8. Isolde
Isolde
“He takes his job seriously, doesn’t he?”
I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know who he’s talking about. I’ve felt Tristan’s eyes on me since I sat down in the booth.
Hadrian had already arrived, taking over a booth up front, in an area of the restaurant where I never sit.
“What’s going on?” I asked him when I arrived.
Hadrian stopped typing out emails, slipping his phone back into his inner jacket pocket. “Where would you like to start?”
People accuse Tristan of being grumpy, but he’s got nothing on the cold steely nature of Hadrian Hallow.
“This is the guy?” I had asked my sister, the first time I ever met him.
It’d been her third and final year at Oxford and we’d gone to a pub nearby. Crowded and hot, the place did little to lighten my mood after struggling to get to Oxford thanks to various rail strikes. I’d have preferred a takeaway and movie, but Sammie had pleaded for me to go out.
“He’s not the one,” she told me point blank. “But he’s hot and misunderstood and I think you’ll like him.”
I’d taken one look at the git and snorted. How the fuck did my sister think I’d get on with this guy?
He is the complete opposite of the Matheson’s.
He has a trust fund. Everyone correctly assumed he’d graduate from Oxford.
Growing up, the electricity at home would shut off on a monthly basis. People thought of my sister as the girl who had achieved something great because Oxford let her join their ranks.
Sammie was golden.
She had the same blonde hair and blue eyes as I do, but they sparkled. People mistake my blank face for stupid or angry all the time. Sammie, on the other hand, walked in a cloud of merriment.
She was taller than me, despite being younger, and her muscles lithe. She could wear anything and everything and attract attention.
Her favorite thing to eat was candy. I know she’d enjoy the smutty books Lennie picks out for book club. She never struggled to bring guys home.
Hadrian wasn’t like any of the guys she’d ever dated before, though.
Sure, she’d gone out with posh pricks before, but to put it simply she attracted golden retrievers. Easygoing guys who liked football and beer.
He showed up to the pub on a Friday night wearing a three-piece suit.
“Did he come from work or something?” I asked Sammie as she waved to get his attention.
“No.” She laughed. Even with the crowd I could catch the sugary scent of her vanilla perfume. “That’s just Hadrian. Didn’t I tell you he was hot?”
“And misunderstood,” I replied.
There’s no denying both.
Dark hair, green eyes, and a sharp jawline ensure plenty of women and men glance his way. I can’t imagine him at a place like Leon’s but the cut of his broad shoulders and muscles imply he goes to the gym.
Then there’s the tailored clothes. He likes his fashion, though, it rarely goes beyond a nice suit in a dark blue. One pair of his Italian loafers are probably worth more than the entire collection of shoes in my closet.
I keep thinking about buying him an ‘I Love NYC’ shirt for Christmas.
The thing is, he’d most likely smile if I did.
He might come across as a complete arse, but my sister wouldn’t have given him the time of day if he was.
“Hadrian Hallow,” he’d introduced himself that night in the pub.
I’m sure I’d made a face at the gesture, polite as it was.
And he politely ignored the face I made.
“Isolde,” I’d replied, finally shaking hands. The pub’s music thrummed so loud, it’d made my teeth clench.
Hadrian bought us food and drinks all night, hardly adding a word while Sammie caught me up on all her friends and classmates.
The whole time she spoke, I’d kept wondering when she was going to get rid of Hadrian. There was no way the pair of them would really last.
Now the two of us are sitting in Fujimori’s in New York City and Sammie’s a ghost.
“Tris told me you’re the one paying,” I tell him, pausing to tell Jane thanks after she places a fresh Coke in front of me.
“And Tris”—I ignore the emphasis he places on the nickname—“told me Callahan had already tried to pay.”
“Tried being the operative word, right?” Money never gets in Hadrian’s way.
He grew up here, raised by his dad along with his older brother. I’m not sure how his mum died, but his father married Andrea Petrova. Most think of the Zimins and Akatovs when they think of the Bratva. But Petrova’s worked her way up there as well.
His dad, William Hallow’s, business dealings are all supposedly on the up and up. You get to a certain level, though, and it’s easy to believe you’re doing right. So long as the money comes in.
Hadrian is gray. It’s the only way I’ve ever been able to describe him.
His step-mum is the Bratva, his dad a first-rate businessman. He knows the cash in his savings accounts isn’t clean, no matter what.
Sometimes he uses it for good. Charities and galas. Other times he’ll pay a triggerman to kill a man who raped and killed his girlfriend.
And, like me, he doesn’t regret this use of his money. Hadrian understands that the world isn’t good and bad. It’s swirling, shades of dark gray.
