My ribs knifed into my heart.
And my mouth made the sound of a punctured balloon.
Because there — in cruel, high-resolution — was Zolt on the dance floor at that club, his arm around my waist.
Everyone had seen us like that. It hadn’t raised any alarms as far as I could tell, though Nora had narrowed her eyes at me a couple of times, but that wasn’t new after I laughed in her face. And to be honest, I probably deserved her snarl.
But this wasn’t just her picture. It was in a magazine.
“Where did you find that?” I wheezed.
“Some sleazy celebrity magazine,” she said. “My brother sent it to me. I didn’t know Zolt’s mum had got married.”
Wait—what?
I finally looked up from her phone. Her face wasn’t twisted with disgust or anger. She looked at her nails, turning thescreen back to herself.
“So when I read that, I was really confused.”
My heartbeat slammed in my ears.
“Because then I found out who she married and… well, you never said one of the mechanics was your dad.”
Nadia’s side pressed into my back. “Because she doesn’t owe you her family tree.”
“It is weird, though,” she sighed. “Like, you’re translating for your brother.”
The world tilted. I gripped Nadia’s arm to stop myself from colliding with the concrete floor.
“And you manage to make him sound smart,” Nora laughed, shaking her head. “He’ll be the first to tell you he isn’t. I feel like he’s losing his identity, replaced by you.”
And then I was holding Nadia to ground myself and not throw my fist in Nora’s face.
“Maybe because you didn’t bother to learn each other’s language?” I snapped. “In Hungarian, he is incredibly clever.”
He’s learning English for me. Not for her.
“Where did you… It was just a picture, wasn’t it?”
“The caption mentioned you were step-siblings.”
Shite. Of course it did.
“It’s just weird to keep it a secret when you work in the same team. It’s like the whole family is in Veltar.”
She was right: A lot of my family did work for Veltar. But it didn’t feel like it. It wasn’t how I’d imagined joining Ciclati as a teenager.
I wanted to be there— back when Dad, Livie, Luca, Nix, and Everly all worked there.
“Right, come on, you drama queens,” I could hearEverly’s voice, but she was further down the tables, dismissing those who had stayed for Nora’s allegations.
Nadia squeezed my hand. “Nora, do us a favour and jog on, love. Just because he doesn’t want you, doesn’t mean you have to go after his step-sister, does it?”
She shrugged. “It just makes sense now why they hired you. Your sister manages the grid girls, your dad is on the team, your brother’s a racer.”
I didn’t look like a translator, apparently. I dressed professionally. Livie would have told me otherwise.So what the fuck did that mean?
“Stop calling him that,” I said through my teeth —not sure if I meant Imre or Zoltán.
