Page 94 of Green Flag
So when my cousin, Gio, called me, it was and wasn’t a surprise.
I’d been avoiding them, unknowing how to help with their grief after my feeble attempts had ended in yet more silence.
Whereas I needed distraction. Something to push me forward.
One of them was going to scold me eventually, but I hadn’t expected it to be him.
We had just got to our hotel in Austin when my cousin’s face lit up my screen. I rolled my suitcase to the side of the revolving doors as the rest of Ciclati went inside.
Everly frowned at me, but I threw her a smile, and she followed our friends, looking over her shoulder as I answered the call.
“Ciao, Gio,” I said, pulling my coat further around me in the crisp Texas air.
For some reason, the last leg of the championship was always in America. When it was cold.
“You’re fucking his daughter?”
Ah, shit.
“I thought you were trying to get out of Ciclati,” he snapped. “Not balls deep into it. Fucking hell, Luca.”
I bowed my head as I stepped behind one of the pillars of the entryway, hiding from Everly looking back for me again. The pit in my stomach lurched.
“Nonna would lose her mind if she knew.”
To be honest, it had me on edge that none of my family had mentioned my love life despite the media attention. Something in my mother’s side glances told me she knew. My sister’s posture had tightened when I’d mentioned my grid girl in passing—a few times— but she never brought the conversation to the light of day.
Probably because she knew the same as Gio.
“It’s not like that—”
“What is it like?”
Rubbing the nape of my neck, I stammered, unsure what to say. It wasn’t real? I didn’t feel anything? We were just friends?
“She’s helping me get out of the contract.”
There was a pause before he started rambling about me lying, just trying to get some and how could I think with my cock when it came to the Bacques?
“We were trying to wind him up and make him hate me so that he’d let me go—”
“Well, how’s that going? Because when I confronted Alessia, she said this had been going on for two months.”
Fuck. So my sister did know.
In the public eye, it had been less than six weeks.
In my head, it had been four months.
“There’s more to it,” I argued, and I could feel my body tensing in defence, my brows lowering, adding to the throbbing ache in my head. “She’s got dirt on him.”
I paced up and down, wheeling my suitcase around in a figure of eight as my cousin’s deep breaths were the only sound down the phone.
“What kind of dirt? To do with Alv?”
“No. Illegal shit.”
His voice was faster, more excitable this time. “Have you got enough to go to the police? How have you got this information?”
