I need her.
I need her warmth to soothe me after facing down such coldness in Oliver’s eyes.
This brother of mine, the one I always deluded myself into thinking harboured a little scrap of love for me, buried somewhere deep, is hollow.
Maybe I thought he regretted his acts against me at the academy.
Maybe I thought one day it would be different.
Wishful daydreams.
Now, I look at him and I see him.
I’ve always known he’s a serpent.
But I didn’t know how lethal he is.
I was fooled by my brother’s mask, his smiles, his softness, his friendliness that comes and goes.
I was fooled like others in the Videralli will be.
I have overlooked him.
‘Whoever has been snitching to your daddy dearest is anyone but me.’
And it clicks, like fingers snapping in my brain, as I look at him now.
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
His frown knits for a beat. It’s aimed at the cake. “Be more specific, please. I have done so much in my life already.”
All that time at Bluestone, I was convinced that it was Dray telling my father every little thing I did.
But it was Oliver all along.
I know it. The truth is firm in my rigid bones, and I speak it with conviction, “You were the informant. You called Father to let him know everything I was doing, didn’t you?”
The frown smoothens out.
Understanding hardens his face, not regret.
His answer is firm, “Yes.”
The word barely settles between us before I’ve lunged at him.
Oliver grunts at the impact, at the knock of my knee into his gut as I rip the cake from his rising hand, as if he can block me.
But I get a fistful of the lamington—then bring it down on his face.
The crumbs, the mush, the cream, the jam, and my flattened hand, all come striking down on his stupid fucking face.
The impact is hard. Hard enough that I feel the waver of his nose, the cartilage, the grunt of his shout before he shoves me in the middle, and I’m thrown off of him.
My back hits the arm of the couch.
Oliver grunts a string of curses, and wipes at a glob of jam on his mouth.
No, not jam.
