Page 39 of The Broken Queen
My fingers wrapped around the handlebars as I slowly drew my knees up, and then I let out a grunt as the exercise machine began to wobble.
“Presley, you’re not even trying. This really isn’t even hard,” Carter chided while she watched me from the phone screen.
“This isn’t built right!” I shouted at her as I toppled off the small exercise machine and rolled to my back.
Carter sighed as if she was the most disappointed coach ever. “I’m going to recommend you stay away from any reformer machines while in this Pilates era that you’ve stepped in.”
“What’s a reformer?” I asked, breathless.
Carter held her hands out in front of the screen as if she needed to stop me. “Don’t look it up. I’m serious, I think you’ll kill yourself, trying it. You need to go back to the boxing ring and gloves and whatever else Scotty drilled into you.”
The memory of the email sitting in my inbox came back, making me wince.
I’d been avoiding this for a week. Hiding, like an animal in the only wing of the manor, not inhibited by someone who hurt me, or who birthed me.
I needed space and time to come to terms with everything circling my head. The anger at the twins, the ache I had for Adrian, which was confusing in a different way. He’d been confusingly silent these past few days, where previously he’d been texting me. Especially after I had inspected the image he’d sent, and I came to terms with who was in that photo.
I wanted to talk about it with someone, but Adrian wasn’t responding, and the twins were…well, they wouldn’t ever be an option again. I could go to Alex, but I was nervous she’d pull her family into it out of fear of how it might impact them. I wasn’t sure if it would, and if I was being selfish by not saying something.
There wasn’t a clear path forward other than avoidance, which was why I was here, trying to get back into shape by using Carter’s mysterious workout equipment that looked as though an ironing board and thigh master had blended into one machine, equipped to tone my thighs, abs, and hopefully my ass.
“I gotta go, you’re doing that creepy silent thing.” Carter sighed before hanging up. I missed her. But I was glad she was safe and happy, wherever she and her family were at the moment. They didn’t want to tell any of us, which hurt…but I couldn’t focus on it as I knew it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with my fucked-up family, and the twins.
I stood from my spot on the floor and glanced around the empty walls that now seemed to cage me in. My laptop sat on the coffee table, calling me back to it as if I could somehow decode what the fuck to do merely by staring at that photo again.
But, as if called by a siren, I shoved the top of the screen up and watched as the image immediately came to life. The grainy image depicted a white building with a lit-up doorway that another man walked underneath. Dark hair and an unmistakable jaw that nearly matched Adrian’s was clear in the picture, and there behind thatman, carrying a gun, was a man who shaped me more distinctly than my own father had.
Scotty.
A heavy knock at my door had me slamming the laptop shut. “Son of a bitch.”
I knew it was Gio based off the knock. He’d been stopping by nearly every day this week, and even after I had cut up and practically shredded every single marigold he’d brought me and tossed it on his bed while he was sleeping, the idiot still managed to show up with that annoying knock.
“Leave me alone!” I called toward the door, hoping he’d hear.
The knocking stopped, which meant he likely had. I sagged in relief, back to staring at nothing while trying to piece together what exactly it meant that my uncle was the one who had killed Adrian’s father. It meant he had lied to me and knowingly placed me in danger by encouraging the relationship and marriage with Adrian.
It meant he’d framed my father.
It meant there was a chance he’d lied about other things as well. God knew how many other things. He was my mentor…my trainer. The man who was more involved in my upbringing than my own father was. I felt like I had been shaped and practically formed in his image, and now every piece of me carried some mark of his.
I refused to look deeper into what it meant that he had placed me in danger, or how it began to pull at the thread in my mind of exactly how I was ever going to trust him again.
I was staring off into space with the computer open in my lap when suddenly there was movement off to my right.
“Why are you ignoring Gio?” Kingston stood next to the stairs, with his arms crossed and an angry scowl on his face.
I screamed, tossing the laptop. “How the hell did you get in here?”
My voice came out shrill as I tried to mentally play catch up.
“You know how I got in here.” He rolled his eyes.
Yes, the fourth floor…where the balcony leads out to the roof, connecting to the rest of the house. I slowly shifted so I could reach the computer and shield the screen from him.
“Whyare you here?” I asked.
He took two steps forward, tapering his gaze so that it was shrewd and unforgiving. “I didn’t fucking stutter, Presley.”
