Page 17 of Steel Rain

I pulled my arm from his grasp.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” I stormed through the wooden double doors of the big house.

I paused, though, because I just couldn’t help myself.

I called over my shoulder, “He’s also not a discount Liam Hemsworth. He’s much better looking.”

It was a tragedy how I couldn’t be attracted to Guile. So many women threw themselves at him, and his pop star charm. Handsome did nothing for me. It never lit a fire under my ass and made my panties soak the way it did for other women.

Maybe I was broken. Maybe it was because Guile had those Irish features – the pale skin, the light eyes. There was something about him that reminded me of all the men I had grown up with. All the men who had betrayed me.

Maybe Keith broke me far more than I knew.

Dread seeped into my heart as I wondered…is he here?

That confrontation, whenever it happened, would be merciless and terrible. Had he told anyone? Had he high-fived his buddies, and bragged about his conquest? Was he proud of what he had done? What must they all think of me?

I opened the doors of the big house, and was hit with the familiar scent of tapestries and dust, old paint, and brass polish. The familiar smells of an old house in winter. The outdated, hot water radiators that creaked and tapped with the pressure of their enormous task. This old mansion had once seemed magical and rich to me. A sign of opulence, and home. Now, it was like a rotten haunted house, devoid of life, and all the people in it were just zombies mindlessly moving from one task to another.

I entered a foyer. A red Persian rug covered the dark wood floor. To my left was the receiving room with Dairo’s baby grand, black piano. To my right was a door, and beside it on the wall wasthefamous painting.

It hadn’t been here when I was growing up. It was a sick addition. Eoghan Green’s face was on a sadistic angel’s body. All around him, figures reminiscent of Ruben were falling from the skies and into fiery pits. And Eoghan’s figure ushered them down, plunging knives into their hearts in a bloodied mess as he dragged them all down to hell.

They say he made the red paint from the blood of his enemies.

I knew Eoghan was a dark, twisted soul, but I wasn’t sure if I believed that. It seemed a littletootheatrical, even for him.

“If you’re wondering if the rumors are true,” a voice called out from the top of the grand staircase. “It is.”

Well, shit. The psychopath really was off his rocker nowadays.

Eoghan wore a blue Louis Copeland & Sons tweed suit jacket. I recognized the style that was reminiscent of his predecessor. A gold chain dangled from his pocket. Was he wearing a fucking pocket watch? What a pretentious prick!

If I hadn’t known him, Imighthave thought that he looked like a vampire with his slicked-back blonde hair and black eyes. But I had known him since he was just some kid with a sketch pad, hiding in his cousin’s shadow.

I was there when his mother died, and he wept for days, hiding with me in my tree house so that the others didn’t see.

This intimidation tactic wasn’t going to work on me. I refused to let it.

“You look like your father,” I said with a lift of my brow.

He tilted his head and regarded me as if he wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or not. It wasn’t. His father was bat shit crazy. A trait he seemed to have passed down to his son.

“You look likeyourfather,” he repeated with a smirk.

“Yeah, well, genetics are kind of a bitch,” I replied, knowing that itdefinitelywasn’t a compliment. My father was not a good-looking man. My mother was beautiful, but she had passed her looks on to my sister. Not me.

“Genetics are, indeed.” Why did he talk like he was straight out of a Biblical nightmare? Must be all that classical education. Growing up, he was teased for being so artistic. People said it wasn’t manly. Then he stabbed the sharp end of a paint brush into someone’s hand for daring to touch his unfinished canvas. I had said he was just defending himself, but looking back, I should have seen that for what it was - the sign of a psychopath.

With a flick of his finger, he motioned for me to follow him. I adjusted the strap of my bag as he led me through a dining room and into the yard in total silence. He took me through the rose garden that had once bloomed under his mother’s care. Now they were just sad, and kinda stunted. We walked out into the wood line where a small cut path emerged. Two dirt lines, tire marks, led our way into the trees.

“You’ll be living in the barracks until such a time as you’ve proven yourself,” he said, without looking at me. “When you’ve earned our trust, then your family house will be restored, and get you guardianship over your sister.”

The words “when you’ve earnedourtrust” stuck out. Was he referring to himself in the royal “we”, or was he referring to himself and Dairo, his second-in-command? I wasn’t sure. But I don’t think he was up for explaining himself. The Greens never were, no matter how fucked up their methods might have been.

“When do I see Sibby?” I asked, pressing my luck.

Maybe I should pull back, and act more deferential. Kowtow to the man, like everyone else probably did now that he had inherited his father’s cursed crown. But I couldn’t do it. It was like my body rebelled at the thought of it.

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