Page 52 of Lessons In Grey
He didn’t care that much, he cared more. My breathing picked up at his confession, my jaw tightening. Shit.
He must have seen it because he asked, “Why does that scare you, Snowflake? Me knowing so much about you?”
Because he got into my head without trying. I had fought so fucking hard, and he still got in. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop any of this, yet my heels were digging in, and my mind was begging me to run.
His hand appeared again when I didn’t reply.
My eyes fell to it, another shiver running through me.
“I’ve already seen the truth, Emily.”
I knew that. I did. It didn’t make it any less hard. “Your knuckles,” I started instead. “I remember hearing crashing.”
His hand remained still. “How much do you remember of last night?”
I swallowed, chewing on the inside of my cheek. “Everything,” I breathed out.
He went quiet again. Two seconds, four. When ten seconds had passed, he finally spoke again. “That’s where it started, me destroying my place. When I left yours, I sought out a strip club.”
Every muscle in my body tensed.
“Not to worry, baby, you’re the only girl for me.”
But why? Why me?
“I was looking for Jyce. That’s where he gets his supply to give to Diamond.”
I frowned, trying to shut my thoughts off and focus on him. “Drugs?” I breathed out, finding his eyes. “You sought out drugs? Because of me?”
A tired half-smirk touched one corner of his lips. “You think too much, Emily. I haven’t been seeking out the drugs for myself, that’s why I’m here. Someone in this school was selling drugs to kids, I took the job to figure out who. They were stepping on toomany toes. My father’s included.”
My brows furrowed. “What?”
“I don’t do drugs, Snowflake. I had only one vice and I traded it for you.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“So, I found Jyce,” he went on melodically, “and I killed him. In front of a woman, Apple. She’s the girlfriend of the man in charge, and she works at that particular club. It took only a little convincing for her to stop supplying the drugs at this school.”
I searched his eyes before my own fell back to his hand. I sanded my fingers together and finally released a breath. It hurt, and I could feel the blood turning cold against my flesh. I slid my hand carefully into his. “Are you even qualified to teach here?” I finally asked. A criminal indeed. A good one, I guess, if there was such a thing.
His touch was gentle, caressing, each graze of his skin leaving mine feeling buzzy and warm. Calm. “I can be qualified in anything if I need to complete a job. The business was doing too much damage, and while my father allows a certain amount of sales across his world, he forbids selling to children.”
His father must have been big then. One of those mafia bosses or someone like it. I had watched a lot of crime shows, but I still couldn’t be sure what was real and what wasn’t. How much of it was fiction and how much of it was based in truth. Maybe his father wasn’t Mafia but something lesser known to the televised world.
I had many questions and part of me hoped I would have the time to get them all answered, but what was time in a world like this? There would never be enough of it. Ever.
He carefully pushed my sleeve back. “His name is Eris, the man Apple led me to.”
My eyes fell to his lips, my body now angled towards him, my interest growing. “So…that’s what you do? Your father sends you on missions? Gunrunners and drugs?”
“Many of them are much more violent, more in depth, but I told him I wanted to slow down, let my brothers do the traveling while I focused on things in this city.” He carefully began the painful process of unwrapping my bandages.
He said he was a dangerous man, and I had mocked him until last night when he mentioned the gunrunners, and I had spent all morning as I got ready for school wondering what he did for a living. I never guessed him being dangerous meant he was, in his own way, trying to help.
My skin was bruised now, and the cuts looked vicious. Maybe I should have gone to the hospital, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
He reached into his briefcase, set behind him, and started working on replacing my old bandages, his motions so precise, as if he had done this a thousand times before.