Page 50 of Sinister Devotion

"Do you want me to call? I am Julian Blackwell's assistant. I can get us a table," I tell her.

"No, don't. I'm supposed to be doing this for your birthday. Let me figure it out. Oh, look there's a cafe. They probably have wi-fi and that will let my call go through."

It doesn't make sense to me, but I find myself getting nervous. Something doesn't feel right.

"Hey, look," I nudge my chin toward the woman running at us from down the street. "Isn't that Bonnie? What is she doing?"

"I'm sorry, Claire," Danny's voice drops as she lets her hand fall to her side.

"RUN!" Bonnie's cry reaches me, but it's too late. The blunt force of something connecting with the back of my head, has the faint taste of tin tickling the back of my throat just as the world around me fades to black.

22

JULIAN

The steady thrum of my brain pulsating with pain from the most intense migraine I've ever felt isn't the kind of pain I relish. This doesn't feel good. I'm annoyed I dumped all over Claire again and she did exactly what I thought she should do. She left.

My first call is to my uncle who answers fairly quickly.

"Julian, my boy, what's going on?"

"I need to go fishing, Zio," I tell him.

"Yeah? When?"

"Now, if you can."

He grunts and I hear him talking to someone close to him, most likely Vinnie, his Consigliere. When he comes back on the line, I'm expecting him to have an excuse as to why he can't meet with me. Instead, he surprises me. "Meet me at the Marina. I got some fish food and you can take the trip with me."

"Edward's coming too," I tell him.

"I'd be worried if he didn't." Armande laughs and ends the call.

The way my employees avert their gaze as I stalk around the cubicles in search of Edward tells me they got an earful. I hope it's from my blowup at my father, and not from fucking the shit out of Claire on my desk.

Edward's in the security office at the opposite end of the floor when I walk through the door, shock etching his face with a raise of his ginger red brows.

"What the fuck? You don't knock?" he asks. The office isn't as big as mine, but it has a similar view of the bridge. There's one desk and a wall of monitors that connect to various parts of the building.

I glance around the space and there's no one inside the office but him.

Edward sighs and speaks at the monitor on his desk. "I'll call you back, Malia."

"Shit, I'm sorry. We got a fishing trip to go on," I tell him.

He nods and gets up from the desk, putting himself in front of me as we leave the building to head to my uncle's boat.

"I'm sorry, Edward."

"It's fine, Julian. Your parents, Charleston, really has a way of putting me in a dark space. It's not good for me, or you. We need to get him out of our lives."

"Is that your advice or Dr. Mescal's?" I ask him.

"Does it matter if it's true?" he replies as we get into the car to take the short drive to a private dock where my uncle comes and goes as he pleases.

"I guess not. I did it again. Spilled my trauma guts to Claire and told her about Derek."

The anger pulsing off my oldest friend doesn't bode well for the rest of my day. "How much did you tell her, Jules?"

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