I can’t believe this. After they spat in our face in our very own house, he wants to call them up and negotiate. It’s insane. It’s cowardly.
My father can see the mutiny in my eyes.
“Give me your phone,” he says. He waits, hand outstretched, until I give it to him. It was in my pocket when I jumped in the lake, so it’s useless anyway.
“I’m going to contact Enzo Gallo,” he repeats. “You will stay here until I send for you. You won’t speak to anyone. You won’t call anyone. You won’t step foot outside this house. Do you understand me?”
“You’re grounding me?” I scoff. “I’m a grown man, father. Don’t be ridiculous.”
He takes off his glasses so his pale blue eyes can bore all the way into my soul.
“You are my eldest child and my only son, Callum,” he says. “But I promise you, if you disobey me, I will cut you out, root and branch. I have no use for you if you can’t be trusted. I will strike you down like Icarus if your ambition outstrips your orders. Do you understand?”
Every cell of my body wants to tell him to take his fucking money, and his connections, and his so-called genius and shove it right up his ass.
But this man is my father. My family is everything to me—without them, I’d be a ship without rudder or sail. I’m nothing if I’m not a Griffin.
So I have to nod my head, submitting to his orders.
Inside I’m still boiling, the heat and pressure building.
I don’t know when or how. But if something doesn’t change between us soon, I’m going to explode.
5
Aida
My brothers are down in the basement, suiting up. Or at least, Dante and Nero are. Sebastian is still at the hospital with my father. His knee is fucked, that much is certain. Ribs are broken, too. I can’t bear the look of misery on his face. His season is ruined. Possibly the rest of his career. God, he might not even walk right after this.
And it’s all my fault.
The guilt is like a shroud, wrapping around and around and around my head. Each glance at Sebastian, each memory of my idiocy, is like another layer wrapping around my face. Soon it will smother me.
I wanted to stay with Sebastian, but Papa snapped at me to go home.
There I found Dante and Nero strapping on bulletproof vests and ammo belts, arming themselves with half the guns in the house.
“Where are you going?” I ask them nervously.
“We’re going to kill Callum Griffin, obviously,” Nero says. “Maybe the rest of his family, too. I haven’t decided yet.”
“You can’t hurt Nessa,” I say quickly. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
Neither did Riona, but I don’t have the same sense of charity toward her.
“Maybe I’ll just break her knee, then,” Nero says carelessly.
“We’re not doing anything to Nessa,” Dante growls. “This is between us and Callum.”
By the time they’re ready to leave, they look like a cross between Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator.
“Let me come with you,” I beg.
“No fucking way,” Nero says.
“Come on!” I shout. “I’m part of this family, too. I’m the one that helped Sebastian get away, remember?”
“You’re the one who got him in that mess to start with,” Nero hisses at me. “Now we’re going to clean it up. And you’re staying here.”
He shoulder-checks me on his way by, knocking me roughly against the wall.
Dante is marginally kinder, but equally serious.
“Stay here,” he says. “Don’t make this worse.”
I don’t give a shit what they say. The moment they leave, I’m out the door, too. So I follow them up the stairs, not knowing exactly what I’m going to do, but knowing I’m not going to be left here waiting like a naughty puppy.
But before Dante is even halfway up the stairs, his phone buzzes in his pocket.
He picks up, saying, “What is it?” in a tone that makes me certain that it’s Papa on the other end of the line.
Dante waits, listening, for a long time. Then he says, “I understand.”
He hangs up. He’s looking at me with the strangest expression on his face.
“What is it?” Nero says.
“Take off that vest,” Dante says to Nero. “Aida, go change your clothes.”
“Why? Into what?”
“Something clean that doesn’t look like shit,” he snaps at me. “Do you own anything like that?”
Maybe. Possibly not, by Dante’s standards.
“Fine,” I say. “But where are we going?”
“We’re going to meet with the Griffins. Papa said to bring you.”
Well. Shit.
I didn’t much enjoy my last meeting with Callum Griffin.
I’m really not looking forward to a second. I doubt his temper was improved by a swim in the lake.
And what to wear to such an event?
I think the only dress I own is the Wednesday Adams costume I wore last Halloween.
I settle on a gray turtleneck and slacks, even though it’s too hot for that, because it’s about the only thing I have that’s sober and clean.
When I pull the shirt over my head, it sets the knot on the back of my skull throbbing again, reminding me how Callum Griffin shoved me aside like a rag doll. He’s strong under that suit. I’d like to see him face off against Dante or Nero—when he doesn’t have his bodyguard along for the ride.
That’s what we should do—tell them we want a meeting, then ambush the motherfuckers. Callum had no problem attacking us on the pier. We should return the favor.
I’m amping myself up the whole time I’m getting dressed, so I’m practically vibrating with tension by the time I slide into the back of Dante’s Escalade.
“Where are we meeting them?” I ask him.
“At The Brass Anchor,” Dante says shortly. “Neutral ground.”
It only takes a few minutes to drive to the restaurant on Eugenie Street. It’s past midnight now, and the building is dark, the kitchen closed. However, I see Fergus Griffin waiting out front, along with two bruisers. Wisely, he didn’t bring the shit stain that stomped on Sebastian’s leg.
I don’t see Callum anywhere. Looks like Daddy put him in time-out.
We wait in the SUV until Papa pulls up as well. Then all four of us get out at the same time. When Dante slides out of the front seat, I see the bulge under his jacket that shows he’s still carrying. Good. I’m sure Nero is, as well.
As we walk toward Fergus Griffin, his eyes are fixed on me and me alone. He’s looking me up and down, like he’s evaluating every aspect of my appearance and demeanor on some kind of chart inside of his head. He doesn’t look very impressed.
That’s fine, because to me he looks just as cold and arrogant and phony-genteel as his son. I refuse to drop his gaze, stubbornly staring straight back at him without a hint of remorse.
“So this is the little arsonist,” Fergus says.
I could tell him it was an accident, but that’s not strictly true. And I’m not apologizing to these bastards.