There’s no balance. Sometimes things are cloudy. Sometimes sunlight peeks in.
It just depends on which corrupt motherfucker—and we’re talking about both criminal syndicates and government—is in charge at the time.
“Are you complaining about me helping you?”
Hadrian’s face is like mine. People always think I’m either angry or staring off stupidly. Hadrian’s natural grimace adds to the stereotypical arrogance that so many people easily attach to him.
The truth is, Hadrian has helped me out a lot more than I’ve ever helped him.
He paid me a shit ton of money, hiring me for my first kill. When I started out as a triggerman, people might have thought I was inexperienced, but with the name Hallow whispered about, it gave me a leg up.
He helped me get to New York when I didn’t have any other options.
“I’m saying it’s unnecessary,” I say as Jane places our food in front of us. The quick and efficient woman lingers like she wants to be a part of this conversation.
One dismissive flick of his eyes sends her away and sets me on edge.
I might see him better than I did that first night in the pub, but there’s no excusing his occasional prickish ways.
Hadrian picks up his fork. “Is Cade still trying to kill you?”
I pick my own fork up, not answering.
“Then I’m not sure what argument you think you’re making.” He takes a bite.
I don’t mind getting dinner with Hadrian, but we normally meet up at a bar attached to a five-star hotel. Hadrian must recognize that I keep him away from my friends. It’s not that I don’t think, if he really tried, he couldn’t get along with them.
But I keep him tucked away. And he allows it, because if he didn’t like it, he wouldn’t.
It’s Tristan’s gaze, warming the skin on the back of my neck, that has me lining up my argument. “It’s all a bit dramatic.”
“Saving your life is dramatic.” He says it in his typical bored way, while leaning back in his chair. “I thought you would like it anyway. Having him around. It’s like the start of all those slutty romance novels you read.”
“Don’t do that,” I say, stabbing my fork into my bowl.
“I thought you had a thing for him? Isn’t this perfect. Proximity is key, Isolde, when it comes to love.”
“Do you really want me to respond to that?”
He frowns.
“He’s totally still into his stepsister,” Sammie's ghost confirms, suddenly sitting next to me in the booth. She stares at him dreamily anyway. But then again, she always knew Hadrian liked her rather than loved her.
“So now that you’re back and you’ve had plenty of time to reconnect with M—”
“Matheson, we’re here to discuss your life, not mine.”
As I thought. He loves to deflect.
“He hasn’t stopped looking at you since we got here,” Hadrian says.
“It’s almost like you’re paying him to look after me.”
“If only you had proved you didn’t need looking after.”
I wrap a noodle around my fork but don’t lift it to my lips. “I’m not a damsel in distress, so you can cut it out.”
“You’re not a damsel in distress,” he agrees. “You’re much smarter than that, Isolde. Cade has wanted you dead for years now. You should have let me take care of him like I wanted to.”
Hadrian isn’t as controlling as his aloof persona makes people believe. He’s caring in his own sort of way.
“You knew running away wouldn’t end this.” Hadrian takes a bite. “You should have let me hire someone to get rid of him.”
I twirl a new noodle around my fork before letting it slide off the utensil. “Mercenaries on speed dial?”
“You knew he’d come after you. I’m disappointed you let it go on this long.”
My thigh begins to throb. I know it’s all in my head. The scar is healed, or at least as healed as it’ll ever be.
“You know what will happen.”
“Was this why you asked me to dinner?” I set my fork down. “Rub my nose in all the stupid choices I’ve ever made? Yeah, I fucking know what’s going to happen.”
“Then tell me.” Hadrian’s tone isn’t as agitated as mine. He’s spent years wining and dining investors. “Tell me, Isolde, what will happen.”
The condensation on the outside of the plastic cup wets my hand. I swirl my straw around, focusing on the bubbles instead of the bile rising up my throat.
“He’ll send a Spider.”
“He’ll send a Spider,” Hadrian repeats. His eyes glide over my shoulder, staring at the spot my friends sit. “You think your Tris will be able to take on a Spider?”
His words are meant to invoke fear. But I’m more pissed than anything.
“You shouldn’t have brought him into this.”
“You shouldn’t have ignored the problem,” Hadrian replies.
“Right, like how you ignore the way you’ve been a giant arsehole to the girl you love.”
His fingers tighten around his cutlery. “You need help, Isolde. So take the help.”
“Are we back to you hiring the mercenary?”
“You should tell them,” he says. “You’re going to need their help if you really want to do this. Take Cade on.”
I will not drag my friends into Cade’s mess of misery.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Hadrian spears his food, not needing to voice his opinion. We’ve had this conversation several times now.