“I know, but without me to?—”
“To use as his fucking punching bag?”
I bit my lip. Zach was looking absolutely furious now. I’d begun to worry over the last six months as he grew into his six-foot frame that all this anger he was carrying would explode out of him and put him in danger. We’d both always tried to stay out of their way, not cause trouble. But it had been easier to convince Zach that this was the right strategy when he was a scared little boy. This large, angry teenager was starting to rebel against that, and his tolerance for the person he loved most in the world being hurt was running low. Plus, I knew the tension in the house had ramped up significantly. If Freddie went down, it would get a whole lot worse.
“Please, stick to the plan, Zachy,” I said softly. “Only three more years and you’ll be home free. And I’m safe now.”
“You weren’t safe last month.”
I shrugged. The reality was that even when I was at my small flat I wasn’t one hundred percent safe. They knew where I lived. It was just a case of out of sight, out of mind. At first, when I left home, they were pissed off that their personal slave wasn’t there anymore, but then they’d employed an army of staff and settled into a new way oflife. Their chef was actually much better than me, and Freddie (before he was arrested) got to fuck the new maid, so I knew it suited them better. And they certainly had the money for it.
My family had alotof money.
“It might all be over much sooner, though,” I whispered, glancing at Zach’s door, then back at him.
“What?” he whispered back. “Because of the…” he paused and swallowed, his face paling as he stared across at me. “Because of the Big Terrible Thing?”
I nodded at him as my heart rate escalated. “If stuff happens soon, then… well, we might be home free in weeks, even before your exams.”
“I just don’t know how much more I can take,” Zach said in a broken voice, his beautiful brown eyes filling with tears. “I can’t live here, Clara. Yesterday they…” he paused, blinking rapidly in an attempt to dispel the tears, but one still made it down his cheek. “There was screaming,” he whispered, as if someone might overhear us, “Jesus, Cla-Cla, the screaming…”
“Who was it?” I asked in a low voice. “Mum?”
Zach shook his head. “I think it was a bloke who stole part of a shipment from them.”
“Did they…?” I swallowed, not able to say the unthinkable out loud.
“I don’t think so. But he won’t be stealing from them again. I’m not sure if he’ll walk again judging by the state of him when he was dragged out. I watched from the window.”
“Zach, don’t let them catch you watching,” I said in a panicked voice. “If something like that happens again, you know the routine.”
Zach nodded slowly, his jaw clenching. “Yeah, yeah, lock the door, shut the curtains, headphones on.”
I took my glasses off to rub my eyes. “Bloody hell, you’d better pass these exams. You’re going to have to pay fora lotof therapy for both of us once you’re a vet.”
Zach smiled at me, and I smiled back.
But then, just as I was about to pick up the cards, Zach’s door crashed open.
Chapter 6
Hurt really bad
Rafe
“Where is she?”I stood my ground in the classroom door. I wasn’t going anywhere until I had answers. Clara had disappeared off the face of the earth. She hadn’t been to work in over a week. Ozzie was back to being reluctant to go to school. The way he pushed his breakfast around his plate this morning was heartbreaking. He missed her, and this was a crucial time for him with the new dyslexia diagnosis.
“Lord Sterling,” Miss Summerfield said in a voice edged with impatience. Christ, the outfits this woman wore. Today she was in a yellow dress that was practically neon. She’d teamed this with tights which had, if I wasn’t very much mistaken, small pineapples all over them. No sane adult woman would dress this way, surely? “I’ve told you, Clara is not well. We’ve provided a perfectly good replacement teaching assistant to support Ozzie.”
“Ozzie doesn’t want him,” I snapped, gesturing towards the classroom at the random bloke who was supervising.Okay, so I hadn’t been convinced about Clara’s abilities, but compared to that wet lettuce, she was a fucking genius when it came to teaching. “He wants Clara. What could possibly keep her off work for so long? It’s been over a week.”
A troubled look passed over Miss Summerfield’s face as she broke eye contact with me to look out of the window. “Clara will be back as soon as she can,” she said eventually, blanking her expression when she looked back at me. “She wouldn’t have taken time off if it wasn’t strictly necessary. Believe me, she lives for her work.”
I snorted. “Fine way of showing it, swanning off for a week and leaving my son in the lurch.”
To my surprise, Miss Summerfield’s eyes flashed with anger, her face flushing. Even more surprising was how she spoke to me next.
“How dare you?” she said in a low voice. I blinked in shock, for once at a total loss for words. Was this woman suicidal? “You knownothingabout Clara’s circumstances. She’s…” I didn’t think I could be any more shocked, but then Miss Summerfield’s eyes filled with tears. What the fuck was going on? One tear fell down her cheek, and she scrubbed it away in a furious motion. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about, okay? For you, this is just some inconvenience. People like you are so entitled and selfish, you just––”
