Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

“Both of you having a shitty time, I’m sure.”

She nodded. “Yeah, he had a black eye. His stepdad was belting him every time his mom wasn’t there. Not that she’d have stopped him if she was.”

“Very different sides of the spectrum from each other. People would say you were hardly compatible.”

“Yeah, very different sides of the spectrum. We didn’t actually talk about it that much, just walked together, finding some kind of weird friendship in our hell.”

I could imagine it as she told me. Two fucked-up teenagers finding solace in each other’s company.

“You went home, though? Hardly likely to stay in Evanvale as a tenant, were you, Elaine?”

She didn’t react to my sarcasm.

“Yeah, we both went home. Sun came up, and we were freezing cold and I couldn’t imagine life outside Bishop’s Landing. He went back to his trailer, and I started the walk back to the compound. Only he went back to the belt and his stepdad, while I went back to a stern telling off after I called one of our drivers to be picked up.”

What poor little fuck-ups. Pussy boy must have been one hell of a wreck. I wouldn’t normally give a shit, and I shouldn’t. The head of the Morelli kingdom didn’t ever give a fuck for anyone that wasn’t a Morelli, and even then I’d struggle. Seamus and Duncan wouldn’t get shit from me, even if they begged.

“I’m guessing you saw your new Tristan buddy again quite often?”

“Yeah, as much as I could. We tried to blank out our misery, you know? Tried to find something different from all the shit we were used to, even if we didn’t share the details. I know Tristan’s stepdad did much more to him than the belt.”

“Weren’t you tempted to run away and fuck it all off?”

She let out a sigh. “Yeah, but Tristan’s mom was sick, and I had everyone around me, and we didn’t know where the fuck we would go. We always meant to. We always planned it. When I was almost nineteen Reverend Lynch’s school stopped for me, though, and I managed to get Tristan some money for a place of his own.”

Nineteen years old. I knew she’d have been one damn fuck-up by then. Drink and drugs that those cunts had introduced her to, and cutting herself up when she felt like a freak.

I finished my coffee and put the mug down.

“When did you get involved with the Power Brothers?”

She sipped her coffee. “Years ago. I needed coke.”

“When did you get into debt with them?”

“When I ran into them and there was a kid like Tristan there, begging them to give him more time for his debts. I didn’t hold off for a second, just said I would pay them for him and got them to let him leave.”

I smirked coldly at the thought. Elaine really was a naive little girl. I knew exactly what the Powers would have been doing after that point. They’d have made sure she knew about every fuck-up coming to them, knowing full well she’d bail them out with Constantine cash – even when that Constantine cash stopped coming. Her bitch of a mother would have dried it up like a fucking desert when she’d seen what was happening.

“You kept on doing it, didn’t you? Giving cash for the addicts, even when you didn’t have any. You racked up debt.”

“Yeah, plenty of debt.” She shrugged. “Not that it matters now. I hope my family finishes them off. At least then a whole load of people go free.”

It made me feel annoyingly bitter that her letter likely really was about saving the Power Brothers’ clients as much as it was about lying about who’d taken her. It likely had much less to do with me than I figured.

Why the fuck would I even care? Who gave a fuck about how much Elaine Constantine fucking cared about me?

“They’re going to war, you know,” I told her. “Your family and the Power Brothers are edging up closer on the battlefield.”

She scowled at me. “Yeah, well more fool me for giving your family a shot at coming out on top of the whole thing. Not that they will. Your family has nothing on mine.”

“Fuck off,” I hissed. “My family has everything on yours. Yours are a joke, parading around in the spotlight like it means anything.”

“Better than being a load of seedy pricks in the shadows, lording it around in the back alleys.”

I laughed a vicious laugh. “Like fuck you can tell me that my family are a load of seedy pricks in the shadows. You’ve been fucked up by the fucking fellowship. Your own fucking uncle sold you out to the sickos.”

That shut her up, and she wasn’t happy about it. She put her drink down on the counter and tore her gaze away from me, finding the impudence in her gritted jaw all over again.