“I doubt Jesus Christ had anything to do with her pending graduation,” Char drawls, eyes narrowed on Casey who huffs, stomping her foot in anger.
“This has nothing to do with any of you.” Casey curls her lips in distaste, but I can see the fear in her eyes. “This is between that skank and I.”
I perk up to say something but Roxy steps toward her and whispers something in her ear.
From where I’m standing, I see Casey’s face grow pale. Then she shoots me a deadly look, then she’s gone.
“That goes for the rest of you Les Misérables,” Kendra calls out to the ballet girls. “Scram.”
“What the fuck just happened?” I question, feeling confused as the girls walk toward me.
“Well, it looks like you’re digging your grave a little deeper, aren’t you, Mia?” Roxy starts, eyeing me with a bit of sympathy in her eyes. Why the fuck is she looking at me like that?
“You didn’t have to do that.” I frown. “I had it under control.”
“Oh, there’s no doubt about that, Ice Queen,” Char starts, even her usually sarcastic voice is filled with a twinge of sympathy. What the hell is going on? “But Casey wasn’t going to go away.”
“I had no idea who she was until today.”
“Well, that’s because you’re hot news today,” Kendra says, walking over to me.
“When aren’t I hot topic?” I sigh, feeling so damn tired all of a sudden, but then the silence around me becomes so stark, I can’t help but feel that crippling sense of doom hanging over me.
“What?” I start. Avery looks away, Kendra shakes her head and Char pats my arm like she’s giving me her condolences. “Okay, you four are shit when it comes to holding your tongue. What’s going on?”
I can see the curiosity mixed with irritation in Roxy’s eyes. I sigh, then turn to walk to my car.
“Is there something you want to ask me, Roxy?” I question when she falls in step with me.
“Yeah, can you drop me off at home?”
“Excuse moi?” I stare at her, bewildered. I don’t even know where the girl lives.
“Uh see, they want to go see a movie right now and I want to go home,” she gestures to the rest of the fabulously dressed R.A.C.K. members.
“All four of you have your own cars,” I deadpan and Char laughs.
“Actually, I want all of us to stop making global warming worse. So these days we’re carpooling instead,” Avery chirps, walking like she’s gliding on water.
“Well that’s kind of you,” I murmur. “To the earth.”
“Mia, I didn’t know you still dance,” Kendra starts. “Still want to be like your mom?”
That was the plan….
“No one can touch that woman,” I say instead.
“Yeah,” they all say at once, making me frown. I look at them from one to another, noticing the look on their faces and my heart starts pounding as dread pools in my belly.
“You’re freaking me the fuck out now,” I grumble. “What’s going on? What do you know?” I stare at them, wildly searching for my secrets among the four of them.
“Mia,” Avery starts, looking uncomfortable.
“What do you know?” I stress, watching them.
“Have you checked your phone?” Avery starts, her voice so small, I can hardly hear her.
“No.”
“Listen Mia,” Char starts, stepping closer to me. “There’s a picture circulating social media about you and your family.”
“What picture?” I question, as a tremor starts rocking my feet.
“I don’t think we should do this here—" Avery starts but I cut her off.
“Show me.”
Charlotte types something in her phone, then she passes it to me.
On the screen is a picture of a dirty, poverty-stricken trailer with my mom’s face photoshopped to the body of a dirty woman on her knees giving pleasure to the man standing over her, and he’s got a dollar in his hand, with my father’s face photoshopped to his head.
Bile rises to my throat when I see myself doing the same thing as my mother, but this time around, the guy photoshopped is Shane Matthews.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, feeling sick, disgusted, and faint.
“I’m sorry, Mia,” Char starts, taking her phone away.
“Who did this?” I have a sinking suspicion that I know who did. The threats, the looks, the way he’s been watching me, like a time bomb was counting down and the more I visited Liam in the hospital, the more he got angry.
But could Julian do this?
“Well, from what that bitch just said, I’m sure she knows,” Roxy says, her voice uncharacteristically sympathetic.
“Well, it’s not true,” I say but my voice lacks conviction, the lie hanging over me like a dark cloud. Avery and Kendra look away, but Roxy and Char shake their heads.
“Mia, people have pictures of your house. It’s on sale and we know your dad’s been looking for work almost everywhere,” Char says.
I fall silent, seeing my world collapse right in front of my eyes.
“Is that why you stepped in with her?” I ask, but they don’t answer me, all of them looking away. It all makes sense now. “You thought I was helpless and couldn’t defend myself?”
The way those girls in my ballet class were behaving, making snide comments throughout the session. Their entitlement to ridicule me. All of it. My world has not only imploded but now I’m getting pity saves?
With shame, I turn away from them and run to my car.
“Mia! Calm your tits. We just wanted to help.” Someone, maybe Avery, shouts behind me but I keep going, unlock my new car, reverse recklessly out of the lot and drive away.
I don’t need their help.
I’ve never needed anyone in my corner.
“Who fights for you, little minx?” Julian’s question from forever ago follows me when I sneak into our old house and spend hours in the studio, ignoring my aunt’s calls.
