REESE

chapter fifty three.

Reese POV:

Sometimes I think God was a little bit drunk when he made Carver.

Logically, I know that statement makes no sense, mostly because I don't even believe in God, but nothing about Carver made sense either. Not his personality, not his demeanour, not even his stupidly good smell. When Pria and Nico were still getting to know Carver, Pria told me that the English heir reminded them of a robot personified, and now I'm inclined to agree. Not a robot in the sense that he's emotionally unavailable because he's not, but in the sense that nothing, absolutely nothing, bothered that man.

No one was that calm about everything. No one was that unbothered. Something wasn't adding up.

I was almost tempted to bait him. Operation corrupt the robot, that's what I was calling it in my head. I wanted to break that golden boy halo around Carver Asher Rutherford. Why? Because I was bored and I felt like it. Now...did that make me a psycho girlfriend? Maybe. Did I care? No.

I'm not saying that the boy is perfect, because he's clearly not. If that dumbass was perfect, then he would have known that if his girlfriend was pissed off at someone, he should have automatically been pissed off at that person too. But I was actively watching him talk to Rafael, so clearly Carver did had problems, but not enough to warrant any immediate concern.

No worries though, he would pay for that insubordination later.

"You're glaring pretty harshly at Carver, Reese." Alexander noticed, poking his head over my shoulder from behind me.

"Yeah, so?" I snapped.

"Okay..." He slowly moved back as if I was some rabid dog. "Continue then."

So, I did. The private airport tarmac was unusually loud, understandable since there were five private jets lined up and ready to depart Russia all the way back to their respective countries. So much noise, so many people, so much chaos; and still, my mind raced. I felt like I was on speed; like my brain was making up for the time lost by functioning at a borderline dangerous level of stimulation. Problems, solutions, plans, ideas, blueprints, weapons, people, work, home, relationships, arguments, business-everything that had been tucked away for the last couple of months was finally coming out of the vault.

And it was coming out bundled with rage.

I was pissed off, but the problem with being pissed off at everyone and everything was that I expected everyone around me to be mad at our current circumstances as well, especially Carver. He had been through everything I had been through, so he should have been right beside me, fuming at the fact that Henri Baudelaire could have been assassinated by my drones yesterday, but that opportunity was taken away from us.

But he wasn't fuming, he was completely fine, happy even.

Perfect, stupid, unbothered Carver was parading around his mental stability and god-given ability to not give a shit, simply to mock me, all while I was seconds away from lighting myself on fire.

"Are you okay, Ree?"

I turned my glare onto my eldest brother.

"I'll take that as a no."

I let out a huff, my eyes burning from my lack of sleep. Lately, basic human interaction with my family, both biological and adoptive, did nothing but anger me. Everyone was acting like our war with the French was over, but last time I checked, the main players were still alive. Just because we had cut off a limb didn't mean the cancer was gone. Translation: we hadn't won, and we wouldn't, not until Elroy and Henri were dead. If everyone wanted to turn a blind eye to the truth then that was their business.