Chapter Sixteen The Misunderstanding

CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE MISUNDERSTANDING

After two days, I had almost fully recovered and was ready to begin my investigation.

I wasn’t surprised that Nic hadn’t tried to contact me after I was discharged from hospital, because nothing Nic did or didn’t do surprised me any more.

I walked to his house in the early afternoon. Pausing outside the wrought-iron gates, I surveyed the mansion with a growing sense of foreboding. There was only one car in the driveway, and suddenly I felt horrified at the thought of coming face to face with any of Nic’s other family members. After all, I was still a Gracewell – whatever terrible thing that meant to them – and there was nothing I could do to change that.

Steeling myself, I marched through the open gates and crunched along the gravel driveway. When I reached the red front door, I rapped on the knocker and edged back into the driveway, waiting nervously.

After what seemed like an eternity, the door was unbolted in three metallic thumps, and heaved open to reveal a statuesque figure, darkened by the shadowed hallway behind him. But I knew that outline almost as well as I knew his voice.

‘Sophie?’ Nic hovered in the doorway, immaculate in faded jeans and a white T-shirt. His feet were bare.

‘Hi,’ I ventured, watching him clench and unclench his jaw. ‘I want to talk to you.’

Anchoring his hands on either side of the door frame, he leant out at an angle and searched the emptiness behind me. ‘Sophie,’ he said again, but softer this time. ‘What are you doing here?’

By the way his eyes searched mine, I knew there was still something between us. The air around us pulsed, and I decided to cut to the chase before it consumed me. ‘You don’t have to play dumb about the other night.’

His expression turned, his eyes growing. He stepped forwards, slowly, then stopped, wavering, like he was fighting the urge to come to me. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘The nurse told my mother about you. I know you asked her not to, but she did, so you don’t have to lie about it.’

He wasn’t stalling any more. He came towards me, bare feet on the gravel. He dropped his voice to a whisper and placed his hands on my arms, gently pulling them – and me – into him. I watched his hands on my skin and my lips twisted in confusion.

‘Sophie.’ His eyes locked on mine. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘What? You didn’t bring me to the hospital the other night?’

At the mention of the word ‘hospital’, confusion burnt up into anxiety. ‘Why were you in the hospital?’ He scanned me up and down. ‘Did someone hurt you?’

‘You really didn’t rescue me?’ I asked, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

‘ Rescue you?’ he said, horrified.

‘But the nurse told my mother…’

‘Sophie.’ He moved his hands to my waist as his voice grew harder. ‘Please tell me what happened to you.’

For a second, I could see the Nic I’d first met, standing in front of me. He was right there, within reach, until another figure appeared in the doorway behind him.

‘Nicolò?’ That was all Luca had to say to make his brother leap away from me like I was on fire.

‘What is it?’ I demanded. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I can’t,’ he half pleaded, backing up. ‘I just can’t.’

‘I don’t understand.’ I shifted my gaze to Luca, who was leaning against the front of the house, folding his arms across his chest.

He looked through me. ‘You should go back inside, Nicolò. Valentino’s looking for you.’ The last part sounded like a veiled threat, but I couldn’t tell why.

Nic hesitated, his fists clenched tight. ‘Luca, I’m not leaving until I make sure she’s OK.’ He was angry, and I was reassured by that, but not reassured enough. ‘Something happened to her. She was in the hospital, and I need to know why.’

‘I know,’ Luca said, striding carelessly towards his brother so they could face each other straight on.

Luca was taller than Nic, but Nic was broader. I wondered who would win in a fight. And then I wondered how Luca knew I’d been in the hospital.

‘How?’ Nic and I asked him at the same time.

‘Because I brought her in.’

‘You what?’ I spluttered.

‘Are you kidding me, Luca? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ For a second I thought Nic was going to lunge at Luca; take him down, and do us all a favour. But he didn’t. He just stood there, seething. I watched his chest rise and fall.

Luca grabbed the back of Nic’s neck, bringing him closer so he could mutter something in his ear, and when he pulled away, some of his brother’s defiance had shifted.

‘You’d better handle it,’ Nic snapped before turning back towards the house. ‘Because I can’t be expected to stand by and do nothing…’ His sentence died alongside his sudden retreat.

‘Um, bye, Nic!’ I called sarcastically to his departing figure, scolding myself for letting his desertion hurt me again. ‘What a family of freaks ,’ I muttered, making sure it was loud enough for Luca to hear.

His eyebrows disappeared under messy strands of his raven hair. ‘Is that what you came here for? To call me names like a child?’

I crossed my arms. ‘I thought I was coming here to see Nic.’

He pursed his lips. ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

‘You’re not sorry.’

‘You’re right, I’m not.’

