The Villa(60)

Johnnie swipes at his nose with one hand, practically vibrating as he stares down Pierce.

“Yeah, well, maybe I didn’t want some lowlife dealer scum fucking up the vibe with his three shitty chords, ever think about that?” Pierce says, and Johnnie throws back his head, barking out a laugh.

“Rich coming from you, mate. At my door every day, asking if I’ve got more, but now I’m ‘lowlife dealer scum’? Well, you still owe this lowlife ten quid, you dickhead. Or hell, maybe I’ll start giving it to you for free, hope you fucking top yourself. Say hi to the missus when you do, yeah?”

Pierce’s face is white now, and then he’s rushing at Johnnie, and Johnnie has his clenched fist raised, and Mari hears herself, shrill.

“Stop it! Both of you!”

Pierce grabs Johnnie’s shirt just as Johnnie’s fist connects with Pierce’s jaw, making a sick, fleshy sound that makes Mari’s stomach roll.

She can hear Elena in the kitchen, shrieking for Noel, and Lara comes down the stairs, still in her pajamas, her face pale.

“Mari, what—”

“Pierce, stop it!” Mari yells again, trying to grab his shoulder, but he spins around, hard, sending her tumbling to the floor. She hears Johnnie’s roar and another one of those dull thwacks, and then Noel—she’s never been so happy to see Noel Gordon—finally appears, dragging Johnnie away from Pierce with surprising strength.

“Get a fucking hold of yourselves, both of you!” he barks, none of his usual lazy charm now, just the innate sense of authority that comes from your family owning huge swathes of England.

Johnnie skids on the stone floor in his sneakers, and Pierce is on his knees, panting, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. Both of them are glaring at each other, but they don’t make any moves in the other’s direction, and after a moment Noel lets go of Johnnie’s collar.

Pierce rises to his feet and makes for the stairs, swiping at the blood on his mouth. It leaves a crimson streak across his cheek, but he doesn’t seem to care, taking the stairs two at a time. “Fucking bullshit, man,” Mari hears him say. “Fucking sick of this place.”

“Then leave!” Noel shouts up after him, and Mari’s stomach clenches.

No. They can’t leave now. Not when she’s so near finishing the book. What if she leaves this house, and Victoria’s voice goes silent again?

She can’t let that happen, not now, not when she’s this close.

When she goes into the bedroom, she sees Pierce already angrily pulling things out of the wardrobe, slinging them onto the bed.

His head shoots up when he sees her, his blue eyes bloodshot. “Who the fuck does that arsehole think he is, talking about Franny?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. “Like he knows. Like any of them know. I loved that girl, okay? You think I wanted her to die? I just wanted her”—he slings another shirt onto the bed—“not to live the boring life her fucking parents wanted for her. She should’ve been able to do that without me, and it’s not my fault she couldn’t.”

Mari’s mouth is dry, her hands shaking, and she approaches Pierce slowly, resting her hands on his back. He’s burning up, his skin hot against her palms, and she thinks again of that long night, holding Billy against her.

“Calm down,” she tells Pierce now, but he shakes his head, pointing at the chest of drawers.

“Get your things. We’re not staying one more bloody night in this nuthouse.”

Mari’s eyes go to her notebook, still open on her desk. “Don’t be silly,” she tells Pierce, trying to keep her voice light. “We’re supposed to be here another two weeks. We can’t buy new tickets, we don’t have the money.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that,” Pierce replies, beginning to shove things into the suitcase, and Mari can’t help the scathing laugh that bursts out of her.

“Of course, you don’t, but you never do. I’m the one who has to worry about that kind of thing, right? Suppose you want me to call my father, beg him to help us out somehow.”

Pierce goes still, then turns around, his chest heaving. “I’ve never liked you having to ask your father for money—”

“But not enough to actually make money yourself. And god forbid Pierce Sheldon ever lowered himself to grovel to his own family.”

Pierce points at her, his hand shaking. “You just don’t wanna leave because of him.”

His hand moves, finger now jabbing at the floor, toward downstairs, and Mari picks up the nearest thing to hand, one of Pierce’s jackets, flinging it at him.

“Oh, that’s right, the only thing I could possibly care about is some other man and some other cock,” she spits out. She has no idea if he means Johnnie or Noel or both, and, given that the idea she’d want to stay for either of them is absurd, she’s too bloody angry to care. “What other reason could a girl have for not wanting to sprint out across Italy dead broke? Never mind that I’m actually happy here. Never mind that I’m actually working, not that you’ve even fucking noticed. Or asked. Or cared.”

Pierce just stands there, staring at her, his expression almost comically confused.

He looks like someone just hit him over the head, Mari thinks, and she sort of wishes she had.