Cole put his drink on the coffee table and sat forward. “Are you being serious?”
“Yes.” I frowned. “Why would I lie?”
He shook his head. “Because you’re fucking Klaus Seeley. Isn’t your thing to fuck with people before you fuck them over?”
I bristled at his words.
“I’m sorry you knew that man,” I said softly after a brief moment of silence. “I am no longer that monster.”
“Yeah, well, hard to overcome such a fucking demon, and knowing you’re with my girl…” his voice trailed off, and he shook his head. “It’s fucking hard.”
“I understand,” I murmured.
“Do you? Because I was ready to murder you in a parking lot five years ago. Do you think you still deserve all Rosalie has given you?”
“Do you believe you’re worthy?” I countered, my voice low. “I have never wronged Rosalie. Others, perhaps. But her? Never. But you?” I scoffed. “I know the lineage. I know the monsters in your closet. Be careful picking a fight with me…Ashford.”
Cole tensed at the name. “Don’t fucking call me that.”
“It’s who you are, right?”
“It’s who my family is. Not me. I’m not like them.”
“Aren’t you? You kill people. You torture them. Let’s call a spade a spade, Scott. Their blood runs through your veins. It’ll catch up to you eventually. It has to all of theprodigies. Am I right?”
He looked away from me in the dim light from the moon, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Did you know I had an arranged marriage?” His voice was soft.
I blinked at that information.
“I did not,” I replied.
He nodded, picked up his whiskey again, and downed it.
“I never told anyone. Not even Enzo. It was my ugly secret.”
I said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“If you know so much about the Ashfords, then you know how they operate. Pure, rich blood. They want the best. My parents rode my ass for years to be the fucking best, all while never getting close enough to even hug me when I was.” He spat the words out sourly. “Colten was their golden boy. He could do no wrong, but I think they knew he wasn’t prodigy material, especially when he didn’t go into medicine or law like they wanted.”
I stayed quiet, allowing him to open up. He struck me as someone who rarely did. Based on what I was learning about him, he likely never felt safe enough to do so, or he just didn’t want to burden people. He seemed to bottle shit up, then take it out with his fists.
I could empathize. We probably could start our own club together.
“He married like they wanted him to.Clara.Real fucking bitch. Part of the Hawthorne family. Old money. Hands in all sorts of dirty pots.” He paused. “She’s not a problem anymore, though.”
I raised a brow at his words. “What did you do?”
“What I had to,” he muttered. “I love my brother. I saved him from that fucking nightmare. I know he’d do the same thing for me.”
I didn’t press the issue. Maybe I didn’t want to know. All my assumptions said it was bad.
He was quiet again before finally speaking, his voice so soft that I had to lean in to hear him.
“Kara,” he whispered. “Kara Virelli. An enemy. That’s the girl they arranged for me.”
“How did you get out of it?” I was appalled. Cole’s father had been tight with Anthony De Luca. To know he’d send his son to the enemy was surprising, to say the least.