It follows me when I leave around 3am, hit by the urge to see my mother. It hangs over me like the end of my life does, and I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it.
24
She sneaks out of her old house like a little thief, looks around for trouble, then jogs across the street to her parked car. She’s been in there for hours and while I stood there in the shadows, waiting for her to dance the way she normally would, letting loose of everything that she needs relief from, tonight that wasn’t the case.
Tonight, she just sat in the middle of the dirty, almost abandoned studio and stared at herself in the mirror, an empty look on her face, not saying a word, not crying or making a sound.
She just sat there, silently suffering a mental breakdown that she’ll never acknowledge. She’s unraveling, but that’s none of my fucking concern.
But then, there’s something about the way she just sat there, something that didn’t sit right with me. And now as I follow her home, keeping a safe distance like I’ve been doing each night she does this, I’m hit by an overwhelming need to see her finally letting go. I need her to finally feel all those damn emotions she suppresses.
I want her to go through them and I want to see if feeling will break her. If the truth can come out of her sexy mouth. And I have just the right tools to do it.
So, when she goes to park in the driveway, I drive toward the underground garage, right beside Liam’s neon Lambo, then I rush into the house and walk toward the secret stairs Mom had built for Aiden, Liam and I when we were younger.
Aiden slept in the ground floor bedroom, the John gave to Nancy like it meant nothing. Liam had the one on the first floor. I was on the last, but we’ve always been connected one way or another.
I wait in the shadows of the hallway, waiting for her to do her thing. She usually starts by checking in on her mother, but these days, she can’t stand to be in there for more than five minutes.
As if guilt and anger are warring inside of her, so much so that she can’t be who
she really is.
This time though, she doesn’t take longer than a minute to check on Nancy, touche the dark purple, glittering ballet dress she hung in there for her like it means something meaningful to both of them
From the day they moved in, she’s done that all the time. She fingers the fabric with a look of absolute terror on her face, then she slips out of the room, glancing at her mother one last time.
Hmm…
I quickly slip into Nancy’s room, noticing that she’s asleep, and machines are buzzing low. I grab what I need, then follow Mia to her room with my props in one hand and slip in before the door shuts.
Her decision not to switch on the lights to check her surroundings makes me mad like nothing else in this fucked up world. It’s like she doesn’t have any regard to her own safety, unaware of who might be lurking in the dark behind her.
Just like Liam, at times.
I’m the one who has to stay behind him, making sure I see everything that’s coming at him and for him. I’m the one who finishes shit he starts and I’m the one who makes sure that nothing touches him, not even fucked up little poor girls like Mia Montague.
There’s a chair right by the French doors of her room that lead to the beach, so I sit there in the dark, watching her strip out of her clothes. She’s unaware that I’m here, but I know the moment she senses my presence.
With a gasp, she spins around, holding a shirt to her chest, then she notices me sitting there, watching her, but not the items in my lap.
“What are you doing in here?” she demands, her voice is hoarse, scratchy and angry.
“This is my house, I can do or go, where I fucking want to go.” I answer watching, the words Liam said the hospital playing in my head over and over.
“She’s my girlfriend.”
I can read my brother enough to know when he’s pulling my fucking leg, but this time around, I’m not sure, but I need to make sure it doesn’t fucking happen.
“We need to talk,” I start, flicking my zippo on and off, enjoying the hell out of the shadowy glimpses of her naked body I get each time the flame lights up.
“Get out,” she seethes, her eyes dead set on me. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“This isn’t about what you want, Little Minx, this is about what you’re going to do,” I grit out, unable to keep the anger out of my voice. I lose my fucking grip on reality and control when I’m around her. “This is about you staying in your fucking lane.”
“I don’t have a single word to say to you,” she seethes, stepping closer, dropping the shirt in her hands as she stands up taller. “And you don’t get to tell me which lane is mine. I choose my own destiny.”
“Not when it comes to my brother or what’s mine,” I growl. “Not when it comes to everything about your pathetic little life, you don’t.”
She sucks in a breath, and with each flick of the zippo, the flame reveals her sexy body in glimpses, as I stare, her nipples harden and she shivers.
“My pathetic little life?” she reels back like I just hit her. “You did it!”
“Did what?”
“Don’t fucking act all blasé now! You know exactly what you and your disturbingly desperate bitch of a girlfriend did.”
I sit there, thoroughly confused, but I don’t miss the jealousy in her voice or the way her fists clench at her sides. She’s trying her hardest not to act right now, but I know she wants to punch me.
“I don’t have a girlfriend and I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Don’t fucking give me that,” she grits out. “You know exactly what you did with that picture you made sure went viral.”
A picture? What picture?
“You’re the fucking king of St. Jude High, no one does anything without your fucked-up approval, do they? Not even coming for an innocent woman and man who did nothing to you!”
Her distress is intense, her anger mounting in the still of her room as she yells at me. Even now though, she’s trying to check herself like the ice queen she is.
“I know you fucking hate me, but you didn’t have to ridicule my family like that, you asshole!” she yells, her voice breaking.
A picture.
The way she was behaving today.
