blind loyalty she demands of us. My blood turns to stone. There's no love or respect in that gaze – only cold, hard rage.
“Is that what you all think?” she hisses. “You all think I’m making a mistake?”
Gabe stares miserably at his drink. Noah’s eyes search hers, those dark chasms where she used to get lost now seem so shallow, so fragile.
“Then I don’t need any of you. Get the fuck out of my house.”
Claudia turns on her heel and storms out.
41
Claudia
Iwatch from the eyrie as Eli’s Porsche takes off down the road, followed by Noah’s Lambo, Gabriel’s arm hanging over the passenger door.
I swipe angrily at my eyes, blotting away the tears before they fall.
They left.
I can’t believethey left.
This is all Eli’s doing. He can't leave anything alone, even after everything he’s been through. Doesn't he think I've considered all possible solutions? He's too busy trying to push his own moral code on me that he can’t see that his own is jammed as fuck.
As if he has some kind of high ground with his father the illegal body broker – the man who helped make my father disappear.
He said I was as bad as his father. As all their fathers. How can we ever come back from that?
And Noah and Gabriel… Don’t they see that everything I’ve done has been for them?
Noah's always stood by me. His hands are stained with the blood of my enemies. So why is he going to die on a hill for a bunch of old documents?
And Gabriel…
He got what he wanted. I’ll give him his child, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
I sniff back the pain bubbling inside me, that terrible yearning void in my chest, like I’m one of Aristotle’s beach-ball, doll-legged people torn down the middle.
If they’re so weak-willed that they’ll stand with him against me, then good riddance. I thought they understood me. I thought when they tattooed my mark on their skin, they were agreeing to be mine. To trust me.
I thought I’d finally found a family.
But I forgot.
I forgot that only those you love can truly betray you.