I fought the urge to stamp my feet.

‘So did you launch yourself on an express mission to thank him and only him? Or do I, the actual person who helped you, merit some kind of gratitude?’

I bit back several curse words. ‘This can’t be happening.’

‘Well, it is.’ Suddenly Luca was pulling me by the arm until we were standing on the other side of the SUV, sheltered from the street’s view and most of the house’s windows.

‘Get off me!’ I snapped, shrugging him off. ‘What’s your problem?’

‘What’s my problem? Are you kidding?’

I stepped back, pressing myself against the SUV, and suddenly a memory flashed against my brain. I was being mashed up against a stone wall . I shook my head and it flew away. ‘Why do you have to be such an ass?’

Luca lessened the gap between us by another half foot. ‘Why did you drink yourself into that state the other night?’ he countered viciously. ‘Have you no regard for your own safety?’

‘How dare you,’ I snapped. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about, so just shut up!’

‘I was the one scraping you off the sidewalk!’

‘For your information, I wasn’t drinking!’

Luca curled his lip, and anger, like a shot of hot metal, rose in my bloodstream. Before I could stop myself, my hands were against his chest, shoving him so hard that he stumbled backwards. I landed against him, pushing him further and further. ‘I was roofied, you ass!’

For a moment, we stood against each other, bound by the force of my anger and the sound of our mingled heavy breathing. Then, with exaggerated slowness, he grabbed me by my shoulders and pushed me away from him with ease.

I tried to focus on my breathing, to steady myself, but I was panting hard.

‘I see,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t know.’

I shrugged, feeling deflated. ‘I guess I should have been more careful.’

He scrunched his nose in disgust. ‘And he should have been a lot more respectful, regardless of what state you were in.’

I felt a lump form at the bottom of my throat, but I had been keeping it at bay for the last two days and I wasn’t about to give in to my tears now, especially not in front of Luca. ‘I don’t remember anything,’ I said, setting my jaw and looking at the patch of grass behind him. ‘I’m still struggling to.’

‘Don’t.’ Luca stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. ‘Some memories hurt when they hit you.’

‘Are you saying it will hurt me to know what Robbie did?’

He shook his head. ‘He didn’t hurt you, OK? He was just some idiotic drunk guy trying his luck with a pretty girl.’

My eyes widened at the inadvertent compliment.

‘I was just making a point about that guy,’ Luca went on quickly. ‘He was dumb, OK? He shouldn’t have tried to take advantage of you.’

‘W-where was it? Where were we?’ I hadn’t imagined talking about the night would be this difficult – and I definitely never thought I’d be talking about it with the obnoxious Luca Priestly – but I had to know.

‘A couple of blocks away. I saw him with you sometime before…’ He stopped abruptly and changed the direction of the sentence. ‘I didn’t like the look of him, so I drove around to make sure he wasn’t doing anything he shouldn’t be doing. And when I found you guys, I could see you were pretty out of it, so I decided to intervene.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘You don’t remember?’

‘No.’

‘I just asked him to leave, and he did,’ Luca said simply. ‘He was very obliging.’

‘So he just walked away in the middle of the night and left me with you, a person he barely knows?’

I studied Luca carefully, waiting for him to elaborate. The sun was making his blue eyes shine, so that he seemed almost friendly, but there was nothing friendly about the edge in his voice when he answered me. ‘When I ask someone to do something, I usually don’t have to ask twice.’

‘That almost sounds like a threat.’

Luca just rolled his eyes and shrugged. ‘Do you know who roofied you?’

‘No.’

‘I’d be interested to know, if that information comes to light.’

‘Why?’ I asked, feeling a bout of uneasiness.

‘You’re asking why I want to know the identity of someone who thinks it’s acceptable to poison girls’ drinks at neighbour-hood parties?’ His reply conveyed the duh sentiment.

‘I don’t see what difference it would make to you,’ I told him plainly.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t.’

I could sense the hostility again, the chill I had gotten the night he ordered Nic away from me, and I couldn’t stand it. He was so infuriating. ‘What have you said to turn your brother against me?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not getting into this.’

‘I deserve an explanation.’

‘You should leave now. I think I’ve done enough for you, Gracewell,’ he returned evenly. ‘I’m not interested in helping you walk off into the sunset with my brother.’

Gracewell? So I wasn’t even worthy of my first name now. ‘What have I done to make you hate me so much?’

He rolled his eyes again. ‘I don’t hate you. I nothing you.’

His retort stung more than I thought it would. ‘You’re horrible, do you know that?’

He didn’t even flinch.

‘And arrogant,’ I muttered. ‘And smug.’

