Broken Wings (Dark Legacy #1)(11)
“Riley!” he yelled as he barreled toward me, sweeping me up in a huge hug. “Are you okay?” he demanded when he finally set me down. His hands cupped my face as he peered at me, like he was a human x-ray machine and could scan me for injuries.
“I’m fine,” I replied, peeling myself out of his grip. “Just a bit shaken up. And Butterfly...” I choked up, looking over the wreckage of the beautiful car again.
“Fuck the car, Riles,” Dante growled. “When we saw the wreck, I thought you’d—” he broke off with a cringe, and I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
“You thought I’d died. Like my parents did.” I shivered hard, and not just because my sweater was too thin for the winter temperatures. In my attempt to avoid Dante’s too intense stare, I spotted Eddy standing awkwardly on the edge of the road.
“Hey,” I called out to her. “Your car?” I indicated the mustang, and she nodded.
“Yeah. Want a lift home?” Her smile was sympathetic, and it made me want to burst out crying again.
With one last look at my poor, broken Butterfly, I heaved a sigh and trudged back to the road where Eddy waited beside her car. “Thanks,” I muttered, taking the front passenger seat as Dante hopped in the back. Suddenly something occurred to me. “Fuck, you’re going to think I’m a total spaz, but... I don’t actually know how to get to, uh, the place I’m staying.”
Eddy arched a brow at me in curiosity, and I felt my cheeks heat.
“She’s going to the Deboise Estate,” Dante offered, slouching across the backseat so he could look between Eddy and me.
My new friend spluttered and coughed a laugh. “Excuse me?” she exclaimed, gaping at me. “Why are you going to the Deboise Estate?”
I heaved a sigh and cradled my plastered arm to my middle as I peered out the window. “Long story,” I mumbled. “Do you know how to get there?”
Eddy snorted. “Of course I do. I just live two houses down.” I gave her a puzzled frown and she rolled her eyes. “Edith Langham,” she explained, pointing to herself. “You sort of met my brother Jasper earlier.”
Blame the head injury, but it took a moment for my brain to make the right connections. “Langham,” I repeated slowly. “Langham Finance?”
Eddy nodded. “Yup, that’s the one. So behind those ridiculous gates there are just the five estates. Ours—Langham—as well as Rothwell, Grant, Beckett, and obviously Deboise.” She flicked a quick glance at me while she drove. “You met Sebastian Beckett tonight, of course, and my brother Jasper Langham. You didn’t see them, but Evan Rothwell and Dylan Grant were tagging along in Beck’s shadow like they always are.” She rolled her eyes and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.
“Sebastian Beckett?” I repeated, and that sexy, smoldering asshole popped into my head. Of course that was him. I groaned and dropped my head into my hands.
“You didn’t know?” Eddy exclaimed, with a small laugh, then tossed an accusing look at Dante in the mirror. “That was rude of you not to introduce her.”
I frowned, turning in my seat to glare at Dante. “You knew who they were? What the fuck, Dante?”
He just shrugged and looked unapologetic. “Like I give a shit about a bunch of entitled rich kids. I just wanted to see you shit all over their egos.”
Grumbling, I turned back to my window. “Look how that worked out.”
There was a long, awkward silence, then Eddy hummed under her breath. “School is going to be so much fun this semester.”
5
Eddy wasn’t questioned at the first set of gates, driving through with barely a pause. I was still pretty shaken up, my pulse racing. Heavy emotions pressed on my chest as well. Not only was that the first car I’d driven since my parents, it was the first race I’d ever lost, and I’d had to do it in spectacular fashion in front of a bunch of rich fucking assholes. Poor, butterfly.
“So, are you going to tell me your story? Or should I guess?” Eddy picked up the conversation, as she maneuvered along the dark road.
I looked over my shoulder and exchanged a glance with Dante. He didn’t give me his usual head shake, and I was surprised that my jaded best friend seemed to be okay with Eddy. Usually it took him ages to warm up to someone new, especially enough to trust them with life stories.
Deciding I could use one friend in this piece of shit place, I decided to give Eddy a chance. A real chance. “My parents were killed—” I choked on that word, swallowing hard and attempting to stuff all of my burning pain down again. “In a car accident. The Deboise are adopting me, or re-claiming me more accurately, because I’m apparently the biological daughter they threw away at birth.”
Eddy blinked at me and slowed her car before pulling it to a stop. We were in front of the gates I’d escaped from only a few hours ago. “Fuck me. Seriously, the Deboises are your birth parents?” Something seemed to occur to her because her eyes widened and she sucked a deep breath.
I nodded, shrugging off her weird facial expression. “Oh yeah, and Catherine Deboise is an ultra bitch. She is trying to morph me into a rich asshole. The next time you see me, my name will be impossible to pronounce and I’ll be wearing designer heels.”