Page 75 of Kings & Chaos

“We need something to show your mom that doesn’t involve me dropping over a hundred thousand dollars at Balenciaga.”

“They don’t know you have money?”

“No,” he’d said, walking ahead of me into Bergdorf.

“Great,” I said to his retreating back. “Thanks for filling me in.”

We’d stashed the Balenciaga bags in the back of the Hummer and brought in the Bergdorf bags for show. Then we’d driven back to Jersey, gone out to dinner with our parents, and tried not to look miserable while they got drunker and hornier right in front of us.

I looked at Neo, his eyes on the road as we headed back to Aventine. “Areyougood?”

The weekend couldn’t have been easy for him either.

He hesitated, then nodded. “I am now.”

I knew what he meant. My own relief was reflected in the more relaxed set of his shoulders. Being with our parents for two days had felt like performing a play with no script, no rehearsal, and a vicious critic sitting in the front row.

I was eager to get back to the Kings’ house, and I tried not to think about the fact that the only place that felt like home was another place I didn’t really belong, a place I would have to leave.

We spent the most of the drive in silence. I used the time to think about my plan to go to Dean Giordana’s house Monday, and I replayed every detail of it in my mind, looking for things that could go wrong.

There were a few, but it was what it was. Neo’s hacker had more or less confirmed Zachary Walsh was a scapegoat, although he had gotten a big wire transfer before he died, right around the time my first stalker package arrived at the house.

The wire transfer had apparently been made through a shell company that led to another shell company, and Neo said they were working on unraveling the financial shell game to figure out who was really behind it.

I believed him, but I wasn’t going to wait. We had three weeks before Christmas break. I had no idea what I’d be doing over the holidays — I wasn’t sure my mental health could survive another visit with my mom and Roberto — but everyone else on campus would be leaving, and when classes started again in January, the school year would be half over.

I felt overwhelmed thinking about the next three weeks. Between finals, the game, trying to find answers about Emma, and my increasingly heated relationship with the Kings — all three of them — I was starting to feel like a juggler with three too many balls in the air.

It was dark by the time we got off the highway outside of Blackwell Falls, and I pulled down the visor on the passenger side mirror to check my makeup. I’d missed Rock and Oscar more than I wanted to admit, and I had the ache in my heart — and another part of my body — to prove it.

Neo turned into the driveway and entered the code into the keypad, then pulled through and waited while the gates swung closed. It might have seemed pointless after seeing the black-clad figure sneak onto the property through the trees to leave the last stalker package, but I knew Neo had contracted Rafe for three 24/7 guards to walk the tree line.

They’d been there even over the weekend when none of us had been home, and I wondered again how the Kings had gotten so much fucking money. Had they run their own operations in Sicily when they’d been working there before coming to Aventine? Or did it have more to do with all the secretive conversations they had with people in town?

Neo pushed the button on the garage and a burst of happiness fizzed in my chest at the sight of the Audi and the Porsche.

Rock and Oscar were home, and I could admit, to myself at least, that I couldn’t fucking wait to see them.

I headed for the back of the Hummer to get the bags.

“I’ll get everything,” Neo said.

I tried not to faint from shock. Was this Neo being a…gentleman?

Tome?

Things just kept getting weirder and weirder.

He grabbed the Balenciaga bags and left the hatch open. “I’ll come back for the rest.”

“I can get the other stuff,” I said.

He sighed. “I got it, Jezebel. Just go inside.”

“Fine,” I muttered. “Just trying to help.”

Our temporary alliance had apparently ended, up in a poof of smoke like Cinderella’s dress and carriage at the stroke of midnight.

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