Page 12 of Vendetta
Nic’s gaze adopted a sudden fierce intensity, and I was instantly hyperaware of how loud my heartbeat was.
‘Good,’ he murmured.
‘He’s definitely weird, though,’ I added as an afterthought. ‘And unbelievably rude.’
‘We should bring him here more often so you can keep him in line.’ Nic produced a black credit card that gleamed with a level of affluence I could only dream about, and handed it to me. Suddenly every part of me was standing at attention, and I wondered if he knew it. He was probably used to having this effect on girls.
‘So when did you move in?’ I asked, trying to keep focused.
‘Last week.’ Then I couldn’t possibly have known him. My mind was playing tricks on me. Nic gestured behind him in the direction of the old house with a casualness that implied it was one of many sprawling mansions frequented by his family. Not that that surprised me; he had a certain look about him, the look of a wealthy kid who could afford European vacations and Aspen ski retreats. He had the kind of bloodline that stretched beyond somewhere as ordinary as Cedar Hill. ‘But you probably already know that, since you were spying on our house.’
I felt my cheeks reignite. ‘I wasnotspying on your house!’
His smile grew. ‘Sure seemed that way.’
I slid the credit card machine towards him and waited as he tapped his phone. My gaze fell on the knuckles of his right hand, which were covered in pooling purple bruises and deep red gashes.
‘What happened to your hand?’ I asked, startled by the horror in my own voice. It was unpleasant to look at, and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t flinching in pain.
Nic pulled his hand away from the machine and stared at it in surprise. ‘Oh,’ he said slowly, rotating his wrist and studying the injury.
The mechanical printing of the receipt filled the silence.
‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine.’
I got the sense I had upset him. I ripped off the receipt and gave it to him, and this time he took it with his other hand.
‘I didn’t mean to pry…’
‘No, of course not.’ Nic cleared his throat. ‘I had just forgotten about it, that’s all. I got locked out the other day and I had to punch in a boarded-up window at the back of our house to get in. The perks of moving and all that…’
‘It looks painful,’ I said, doing my best impression of Captain Obvious.
Nic shook his head a little. ‘I’ve had worse.’
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, and before I could think of a reply, he was turning from me.
‘I should probably go, Sophie.’
‘Goodbye,’ I offered.
‘Maybe I’ll see you soon?’ he called over his shoulder.
‘As long as you don’t try and kill me again.’
‘I’ll try not to, but you’re certainly more than welcome to come back and stalk my house.’ He winked, the lightness in his voice back again.
‘I wasn’t stalking it!’
‘Buona notte, Sophie.’
CHAPTER SIXTHE DROWNED MAN
I arrived home to find a silver Mercedes parked on the street outside my house. I rounded the car, which exaggerated the pitiful state of my mother’s battered Ford just by being near it. The Mercedes may have been sleek, but it was empty and unfamiliar. What’s more, my mother was usually in bed at this time of night,notwelcoming rich visitors. I might have been infamy’s child, but she was infamy’s wife, and that meant her social calendar was a lot more open than it used to be. Now, instead of friends, she had projects.
I began to panic that shewaswelcoming a visitor – the kind of visitor who was going to try and replace my father. Maybe my mother was already tired of waiting. Maybe she didn’t want to face the next four years alone, fielding questions from nosy neighbours and fair-weather friends, and spending everyValentine’s Day crying over the night my father was taken away from her. Maybe this was the car of the man who was going to try and fix it all.