The look on her face the entire night.
“Who did you see?”
“That’s all you have to say for yourself?” she cries. “Who did I fucking see? Well, I’ll tell you. I saw your messed up in the fucking head girlfriend, who got in my face and threatened me!”
Casey…
“What did she say?” I’m careful to keep my words low and disinterested when inside I’m fuming. Casey went after Mia, even when I tried to make sure that she wouldn’t? That’s a fucking hard line.
Mia’s mine to deal with.
“Don’t sit there like you weren’t the one who sent her like a coward! She marched up to me claiming you, pissing all over your name like I give a damn which cum-bucket you chose to offload your shit in.”
For a moment, I want to laugh, but the outraged look on her face makes me think otherwise.
“Like I said, I don’t have a girlfriend.”
I stare up at her gorgeous face, seeing the anger so clearly, it tightens something in me. When she’s fucking alone, she doesn’t let herself feel but when she’s talking to me, she fucking feels everything, I can see it in her eyes.
“Really? So, some bitch that I don’t even know gets in my face, threatens me and does this to my family randomly?” she cries. “Christ, Julian, there’s a horrible picture with my mother on it floating around the internet! Why would you do that?”
I want to ignore the agony in her voice. I want to ignore the devasted look on her face, but I don’t know how I can do that when I feel everything she’s feeling, but on steroids. It’s like we’re connected in a way I can’t explain.
“I’ll deal with her.” I state, trying to remain calm. Mia frowns at me, shaking her head.
“You let her loose on me,” she seethes. “You let her do it!”
I didn’t…
“And I will make sure she pays for that.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re fucking mine to destroy,” I grit out, the truth of the words tumbling out like a torrent. Whether she believes me or not, I will deal with Casey.
“Yeah, sure, because that’s what you want from me, huh?” she seethes. “Revenge for a brother you won’t ever talk about with your last remaining brother.”
“This isn’t about Aiden.” I growl, fighting for calm.
“Then what Julian? What is it that makes you the devil I can’t escape?”
The feeling’s mutual, Little Minx.
“I told you to stay away from my brother, didn’t I?” I start, flicking the zippo, keeping my voice low. “I told you I’d destroy you for hurting them.”
“Julian—" she starts but I cut her off.
“Your crimes keep piling up, Little Minx.”
Flicking the zippo, I bring it closer to what I’m holding in my other hand. With grim satisfaction, I notice the moment realization dawns in her eyes when she sees the dress/skirt thingy that she touches every single night before she sleeps and when she wakes up. The very same one she just touched a few minutes ago.
“Oh my god, Julian,” she gasps, watching me with horror as I raise the dress and bring the flame to the bottom. “Put it down. Don’t you d—"
“You keep pushing me, baby,” I start, my voice low and strained. “You keep testing my patience. It’s like you’re looking for a punishment. Lucky for you, I’m the only one who can dole it out the way you deserve.”
“You wouldn’t!” she shrieks “Julian, no!”
I bring the flame to the tip of the dress, watching her face pale. I can easily set this thing on fire and she knows it.
“That’s the tutu my Mom wore when she was crowned Prima Ballerina, Julian. Put it down!” she shrieks, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
/> That’s right, baby, let it out.
“Shh, Mia, you’ll wake your sick mother up,” I whisper, as tears start running down her face. Finally, but we’re not there yet. Not with Mia, she breaks different. “Keep your treacherous voice down.”
“Damn you, Julian, don’t do this!” she cries, cautiously taking a step closer to me.
“I guess it’s your intention to wear this at some point, even though the rightful owner hasn’t given it to you and probably never will since you’re a quitter.”
“I’m not a quitter.”
“A whiner then. Isn’t that why you’re not dancing as well as you know you can?” I press, watching the anger in her build. “You’re so damn fake that you don’t even realize you’re resenting every single person in your life.”
“What?” she gasps, frowning. “I love my family and they love me. I don’t resent any of them.”
“You sure about that?” I cock my head to the left, wondering if she’s ever been honest with anyone, least of all herself. “You resent your father for leaving you when you needed him the most.”
“Stop talking.”
“You resent your aunt for choosing money and lust over you and your mother and lastly,”
“No—”
“You resent your mother.”
“I don’t resent her!” she gasps, looking horrified.
“When was the last time you actually spent time with her?” I question, watching her eyes widen. She doesn’t have anything to say to that and I chuckle. “You don’t even deserve this.”
“She’ll give it to me when I get the Paris deal, now put it down,” she cries. “I will beg.”
It’s quite tempting that she’d behave a certain way when something she wants is in danger of being taken away from her.
“There’s plenty of time to make you beg,” I tsk. “It’s just, tonight I don’t need that from you.”
“What the fuck do you want then? Just put it down and we’ll talk.”
Yeah, I wouldn’t trust her as much as I would trust my dick to not get hard around her like it is now. They’re both treacherous.
“Liam,” I start. “What do you want with him?”
“What?” She looks bewildered. “Julian, put the dress down first.”
Devious Kisses: A Bully Enemies -To-Lovers Romance (It's Just High School Book 1) Page 30
