Page 36 of Green Flag
“You don’t know how to punch?” he asked, brows higher. “Looks like I have a few things to teach you.”
I huffed. “Add it to the list.”
8
Chapter 8
Everly
All week, Ciclati members avoided me. In Valencia, it was much the same. When I emailed Dad about staying into October, he simply replied with a half-ass excuse about university. By the sounds of it, he hadn’t actually contacted them because he hadn’t stormed into my room, calling me a failure because I’d failed my last term and wasn’t welcome back without redoing the year.
I wasn’t necessarily complaining about being left to my own devices. With my new lanyard, I had almost unlimited access. With people ignoring me, I practically skipped around the trailers, no one questioning what I was up to. And the positives kept on rolling in: the trailers had their weights stuck on the back of them for each new journey. As did each crate.
And the customs paperwork was easily accessible when you knew where to look: Dad’s briefcase. Working with all these ‘scary’ men meant he always gave me his spare room key in case I needed it.
My phone was full of evidence. It just needed to start making sense.
But the only witness who might know what really happened, Nixon Armas, had simply disappeared. Whenever I did see him, he was with his publicist and it was hardly the time to start asking the important questions. Nix had always backed Dad—he still did. And he was there the day Pedro was arrested. If there was anyone who could slip up and say the wrong thing… it was him.
The whole ‘master plan’ of taking Dad down from the inside wasn’t working well if I was going to be on the inside for a matter of days.
With my university accommodation no longer an option, I’d had no choice but to move back home to Dad’s between races. Which wasn’t a bad idea, because it meant I could go through his suitcase for evidence when he left it packed in the foyer for every flight. Even with access to his room, I didn’t expect him to leave anything too important in the room he’d given me a key to.
Though I hadn’t got too far with my snooping in his luggage. Every time I’d gone to nosy, I’d been interrupted by a nattering Fia, willing to tattle on me.
Her vape in my pocket kept her quiet.
I was a sleuth for my rebellious teenage sister too.
Though I’d sadly been successful in finding dirt on my sister, there was no such luck for my father.
Nothing directly relating to him anyway.
But he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t be obvious. And as much as he was an utter wanker, he adored his sons and Fia. If there were drugs, they weren’t at home.
He might be an emotionless robot, but when it came to anything other than empathy, he was rather intelligent.
He avoided me more than anyone else.
The only person who didn’t avoid me was Luca.
We’d gone round the stadium and he’d let me give my spiel. He asked follow-up questions and told me to slow down when I got a touch too enthusiastic.
He put on different roles, from crouching down with a pretend walking stick as a little old lady to someone who hardly spoke any of the three languages I could speak, to a prat who thought he knew more than me. That was the hardest by far.
When he riled me up, he jabbed me in the ribs and had me laughing again.
It was easy with him.
Not so much with the public, for sure.
But he didn’t flirt. Not even a wink. Which somehow made me feel like I’d been rejected… when I hadn’t.
Then he knocked on my door to give me some ‘safety tools’— a lipstick knife, a taser, a keyring that doubled as a knuckleduster. He placed fifteen green objects in my hand, and he came into my hotel room to explain each to me. A nervous energy ran through my veins as we were so close—and so close to a bed. But he was all business, showing me how to use each item because I didn’t know how to punch.
When I finally nailed flicking the lipstick knife open, his grin was quick and wicked—but the look that followed? His eyes devouring my body? That one made my pulse trip over itself.
Then he left. Abruptly.
