The Wedding Debt (Underworld Kings)

“Don’t you know it’s not nice to lie?” Luca retorts, planting his hand underneath his head to look at me from an angle. “Do you ever say what you really think, Jill?”

I shrug, chewing on my peanuts. “I’m a mystery.”

“A mystery I’d like to unravel.” The smirk that forms on his face makes me swallow, and I almost choke on some of the peanuts.

“Right,” I mutter, wiping the salt off my hands. “Hey, when is dinner coming?” I ask my mother from across the table.

“We haven’t ordered yet, darling,” she responds. “But they’ll come and take our order soon, so just relax and have some fun with the boys, okay?”

Before I can open my mouth, she’s already turned her head back to Luca’s mother, Anna.

Damn.

I turn my head toward Liam, but he seems occupied with Jasmine. Both of their faces adorn smiles that just scream awkward, but I don’t know if it’s because of this dinner or because of the conversation they had.

“Hey,” Luca whispers in my ear. “The server’s over there. Maybe he’ll come over if you … beg.”

I close my eyes, trying to get rid of the fire raging in my throat before I snap and let it all out.

He’s just trying to mess with you, Jill.

Ignore him.

“So, Liam,” I say, butting in to Jasmine’s conversation. “How is your school? Do you like it there?”

“Uh …” He crosses looks back and forth between Jasmine and me.

I hope she doesn’t mind. I understand why she wanted to sit next to him, though. He’s gotten even more handsome than I remember. Like the younger version of Heath Ledger.

When his mouth opens, we’re all hanging on his words. “It’s fine, I just—”

“He’s lying. He hates the school,” Luca interjects, leaning in a little too close.

“Really?” Jasmine frowns. “Is that true?”

“No,” Liam responds, throwing Luca an angry look.

Luca shrugs. “Fine then, lie. I won’t lie. I hate it there.”

“You, not enjoying school?” I raise a brow. “I’m shocked.”

My turn to toy with him.

He throws me a short, smug, and totally rude smile. “Not all of us are a Goody Two-shoes.”

My lips part, and my brows furrow in disgust. “Being good at studying is not an insult, you dickhead.”

“It is when you’re more buried in books than people. Boys. Girls. It doesn’t matter to me.” His eyebrow flicks up, and the second it registers with me what he just said, a wicked smile forms on his face like he can see straight into my mind.

Fuck. Him.

“Oh my God,” Jasmine scoffs, laughing it off. “Awkward.”

“Ooookay,” Liam says, tapping the table with his fingers.

It’s quiet for a moment. Too quiet. And it makes me grab more peanuts and shove them in my mouth. Even if Luca is staring me down, I won’t be browbeat by him.

I listen in to some of the conversations our parents are having, but I only catch a few phrases about some kind of “cargo” and that they’ll be happy to “distribute” it to their dealers.

Not that I want to know. It’s all shady as hell, and we all know, but no one cares, and neither do I. As my father says, he earns the hard money to pay for our futures, so I can’t complain.

“Well, anyway, we’re switching schools soon,” Jasmine says, trying to change the subject.

“Really? Which one?” Liam asks.

“Ours.”

Luca’s voice overarches our entire corner of the table, and the silence that follows makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Jasmine turns her head to him, and Liam follows, forcing me to remove my elbow.

“Wait, what?” Jasmine says, looking confused. “Did you say ours?”

Luca’s tongue dips out to wet his lips, and when he parts them, he doesn’t look at her … he looks solely at me.

“I asked your parents, and it’s true … you’re joining us in class.”

My eyes and mouth widen, but I can’t say a word even though I try my best.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know the school our parents had chosen was the one they go to.

How could they not tell me but tell him?

And why did I fail to ask?

Dammit.

No one says a word, not even Liam, even though I’m begging in my head for him to deny it.

But he doesn’t.

Suddenly, my father gets up from his seat with a champagne glass in his hand and clears his throat. “I’d like to say a toast. To our partners. Our friends. Our sons and daughters.” He looks at us. “To our future.”

Why is he looking at us like that?

“Cheers!”

Our parents raise their glasses, and they all look at us like they’re waiting for us to join. So I pick up the glass and lift it without breaking a smile. I don’t know what exactly we’re toasting to, and I doubt my parents will ever tell me.

But from the vicious smirk on Luca’s face, I know he’s not toasting to any of the business deals our parents are concocting with that precious cargo my father bought.