Page 130 of Hexed
“Don’t you tell me what I understand,” she hisses. “He owes me. He can’t just…walk away.”
“Spare me the dramatics, Aria, please. Like you’ve always said, you weren’t even the one whosavedhim.”
His words hit me in the solar plexus like a sucker punch, and I take several large steps back.
What the fuck do they mean she didn’t save me? If she didn’t…then who did?
My mind flits through every situation—every moment—of my relationship with Aria. Waking up to her on the Hudson, then again in the hospital. Every time she’s reminded me of how fate brought us together and how scared she was when she thought I was dead.
It was all a fucking ruse. She waslying.
I feel betrayal for sure, but more than that, I feel…relieved. I can finally let go of the tether tying me to her. The debt I owed her is fake. It doesn’t exist.
I exhale my obligation, and I turn around and walk away.
Let them wonder where I am and what I’m doing.
I’m going home. It’s time to make some changes.
THIRTY-SIX
ENZO
My dad’shouse doesn’t feel like home.
Not that it should. He’s only lived here for the past ten years, and I’ve been out on my own since I was seventeen, long before our small two-bedroom apartment turned into sprawling landscaped lawns and bathrooms with heated marble floors.
This house feels like an acquaintance. There’s no nostalgia, no memories of bologna sandwiches and quarter waters from the corner store.
Maybe that’s for the best.
Now that I’ve been to South Carolina, it’s easy to see the resemblance between where my pops lives and the Kingston estate. Both are flashy with wealth and tucked away from civilization, and just like with Trent, for the first time, I wonder how out of touch Pops is with the streets he runs, since he doesn’t live and breathe them.
I’ve only spent a few years as part of the administration instead of being out there with my crew, but already even I feel the heartbeat of everything dulling. It used to pound feverishly in my ears, pump through my blood like the city’s soul was flooding my veins, and now it’s just a whisper.
Nothing is like it was.
I know Pops is here today, although when I walk in the front door, the emptiness echoes through the white marble foyer and resonates in my chest.
I bypass the kitchen and head to his office in the back hallway of the right wing. I’m surprised when I peek my head in and he isn’t there, and I wander around, trying to find him.
Every minute since I’ve left Atlantic Cove, my mind has been whirring, uncovering red flags from the people in my life like an archaeologist digging up fossils.
I have questions. Lots of them. And I’m not sure if my father had any part of creating the mystery or if he’s just as in the dark, but this is a game of chess, not checkers.
There’s noise filtering from the den, and I make my way there, surprised when I hear voices.
No fucking way he’s got people here.
Something smacks me in the chest and jump-starts my heart, making it twitch in anticipation, and I follow the noise.
The den itself is dark when I walk in, shades drawn and nothing but a small lamp with low yellow lighting casting across the burgundy leather sofa and shining on Pops’s face. He’s staring at the TV and absent-mindedly swirling a tumbler of whiskey in his hand. He moves the glass around and around, his eyes fixated on the television. I follow his gaze, and that vise clutching my middle squeezes tighter.
He’s watching home videos.
Most of which he wasn’t ever home to actuallybein, but I guess that’s why we record things: so we can experience memories we were never truly part of.
“Pops,” I say to him as I walk into the room.
