“Are you going to get in the way?” I ask her outright, keeping my voice level.
She gives a harsh laugh. “No, why would I. She’s not going to stay put afterward. You know that, right? She always runs. How long have you known her?”
“A lot longer than you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, it’s not a competition. You’re just the same as those schoolboys. Infatuated beyond common sense.”
“And you’re not,” I snort.
“Touche,” she says with a smirk and then lapses into silence when Duke wanders back drinking water, staring at his phone.
“Why do I feel like this is the fucking storm before the shitshow?” he says to no one in particular.
“Because this is Viola, and she doesn’t do calm,” Quinn says, stopping her running to look at him, wiping her brow with her arm. “Why, what’s the matter?”
“There’s been a rampage of killings during the night throughout London.” He looks over at the two others seated. “Have you seen this? It’s fucking carnage. They think it’s fucking gang-related.”
Quinn looks at me while Duke carries on, but I’ve heard enough.
As Jude and Vice walk over, I grab my towel and leave them to it. I have things to do before the ceremony. I’m wasting time. Adrien will have seen the news by now.
Adrien’s officeis open when I walk into it. Gigi is on the far side of the room dressed in black—my usual signature color. Instead, I’m wearing royal blue. She practically bristles at me when I walk in.
Adrien does too. There’s no love lost between us. And the look he gives me straight away is enough to tell me he knows. Adrien isn’t stupid.
“When the fuck were you going to tell me? What kind of fucking fool do I look like? My own fucking agency, taking out the damned ring?” he booms.
I’m aware of Gigi pointing her weapon at me.
All this for the sake of Adrien’s childhood sweetheart cheating on him.
It makes me sick.
“I gave the order,” I admit. “Because it’s my agency.” I look him in the eyes, daring him to correct me. I earned it. I never asked for anything and got sweet fuck all from him. The agency is all I have.
It’s mine.
Just like V.
“Give me one goddamn reason why I shouldn’t gun you down where you fucking stand.”
“Try it, Edrei,” I say, using the name his Croatian-Serbian parents gave him at birth. The one he used to terrorize Italy with before coming to England and reinventing himself. “Just fucking try it.”
I promised V I’d let her kill him.
She’s going to be the one to pull the trigger, not me.
“If you weren’t my fucking flesh and blood…” he grimaces.
I smirk at him. The secret has always been there, festering, hiding. V is not his daughter at all, but I am his son.
What’s the best way to stay hidden from your enemies?Become someone else and lie to fucking everyone, including your own family.
“You hate that I am, don’t you. That pretty blonde out there isn’t even yours, and you’d much rather have her take your name than me because of who her mother is, isn’t that right, Edrei Savino,” I say, sticking the metaphorical knife right in.
“Never…never call me that name again,” Adrien says in a dangerous tone. “Or I won’t hesitate to put you down, boy.”
That was his one rule when he revealed himself to me on my twelfth birthday—never to call him my father or Edrei Savino to his face, and he would give me the agency. I know now that was just a carrot he dangled to get me to do his dirty work for him all these years. I was never going to be his heir. He wanted a girl, especially a pretty one. He wanted someone he could manipulate.