‘Are you done now?’ In an instant he had pinned me between his arms against the SUV. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, OK?’ There was a savagery in his eyes. ‘This is the last time I want to see you anywhere near this house, got it? When you walk home from work, cross the road. Don’t look inside. Don’t come in this direction. Don’t even breathe in this direction. I told you I don’t ask twice. If I see you around Nic again, even if you’re just saying hi or trailing after him like a lost puppy, then I’ll come for you, that chatterbox British best friend of yours, and your mother, and believe me, you’re not going to like it. Do you understand me?’

I felt the horror infiltrate my features. Now I saw it. I finally saw the danger that Jack and Mrs Bailey had been warning me about. Not to mention the kind of attitude that must have put blood on Luca’s shirt before. Maybe my paranoid uncle and the old busybody had been right about this family all along – certainly about Luca, at least. I wanted to say something defiant and witty, but he was looking at me like he was going to eat me, so instead I nodded like a zombie.

‘From here on out, we go our separate ways. Capisci? ’

My voice shook with anger and fear. ‘You can’t talk to people like that.’

He moved his hands away from the car and stepped back from me again. ‘Do you understand everything I just said, Gracewell?’

I wrapped my arms around myself and nodded.

‘So we are clear?’

‘Crystal.’

‘Do I frighten you?’ He tilted his head.

‘Yes,’ I said weakly. ‘Are you proud of yourself?’

He looked at me for a long moment before replying. ‘No, I’m not,’ he said, so faintly I had to strain to hear him. Then he turned from me and made his way back to the house.

‘Wait!’ I called as the rational part of me screamed in protest.

Luca turned around slowly.

‘You make a point of keeping your brother away from me and then you bring me to the hospital to make sure I’m OK. And you don’t tell the nurse who you are in case I would think you are a semi-decent guy. I don’t get it.’

‘You don’t have to get it. You just have to deal with it.’

‘Why did you bother scraping me off the sidewalk , then? Why do you even care if I was roofied or not?’ The question hurtled across the space between us. He blinked twice and his mouth dropped open into an O. For a second, he looked young and innocent, like his twin.

‘Are you kidding?’ He was dumbfounded. ‘I’m not a monster.’

‘You could have fooled me.’

He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled like he was about to say something. But then he didn’t. Instead, he just shook his head. ‘You should go, Gracewell.’

‘I have a name, you know!’

He laughed, looking up at the sky, like the maniac he clearly was.

‘It’s Sophie. S-O-P-H-I-E.’

He continued to laugh, but when he returned his attention to me, his voice was utterly flat. ‘Are you sure about that?’

I blanched. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean.’

Before I could process the uneasiness grumbling inside me, he spoke again. This time his voice was disturbingly quiet. ‘Don’t you get it? You’re a Gracewell . That’s all you’ll ever be to us.’

‘What does it matter to you if I’m a Gracewell?’ I demanded.

For an interminably long moment, he regarded me pensively. When he finally relented, it was with a determined exhale, like some internal decision had finally been made. He crossed the driveway and reached me in four strides.

‘You really have no idea why you’re not welcome here?’ he hissed. ‘Are you seriously that ignorant?’

I swallowed against the sudden dryness in my throat. ‘What are you talking about?’

Luca frowned. I didn’t understand his question and he didn’t understand my response.

‘ Cazzo .’ He studied me with an almost violent confusion – it pinched the hollows in his cheeks, making them gaunt. ‘I’m not dealing with this.’

‘I want answers!’ I protested.

‘You won’t get them here.’

‘Then where?’ I said half-pleadingly, exasperation sinking into my voice.

Luca ground his jaw in slow clicks, whatever shred of patience he had for our conversation rapidly diminishing. ‘Go ask your father, Gracewell. You probably owe him a visit.’

A familiar feeling of dread crept up my spine. My father . Everything always came back to my father. Of course it had something to do with him – I would never outrun what he’d done. I would never live it down. But there was something more to Luca’s words, something deeper, and it was twisting my stomach. What had my father done to the Priestlys? Before he was arrested he never put a foot out of line. As far as I knew, at least.

Luca wasn’t about to wait until I figured it out. He turned away from me once again, storming into the house, and slamming the front door with a deafening bang.

Feeling my cheeks prickle and burn, I looked up and caught sight of Valentino where I had seen him that first night. He was utterly still, his elbows perched along the windowsill as he looked down on me – on everything that had just happened. His face was solemn. Did he hate me too? Did he think it right for his twin to act like that?

He raised his hand and held it up, like a salute. I waved back, my arm feeling as heavy as my heart, and he smiled at me. It was a small moment of kindness – a soft tug at the lips, nothing more.

Then he was gone. And I was left bound up in the realization that if I really wanted answers, I would have to seek them from somewhere I had been avoiding.