Page 64 of Corrupt Princess

Calli pulls her head from my chest and looks up at me with her big, tear-filled blue eyes that have melted my heart from long before I can remember.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “We wanted to wait until— I’m sorry,” she says, cutting off her own explanation.

“You don’t owe me anything, Cal. I get it,” I say through gritted teeth.

I’m not a fucking moron; I know people don’t just go announcing these things the second they find out. And she has even more reason to keep her mouth shut with everything going on recently. We’re already worried about the girls’ safety with the Italians sniffing around. Add this into the mix…

Fuck.

My grip on my sister tightens as my possessiveness and need to protect her gets even stronger than ever.

“I should have told you. I just knew that you’d flip your lid and—”

“You were right. I would have. I did. Fuck. I’m so fucking sorry.”

Releasing her, I push her gently in the direction of her boyfriend.

I have no right to be comforting her right now. I’m the one who’s fucked up so badly that she felt like she couldn’t even come to me with this shit.

We’ve lost Dad. Mum’s checked out and—

“Brianna knew all this time?”

Reluctantly, Calli nods.

“The day I realised… It was the morning of Mum’s party and she found me freaking out in the bathroom at the spa. She calmed me down, made up some bullshit excuse so she could go to the pharmacy for me to get a test.

“I took it before the party, but I never got the chance to see the result.

“Then everything happened and I was left without you, Daemon, Dad, and I had the reality of this sitting in my handbag.

“Brianna and Jocelyn, they held me up, kept me going. Then you came back but Dad left us and everything just went to shit. You were so angry, so—”

“Broken?” I finish for her.

“Yeah, but I was too. I thought I was going to have to do it on my own. Alex promised me—”

“Alex knows?” I ask, hurt laced through my voice.

“I’m sorry,” Calli whispers.“You were unpredictable, Nico. Volatile. I was terrified that it would make everything worse if you found out, and it was already a massive fucking disaster.

“Then Daemon came back, and I just wanted us to have this together before everyone else—”

“But half of them already know,” I argue.

“Just Bri and Alex. They kept me going, Nico. Without them—”

“Without me,” I correct, regret twisting up my insides that I wasn’t there when she needed me the most, that she didn’t feel like she could trust me. It fucking shreds me up.

“Nico,” she starts, but I don’t let her say anything else.

“Can I see?”

Her brows pinch in confusion, but Daemon understands.

“The scan, Angel. Show him our little blob.”

The second he releases her, she rushes back into their bedroom while the two of us glare at each other.

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