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Damiano comes the same way, keeping about thirty feet between us.
“If you’re fucking following—”
“Get over yourself, you little gremlin,” he snaps.
I choke and my jaw drops as I whirl to glare at him, walking backward in front of him.
“Gremlin?” I say shrilly.
“You got pretty bent out of shape about psycho,” he shrugs.
“Fuck you!” I hurl at him.
“Ohhh, not if you begged, sweetheart,” he growls.
I whirl back around, my face one big scowl as I stomp across the field until I get to one of the white gravel paths that criss crosses the campus. I can still hear that fucker behind me, but he has the sense not to poke me anymore right now.
There are two black Escalades with tinted windows waiting by the front gate to the campus when I get there. Andreas, one of the go-to drivers for my uncle Ares, is standing in front of one, and he nods as he opens the back door for me.
I don’t know who the other driver is, but I stare in confusion when he opens his back door for Damiano.
The drive into midtown is pretty fast, given the late hour. My great-grandmother Dimitra—aka Ya-ya—lives in quite possibly the most incredible home in New York: this enormous Georgian-style mansion that my great-great grandfather Nico had shipped brick by brick over from the English countryside and reassembled at the top of the forty-story building our family owns on Central Park South.
It’s a gorgeous house, complete with landscaped grounds, rose gardens, classical sculptures, a tennis court and two pools, all sitting on top of a building overlooking Central fucking Park.
It’s one of my favorite places in the world, but tonight, something feels off.
Andreas pulls up to the curb and I swing the door open. Just as I step out, another Escalade with tinted windows comes to a stop right behind us.
Damiano gets out.
My mouth opens, all set to release my rage. But then I hear my dad's voice.
“Bella.”
When I turn to him, my brow furrows.
Dad is a perpetually smiling goof. But right now, even though he swore to me up and down that no one had died, he looks like he's about to walk into a funeral.
“Honey, come inside, we need to talk upstairs—”
“What is he doing here?” I snap, jerking a thumb over my shoulder at Damiano.
My dad’s brow shadows and his jaw clenches, but he says nothing.
“Dad—“
“Damiano.”
I turn to see a third black SUV pulled up behind the first two and Carmine Barone, Damiano’s father, stepping out of it.
What’s happening.
“Dad?”
He winces. “Just come upstairs, sweetheart. We’ll explain everything—”
“Yes, come upstairs, son,” I hear Carmine say behind me.
