Chapter 3 #2
He must have thought he’d seen a ghost. I remembered that odd look he’d given me that day in class, when he’d ground to a halt as our eyes met, but I’d never really thought about it again.
I’d been too busy freaking out that a literal movie star was sitting next to me.
I’d never stopped to consider why he’d reacted like that.
“Brodie Kellar saved my life.” I said the words out loud, testing them against my current fragile sanity, and I found that it felt right. “And he never told me.”
That sat weirdly in my chest, like a weight I couldn’t quite expel. He could have used that information at any point to draw us closer together. Instead, he’d tried to build a relationship as if we’d never met and I didn’t owe him a massive blood debt.
Andrew’s arms flexed against my back. “Yes, and Lacey saved it today. You can’t keep risking yourself like this, in case there’s no one there the next time to save you.”
“Exactly.” A rough growl filled the room, and there was nothing out of character for that animalistic sound to come from Connor. “You need to be able to protect yourself moving forward.”
Andrew released me suddenly, as if he’d forgotten the way he was holding me together, keeping me from shattering into a million broken pieces. But I’d never forget. For everything he’d done and said over the past many months, today felt like a small sliver of a breakthrough for us.
A breakthrough where this cold, clinical, OCD of a man finally showed his human side. A side I was afraid I quite liked.
Connor stepped into the room, his face set in hard lines, Ethan right behind him.
The professor rushed over to wrap me in his arms, and ignoring the little pains that accompanied his tight embrace, I relaxed into his familiar and comforting scent.
Not before catching sight of Andrew glaring down at the wet patch on his shirt, and for the first time since I was almost shot again, I felt the urge to chuckle.
Maybe I’d finally cracked or…maybe Andrew had.
“Lillith,” Ethan whispered roughly against my throat. “I fucking died a hundred times today as we raced toward you. We almost lost you.”
The panic threatened to return with those words, so I pulled away to stare into the perfection of his green eyes.
Even darkened with his worry, that color soothed and calmed me in a way nothing else ever had.
“I’m sorry I worried you all,” I said, turning to acknowledge Andrew in that, who was once again wearing a blank, unreadable expression.
“I didn’t realize I was still being hunted.
I honestly had no idea I was in that much danger outside of these walls. ”
Connor snarled, the sound tearing from his chest. “Next time you think to sneak out, brat, I’m going to take you over my damn knee and remind you why that’s a very bad idea.”
My insides tightened in a way that had me confused if he wanted that to be a deterrent or not. Ethan’s chuckle drew my attention back to his face, his hold on me looser. “Why don’t you look remotely concerned by my little brother’s threat?”
The glass Connor had just snatched up to fill with whiskey smashed against the wall and we all jumped. “I’m not little or your fucking brother, asshole.”
Drama queen.
With that, he stormed from the room, leaving me with Ethan and Andrew. My instinct was to race out after the angry gangster, but there was something I desperately needed to know first. “Why did you come after me today expecting I would be in danger? What do you all know that I’m in the dark about?”
Andrew sucked in a deep breath and then gestured to the couch. “You should sit. This is going to take a minute.”
Not wanting to delay, I grasped Ethan’s hand and dragged him to the couch with me. We both collapsed together, and his arm draped around me, warm and comforting, even as my focus was locked on Andrew.
“You and I grew up together, Eve.”
His first line would have knocked me on my ass if I wasn’t already sitting down. “We…we did what now?” I blinked a dozen times, wondering if my brain was malfunctioning again.
Andrew nodded, his hand rubbing against the wet patch on his shirt, which was clearly bothering him. “Yes. You no doubt don’t remember because you’re a couple of years younger. But my mom and your dad went to school together, and long before she was anyone of real importance, they were friends.”
“Your mom and my dad?” At this stage I was just blankly repeating words back to him. “I thought you felt familiar when we first met, but I dismissed it as you being the president’s son, expecting I’d seen you on television before.” A horrible thought crossed my mind.
“Ew, wait, are we related?” The idea made my stomach churn, because I’d definitely thought about Andrew naked once or twice.
He scowled. “What? No. Gross.”
Phew. Okay, then. “What happened? Why did we stop hanging out?”
Andrew shrugged, hands stilling on his shirt.
“Honestly, I don’t even know. Your dad picked you up one day and you never returned.
I asked Mom for months where you were, but she would never tell me, not even when you were my first—” He cut himself off, clearing his throat.
“Anyways, your father eventually showed up again, and after a few years I figured out that he worked as an independent contractor for my family.”
“Doing what?” I asked, leaning forward. I knew almost nothing about my father, outside of him dumping me on the Lewis’s doorstep.
Andrew’s full lips thinned as he answered. “They called him Mr. Fix-It. As in, he would fix messes in a way that wasn’t fully legal.”
He looked at me like he was expecting that information to be confusing or painful, but I wasn’t surprised.
I’d always assumed my father was into shit that wasn’t exactly on the up and up, just simply by how he acted when he abandoned me.
And everything I’d learned since by eavesdropping on the Lewis’s hushed conversations.
“How do you and this school tie into it now though?” I asked.
There was no way it was a coincidence that I ended up at Meadowridge College.
In fact, I got the feeling that my initial questions about how I’d not only made the exclusive cut to be here, and afforded the insane tuition, was standing over the top of me rubbing at a wet spot on his shirt.
“Your father fixed one of my messes once,” Andrew finally said, “and I owed him for that. He called me before you enrolled here and said to make sure that one, you got in, and two, I kept you safe while you were here. He said that the shooter at your last college wasn’t random or an obsessed stalker.
He said he was sent as a threat to your father.
A threat he was going to deal with, but he needed you safe until that happened. ”
My insides tightened. “Over twenty people died,” I whispered. “Are you telling me that innocent people were murdered all because my father is a bad man who fixes problems so rich and powerful people don’t go to jail?”
There was a note of hysteria in my voice as I tried to wrap my head around what that meant.
“Did he know I was going to be targeted? Did he just leave it all until it happened, and then dealt with it afterwards?”
Andrew looked more and more uncomfortable as I got more and more upset. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’ve spoken to him just that one time before you arrived, and then his burner phone went dead. I have no more information.”
“What about your mom?” Ethan asked, speaking up for the first time, his voice hard. “Does she know where Eve’s father is or how to get in touch with him?”
“Once I get Haze sorted,” Andrew said, “that’s the next question I’m asking her.”
He wasn’t the only one with questions. So many unanswered questions crashed through my mind until I felt like I was going to pass out.
“This is a lot,” I whispered, scrubbing my hands over my face. “I think I just need a minute to process.” I pushed up off the couch, and Ethan stood with me, clearly intending to follow me up to my room, but I waved him off. “I just kind of need to be alone for a bit. Is that okay?”
Ethan’s worried expression suggested he wanted to argue, but Andrew chose that moment to return to his usual snarky, prickish personality.
“Don’t go sneaking out your window again.
Even cats only get nine lives.” Great, apparently we were thinking the same now.
Clearly, I’d already spent too long in this house with these men.
Men who remained shrouded in mystery, even as I slowly picked away at their secrets.
One by one. they would be revealed, and I had no idea who would be standing when the truth finally came out.