Unbroken

Forty-Seven

Skye

Leo, ever the fixer, tried his hardest to ease my time in his apartment. He loaded his closet with my clothes, had my favourite food ready on tap. When I got up in the mornings, it was usually to a fresh bouquet of flowers and a delicious breakfast tray at the ready for me to eat. And he would be there, at my side, eating with me, doting on me, asking me what else he needed to do to make me happy.

Hunter. I needed Hunter.

I didn’t tell him that. I simply assured him that he was going above and beyond, and he really was.

I was aware being here was taking him away from his duties. Family obligations, he had called them growing up, but it was more “High Table” shit.

Leo was being groomed into his father’s position.

I knew this with certainty because his father came pounding on the door one early morning. Shane had called Leo up to warn him, and then Leo did something very bizarre. He had turned to me in bed and said, “I need you to stay here while I sort out my dad.”

That was fine, I didn’t mind. But then Leo locked the bedroom door from theoutside, and I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to. Which unnerved me. Like perhaps he wasn’t keeping me from leaving but keeping his father from coming in to see me.

His father was a harsh man. I had never heard him shout, never heard him swear, but he spoke to Leo in an eerily calm tone. I wound up pressed against the bedroom door trying to hear it.

“You’re playing a game of chess with your old man, Leo, and you’re going to lose,” he had warned him. “I’ve knocked down your every pawn, maneuvered past your schemes—if you don’t stop now, I can’t guarantee your place at the Table. Step down now. As many eyes and ears you may have, I will always have more.”

“I am ensuring my place at the Table,” Leo responded, his tone matching his father’s. “By doing that, I’m fixing your broken relationships, strengthening frayed bonds—”

“Is that why you’ve been absent?” Mr Itani interrupted. “If so, I’m impressed, because I was under the impression you’ve been distracted by that young girl you keep locked up in here like a prized pig.”

“Watch your tongue,” Leo icily warned.

“Or what, Leo? Will I wind up in an accident that will claim my mobility like it did your mother’s?” When Leo didn’t respond, Mr Itani laughed low in his throat. “You think I didn’t know about that, either, Leo? Perhaps your mother was the unfaithful type, the type that soured one of those frayed bonds you are trying to mend by fucking one of the partners at the Table. Perhaps it wasn’t just that trainer she was found with. Perhaps, my clever boy, you beat me to it.”

Oh, my God.

I pressed my hands to the nearest wall, feeling suddenly lightheaded.

The front door opened, and before Mr Itani left, he departed with, “You will learn a very important lesson, Leo. Once a gutter rat,alwaysa gutter rat.”

I tried to pretend I didn’t hear a thing, though my stomach felt heavy and my heart wouldn’t stop pounding. When Leo came through the door, I was sitting on the edge of the bed, appearing innocent, but I was aware the smile I shot him was all wrong. It quaked around the edges, and Leo frowned at the sight of it.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he apologized contritely.

“Is it true?” I swallowed, watching him closely.

He walked casually to the bathroom, muttering, “Is what true?”

“Your mom’s accident.”

But Leo simply replied, “Her accident, whether intentional or not, was well deserved, Skye. Don’t worry yourself about it.”

He disappeared in the bathroom for a long shower, and I mulled his words, suddenly wanting more than anything the familiarity of home. I wanted to be in my little room, wanted my ears to be filled with Kurt’s snores, wanted to hear thetap, tapof Hunter’s fingers against my window—

I didn’t want all this dirty anymore.

Leo emerged later like our conversation never happened. He smiled at me, stroked my back in that reassuring way and said, “Put on your earrings, and let me take you out. We’ll spend the day together on the beach—”

“Can we see Hunter? He’ll be at the garage.”

Leo’s lips turned down. “He might not be around.”

“Where else could he be?”