Chapter 27
Zoltán
In the grand scheme of things, I knew very little English. My knowledge had grown, thanks to Fia, which was the only reason I knew things were about to get worse.
I was used to people talking about me in front of me, thinking I didn’t understand. They didn’t even try to hide their gossip as I was led through the tunnels. They paused when they saw me, but it was just that. A second.
“Zoltán…”
“… Fia…”
“Related… relationship.”
We were exposed just as we crumbled.
My body was sluggish. My eyes were heavy, my feet nearly tripped over each other as I was flanked on both sides for my walk of shame.
They spoke to me like I was an idiot. “Locker. Empty.”
I didn’t respond. I had only asked one question since Fia left that interrogation, taking away any need for me to speak.
Anyone else could think what they wanted.
She hadn’t picked up my calls, and then it didn’t even ring. She must have turned her phone off.
I stared at the Veltar door. Our font in black and purple. How had I not seen it before? We were the colour of bruises.
What stood beyond this door was likely to be more chaos and angry words that I could only half understand.
And Imre.
He was about to make this all about him.
Livie had told me it was all out there now. I was not to speak to anyone about it. When I asked her how Fia was, she shook her head and bit her tongue before leaving abruptly.
The world was trying to keep us apart.
I kicked the door and walked through, my bodyguards in sync with me.
Not enough to avoid walking into me when I stopped short.
She was in her locker, looking over her shoulder at me, mouth parted, her phone trembling in her hands. It was on. She’d blocked me. Silenced me. The only person I could really talk to.
“Can we talk?” I asked her.
Imre stepped forward, and I was so done with this man’s shit — or shite as Fia called it — I waved a hand at him, ready for him to grumble some nonsense I wasn’t going to listen to.
She ignored me, shoving her phone in her back pocket and slamming her locker closed.
“Fia,” I begged.
“Locker. Empty.”
Fia snapped around to glare at the guard who spoke to me, went to retort, but didn’t. She shoved her bag strap on her shoulder and went to walk past me. I didn’t touch her, but I reached out to stop her from leaving me.
“You want to talk?” she snapped. “I’ve lost my placement.
My master’s degree. They think I did this for you because they think I loved you.
My name is muddied with yours. My career is over before it even started because I trusted you.
” She shook her head, laughing. “Like I believed that you were with me for some reason other than some fucking step-sibling kink—” Imre made a gag-like noise no one cared for — “or to get someone to be your fall guy for your fraudulent medical report. Well, you got what you wanted. Now let me leave.”
“Fia, please. I didn’t know. Let me explain.”
“How could you not know?” she cried. “You were lightheaded. You threw up!”
“I’m allowed to be unwell every now and then. At no point did anyone tell me I could never race again — I’ve seen doctors, I’ve—”
“Every time you lie to me, it makes me less likely to ever hear from you again. It taints everything we had.”
“Have, Fia. What we have.”
She closed her eyes and pursed her lips. “I hate you,” she forced out in English. Maybe it felt safer than Hungarian, because Hungarian was our secret, our truth. If she said ‘gy?lollek,’ it would be forever; a promise she couldn’t break.
“And I love you,” I told her, slow and deliberate, in English because every word was a fight, just how I would fight for her. Saying it in Hungarian was too easy, too obvious. She’d heard it before.
“It doesn’t change how—how… I hate you.”
I could only smile sadly, every syllable raw and heavy, “Coward. Say it in Hungarian.”
Her eyes were so red from tears, and her lashes fluttered as she swallowed and went to speak, but faltered. I stepped forward, taking her face in my hands. “Say it, Fia.”
She couldn’t. The tears in her big, beautiful eyes threatened to fall, her eyes flitting from one of mine to the other. This couldn’t be the last time I would see them. See her. Not full of tears I’d caused — not full of pain.
Her hand trembled as she held my forearm, but didn’t push me away. “You have ruined everything I have worked so hard on. You have used me. Broken me. You don’t get to see me rebuild myself. You don’t get to be a part of the new life I build, Zoltán.”
And I didn’t know if that was worse than her hatred.
I pressed my forehead against hers. “Please, Fia. Please. I just need five minutes of your time. I can explain everything. Please.”
I didn’t even know if I understood everything I’d just been told. But, together, we could. She was rational. Clever. We’d be able to fight this.
She closed her eyes and breathed in and out through pursed lips. I inhaled her, my hands still on her warm, flushed skin, so very alive under my touch, knowing she was slipping from me, and there was nothing I could do.
“I hate you,” she said in our language.
I flinched, and her eyes opened as tears escaped, some clinging to her lashes.
With gentle thumbs, I tried to brush them away, even though I knew the pain cut far deeper.
She deserved better. She should hate me.
Her soft, delicate fingers pulled my hand off her face, and, swallowing down all my protests, I let my hold slip to her wrist.
She winced, jerked back, and pulled down her fleece. But I saw it. The red marks. “Fia—” my voice was raw and urgent, but she glared at me.
“Zoltán, if you ever cared about me, you’ll let me go.”
I stepped aside, and she darted for the door, her bag hitting her side with her quick steps.
I heard every step until she vanished from all of my senses.
Gone. She was gone.
“Zoltán,” Imre started, but I shook my head at him.
“Scold me later,” I sighed and went to her locker before mine, still hopeful that maybe this was some show for the press and maybe she’d left me a sign.
It was empty. Like she’d never been there at all.
I opened my locker, hauled out my nearly empty bag, and looked inside. I only brought it with me so I could have a locker next to hers and talk to her in front of Imre without raising suspicion. That morning, I’d asked how her love life was going, emphasising the ‘love.’
How was it just yesterday she’d told me she loved me?
For every kiss down her stomach in bed, I’d made her repeat it until she gave herself the hiccups with her laughter.
I looked at my phone, deleting all the notifications with one press so they didn’t cover her. I’d changed my background from her throat to one of her smiling with her tomato plant. It only took two swipes to change it back when I was going to be out in public or with her dad.
Now, there was no point in hiding it.
I was going to get her job back. She would have everything she had worked for, and I had taken.
The first thing I needed to do was find my brother.