Chapter 15 Presley
Presley
“Try slowly easing into it.” My cousin’s voice echoed from my phone, where I’d placed her.
My fingers wrapped around the handlebars as I slowly drew my knees up, and then I let out a grunt as the exercise machine began to wobble.
“Presley, you’re not even trying. This really isn’t even hard,” Carter chided while she watched me from the phone screen.
“This isn’t built right!” I shouted at her as I toppled off the small exercise machine and rolled to my back.
Carter sighed as if she was the most disappointed coach ever. “I’m going to recommend you stay away from any reformer machines while in this Pilates era that you’ve stepped in.”
“What’s a reformer?” I asked, breathless.
Carter held her hands out in front of the screen as if she needed to stop me. “Don’t look it up. I’m serious, I think you’ll kill yourself, trying it. You need to go back to the boxing ring and gloves and whatever else Scotty drilled into you.”
The memory of the email sitting in my inbox came back, making me wince.
I’d been avoiding this for a week. Hiding, like an animal in the only wing of the manor, not inhibited by someone who hurt me, or who birthed me.
I needed space and time to come to terms with everything circling my head.
The anger at the twins, the ache I had for Adrian, which was confusing in a different way.
He’d been confusingly silent these past few days, where previously he’d been texting me.
Especially after I had inspected the image he’d sent, and I came to terms with who was in that photo.
I wanted to talk about it with someone, but Adrian wasn’t responding, and the twins were…
well, they wouldn’t ever be an option again.
I could go to Alex, but I was nervous she’d pull her family into it out of fear of how it might impact them.
I wasn’t sure if it would, and if I was being selfish by not saying something.
There wasn’t a clear path forward other than avoidance, which was why I was here, trying to get back into shape by using Carter’s mysterious workout equipment that looked as though an ironing board and thigh master had blended into one machine, equipped to tone my thighs, abs, and hopefully my ass.
“I gotta go, you’re doing that creepy silent thing.
” Carter sighed before hanging up. I missed her.
But I was glad she was safe and happy, wherever she and her family were at the moment.
They didn’t want to tell any of us, which hurt…
but I couldn’t focus on it as I knew it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with my fucked-up family, and the twins.
I stood from my spot on the floor and glanced around the empty walls that now seemed to cage me in. My laptop sat on the coffee table, calling me back to it as if I could somehow decode what the fuck to do merely by staring at that photo again.
But, as if called by a siren, I shoved the top of the screen up and watched as the image immediately came to life.
The grainy image depicted a white building with a lit-up doorway that another man walked underneath.
Dark hair and an unmistakable jaw that nearly matched Adrian’s was clear in the picture, and there behind that man, carrying a gun, was a man who shaped me more distinctly than my own father had.
Scotty.
A heavy knock at my door had me slamming the laptop shut. “Son of a bitch.”
I knew it was Gio based off the knock. He’d been stopping by nearly every day this week, and even after I had cut up and practically shredded every single marigold he’d brought me and tossed it on his bed while he was sleeping, the idiot still managed to show up with that annoying knock.
“Leave me alone!” I called toward the door, hoping he’d hear.
The knocking stopped, which meant he likely had.
I sagged in relief, back to staring at nothing while trying to piece together what exactly it meant that my uncle was the one who had killed Adrian’s father.
It meant he had lied to me and knowingly placed me in danger by encouraging the relationship and marriage with Adrian.
It meant he’d framed my father.
It meant there was a chance he’d lied about other things as well.
God knew how many other things. He was my mentor…
my trainer. The man who was more involved in my upbringing than my own father was.
I felt like I had been shaped and practically formed in his image, and now every piece of me carried some mark of his.
I refused to look deeper into what it meant that he had placed me in danger, or how it began to pull at the thread in my mind of exactly how I was ever going to trust him again.
I was staring off into space with the computer open in my lap when suddenly there was movement off to my right.
“Why are you ignoring Gio?” Kingston stood next to the stairs, with his arms crossed and an angry scowl on his face.
I screamed, tossing the laptop. “How the hell did you get in here?”
My voice came out shrill as I tried to mentally play catch up.
“You know how I got in here.” He rolled his eyes.
