Etching Our Way (Broken Tracks 1)

She gasps and grips it tighter as I pull on it, but she doesn’t let it go. “Stop. It’s... nothing.”

I raise my brows and bend at my knees, coming eye to eye with her. I tell her everything I can with my eyes: that she can trust me, that she can tell me anything.

“I—” She looks out of the windows that make up most of the pool house front, gazing out at the backyard and the main house. “Honestly, Tris. It really is nothing. I… I didn’t get much sleep so I’m feeling out of it.”

I carry on watching her, knowing deep down that she’s lying. “A,” I plead.

“Daddy! Eddie is here!” I whip my head around to the door of the pool house, looking out of the glass door and seeing Izzie standing at the kitchen door, watching us.

Amelia takes that as her cue to pull on the box, causing my hands to drop from it as she scuttles off into her own kitchen.

I swipe my hands down my face, frustrated at not having the time to see what’s going on. Not that it looks like she would have told me anyway.

I can’t help but worry about her. The last few years she’s become a part of the family; you can’t spend the amount of time with people that she does—day in, day out—and not get close to them. She’s the little sister that I never had and I want to protect her.

“This isn’t over!” I shout to her as I pull the door open, but she doesn’t answer.

I close the glass door behind me and make my way back into the main house, meeting Clay and Izzie at the front door where they stand with Edward.

“Is Amelia okay?” Izzie asks.

“Yeah, pumpkin. She’s okay.” I smile; the same strained smile that Amelia gave them. “Let’s get you to school.” I pick her up, kissing her cheek as I carry her to the car with her giggles surrounding us.

As soon as we’re on our way to their school, I pull my cell out, ignoring the ten messages from Nate as I reply to him.

TRISTAN: Zanders. 12:30. Don’t be late.

If I can’t find out what is going on from the horse’s mouth, then perhaps he can.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” I tell Catiya as I walk past her desk.

“Sir?” I spin around at her voice, punching my finger on the button to the elevator. “Pete has been calling nonstop, he’s threatening that he has evidence against you.”

I blow out a frustrated breath. The guy has been causing trouble ever since he tried to stage a coup and didn’t get the result that he wanted. He should have known better than to take on a Carter. It never ends well when you do, and I know for a fact that he isn’t able to get another job; he’s done in this city.

“Call Jared and get him to block his number, and let security know that if he turns up here they’re to call the police.”

“On it,” she answers, nodding her head and picking up the handset of the phone that sits on her desk.

The pinging of the elevator doors has me spinning around, and as I step inside, my cell buzzes with another message from Nate, asking where I am. The man has no patience; he’s like an overactive puppy, constantly begging for attention.

I quickly shoot him a message saying that I’m on my way to the restaurant now and to chill the fuck out before I check my emails to pass the time as I lean against the wall of the elevator.

It feels like I’m standing here for hours and I make a note to get someone in to look at the speed of these things, they’re too slow for my liking; it would have been faster to take the stairs at this rate.

“Finally!” Nate’s voice rings out as soon as the doors open and I scowl at him. Everyone’s attention is on him: smiles and grins being thrown his way. I don’t like it, not one bit. And when those same people who were grinning at him only seconds ago see me, they soon turn their gazes away.

“Not all of us can come and go as we like, you know,” I tell him as I walk toward him. “Some of us have companies to run.”

“Oh!” He holds hi

s hands up in the air, leaning down. “I bow down to you, Sir Tristan.”

I roll my eyes, speed walking past him and out of the doors before hooking a left and heading to Zanders, hearing him as he jogs to catch up with me.

“What happened to your face, anyway?” Nate asks.

My hand wanders up to the purple bruise under my left eye, wincing as I touch it. “Nothing you need to worry about,” I say, turning toward him. “I thought we were meeting at the restaurant?”