“It’s Kayla. I know it is.”
“It isn’t.”
“How do you know!”
He closes his eyes for a moment. “Because your friend is dead.”
Fury still curls around me. Grief, too. As well as disbelief.
I sit in the limousine opposite of Lucian. I can’t think of anything else but his words, how final they were.
How long has he known?
That doesn’t matter. He knew and he never told me. He made me think there was a chance…
“You lied.”
Lucian sighs, hands on his thighs in his suit that’s the color of blood at midnight, and lifts his eyes to me. “I omitted.”
“Same thing,” I snap. Right when I was trying to trust him. “How did it happen?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.” I push the word through clenched teeth. “It does.”
“It was an accident,” he says. “She got drained. It wasn’t meant to happen.”
“By you?”
“No.”
He doesn’t need to say it because I know. But I ask anyway. “Who?”
“Vittoria.”
“Of course it was her.”
“Accidents happen,” he says. “People die by mistake all the time.”
“You make Kayla sound like she was a piece of trash, something unimportant, something to throw away. She was more than that,” I snap but my anger is going from raging inferno to deflated balloon very fast. I frown. “So much more.”
“Monty…I’m sorry?—”
“Save it.” I can’t take any more lies from him. I suck in a breath and slide down in my seat. My gaze drifts out the window, where the city blurs in black and white. How am I supposed to spend forever with Lucian if I can’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth?
Time ticks on in silence. I think it’ll last the entire ride until Lucian clears his throat and leans forward. “Don’t you want to know where we’re going?”
“You’ll probably just lie to me about it, so no.”
His eyes narrow. “Monty, please. I didn’t tell you right away because I knew it would break your heart. I was going to tell you eventually, just when you were more…stable.”
“I’m fine,” I bite out. “Don’t insult me. You should’ve told me.”
“You’re telling me you wouldn’t try to kill Vittoria?”
“I never said Iwouldn’tdo that,” I say. “I’m still considering it.”
I don’t know if he believes me and right now I don’t care. Vittoria’s lucky she isn’t on this little excursion with us or I would rip out all of her pretty red hair.