Yes, the fourth floor…where the balcony leads out to the roof, connecting to the rest of the house. I slowly shifted so I could reach the computer and shield the screen from him.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
He took two steps forward, tapering his gaze so that it was shrewd and unforgiving. “I didn’t fucking stutter, Presley.”
“Neither. Did. I,” I replied just as shrewdly in return.
We stared at one another, neither of us moving until he finally broke first, flicking that ire in his eyes to the open screen that was now on the coffee table.
“What is that?” He covered the space between us in less than two strides. I went to reach for the laptop right as he pulled it up.
“Kingston.” My fingers wrapped around the bottom, but his instantly covered them, and then he let them linger while he stared at the screen.
“What am I looking at, Presley?”
Fuck. I yanked the device as hard as I could, but all it did was make him lose his footing and fall forward. The laptop dropped to the couch, and his palm landed next to my head, pressing into the sofa. Our faces were inches apart as he glared down at me, ruthlessly and angrily.
My eyes searched his, as if they were convinced, apart from what my mind and heart had warned them of, they could somehow dig through those amber irises and find the boy who once protected us. The one who grew up doing anything and everything to ensure we were safe and cared for.
“You’re being needlessly cruel to Gio,” Kingston rasped.
I wet my lips, not on purpose, but my mouth was so fucking dry since he’d walked in. He seemed to burn everything when he entered a room. “Why do you care if I’m mean to Gio? I’d be just as mean to you if you gave a shit.”
He smirked. “I don’t, though. So, perhaps you should give the twin who still does a shot.”
“I’ll pass. Thanks, though.” I smiled up at him sweetly.
He clenched his jaw, obviously fighting through something, but I didn’t care anymore.
I slid under his arm and shot off the couch, leaving my laptop behind.
Damn him–if he looked at the picture, he could put two and two together.
I’d already deleted the email from Adrian and only kept the image downloaded to my computer.
My back was to him as I began to scale the steps, one at a time, when I heard him ask, “This is Scotty…he’s killing someone who looks—”
“Kingston, drop it.”
He paused, glancing up at me. “Tell me what happened.”
“No.” I turned to leave again, but Kingston stopped me again with his words from where he stood below, “You need protection…if Adrian was desperate to get you out and this picture shows Scotty killing someone... He put you in harm’s way, didn’t he?”
“You just got done saying that you didn’t give a shit about me.” I challenged with a bit of a scoff.
His cold gaze flicked over to something in the corner of the room. I followed his gaze to the plant, completely dead inside its planter. Something passed through his eyes when he finally snapped the laptop shut and tossed it to the couch. He tucked his hands into his pockets and shook his head.
“Stop being cruel to Gio. For the record, he never wanted to fuck and leave you. That was all me. He never wanted to punish you. He never wanted to lose you, Presley. Forgive him.”
My heart hammered out a warning in my chest.
I should have listened instead of making my way down the steps. “And you did want to do all those things?”
I stood in front of Kingston as he glared at the freckles spread across my nose.
“Obviously.”
“Why? I didn’t deserve your cruelty.” That warning in my chest beat out a steady drum, but I just ignored it and kept pushing.
Kingston’s face twisted in pain as he got even closer, until our faces were close. “Why? You broke my heart, Presley. Fucking shattered it, and you don’t think you’re owed a little cruelty for it?”
“You broke me first, asshole,” I seethed.
His head tilted to the side as he smirked. “Well then, let us stay broken, Presley. I know I am.”
“I don’t believe you.” An angry tear made its way down my face.
He watched as it slowly rolled down my cheek, then a shuddered expression took over his face before he wiped up the wetness from my face with his thumb.
“I only came here to tell you to start talking to Gio. You and I, we’re over, but you and my brother still have a chance. Don’t ruin that.”
With that, he turned and walked down the hall until he was exiting the front door.
My mother and I hadn’t spoken since I returned.
At least not in any real depth. I had hugged her, told her I was safe, and then explained that I just needed a little space.
She hadn’t questioned it, likely because I had kept in touch with her while I was in Italy.
While I hadn’t shared all the details, I had shared enough that she wouldn’t feel like she was completely in the dark.