He shoots me a sterile look. “Everything’s changed.” I don’t know what to make of that as we park up next to the Mustang. There are a few more cars in the lot, including Lorcan’s canary yellow Mclaren and Jude’s battered Aston. Even Dino’s bike is there waiting for its owner to come back.
I need a car.
As Dante gets out, I quickly unbuckle and follow him. “I need a car,” I say to him as we head to the boarding house.
“Use mine.”
“No, I want my own car.”
“Anything else, Princess?” His gaze flicks to me as we go through the steel-enforced double doors. Steel-enforced?
“I’ll think of something.” I muse.
He doesn’t deem that with a response.
Quinn is the first person to grab me into a hug when I walk through the door. “Oh my God, Viola.” She smells of coconut and vanilla shampoo, and her loungewear tracksuit is plush and soft. I push her away after the appropriate amount of time. After she’s checked me over from top to bottom, I glance around. The place is empty. Dante has already fucked off. The others are nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s everyone?”
“Rebecca is at that place I told you about. I’ll take you to see her tomorrow if you like. Pascal went back to her mother’s. Lily went to her dad’s.”
“Where’s Lor and Jude?”
Quinn’s lips flatten into a straight line. “They’re trying to get a meeting with Lola Vice.”
I frown. “Lola Vice? Dino’s mother? Why?”
Quinn guides me into her office and hands me a cream card invitation. I take it from her and read what it says, written in beautiful italic script.
The pleasure of your company is requested at the marriage uniting
Viola Harper-Black
and
Kardinal Vice
Sunday, the seventh of May
at six o'clock in the evening
Harper Black Estate
34 Americas Hill, London, UK
Reception to follow
“The boys got one a few days ago,” says Quinn, watching my face for a reaction. “I take it you already know about this?”
I nod. “Has anyone seen Dino?”
Quinn shakes her head. “No, and they won’t let anyone see him. That’s another reason the boys went to Lola. They’re still trying to find him. They’re hoping his mother would know.”
I take all this in and then hand the card back to Quinn. Marrying Dino isn’t the worst thing in the world. He’s alive and not dead, which means I didn’t kill him. But I never want to marry anyone. After what happened to my mother, marriage seems like an empty set of promises—ones I can’t keep.
The wedding means nothing, it changes nothing. I have three people to kill, and then I can sleep—Gigi, my father, and possibly Dante if he is indeed working with Adrien, and this is all an act. I may have let him fuck me, but that was an itch to scratch, nothing more.
“Are you going ahead with it?” Quinn asks as she walks around the back of her desk, taking a seat in her chair.