VERENA
When we arrived at Vermont, Kai grew distant.
One of the flight attendants knocked on my door and dropped off my luggage, alongside my heels and a message that we were landing in an hour. When I asked her about Kai, she simply looked behind her and told me he was on the phone.
I assumed it was work and changed. I stayed in the isolated bedroom for another half hour in the hope that he would return and we would continue where we left off, but he didn't.
When I walked out into the aisle, he was all too occupied with his phone for him to notice my presence. Yuna called me over and helped me take my mind off things by poking fun at Roman in deep sleep beside her. It did not work well.
Seth sat directly in front of Kai, head down on his laptop screen, but he at least offered me a terse nod when I passed by him.
Admittedly, I felt indignant. I knew I did nothing wrong; he didn't even seem relieved when Seth intruded on us.
We were building a connection already, but whatever he and Seth talked about severed it before it got the chance to fully form. Now, he was back to pretending like I didn't even exist.
When the plane landed, two black vehicles were waiting for us: one van, the other a seemingly expensive sports car. All our luggage was stowed in the trunk of the van we climbed in to, but Kai drew back to talk to Seth and headed toward the other one parked next to ours where a man in a suit was ready to hand him his keys.
Of course, he had million-dollar cars with assistants in every state ready for him at any given moment. I just knew he did.
"Where's he going?" Yuna asked when Kai's car drove off in a different direction from where we were heading.
"Business," Seth answered from the driver's seat. He didn't need a GPS to navigate his way. Maybe he was from here. "Something urgent came up."
"He won't join us for the mission?"
"He will. He'll just be present when we need to discuss our plans and execute them." Seth looked at me through the rear-view mirror with suspicious eyes, but he looked away when he realized I wasn't going to stop staring at him.
We reached our destination in twenty minutes. Unlike the hotel we stayed at in Paris, Seth parked in front of a mansion that looked straight out of the 19th century.
It almost looked like a castle. Yuna gawked at the sight of it when we got out, took our bags, and started heading towards it. About thirty stone steps led up to the two massive wooden doors Seth opened with a rustic key.
We walked into a grand drawing room that led to East and West wings of the mansion. The ceiling looked about twenty feet high, lined with two big crystal chandeliers but only the sunlight illuminated the room.
The furniture looked Victorian, matching the architecture of the house. They were a dark red, matching the paint of the wall. Further back, there was a fireplace that had a stack of wood next to it ready for burning.
"What is this?" Roman asked with an accusatory glance at Seth. "This place looks dead. It's ancient."
Yuna shrugged. "I think it's homey."
YOU ARE READING
brutal
Romansa"What do you want?" he whispered. I knew I should've stopped then. A part of me wanted him so bad, which was why I knew I shouldn't let myself have him. The rational side of me was begging for me to stop. "You," I whispered. It was too bad my desire...
