Silver Stilettos

4 | the ugly truth

"My family," Reed began to say, then he yanked his hand through his hair and muttered, "Shit."

Tentatively, I inched closer to him. "Your family?" I asked, hoping my voice would prompt him to speak.

Reed wouldn't meet my eyes. "You cannot breathe a word of this to anyone, Mayuri. I mean it." He tilted his head back, stared at my ceiling, and closed his eyes. "I think it was my family who tried to shoot you today. Because of your blog."

"That makes no sense." I stood up, so sudden and so swift that Reed jumped to his feet, too. "Why should your family want me dead?" I demanded, putting my hands on my hips. "I am no one."

"And that is what makes you all the more dangerous!" Reed shot back, getting close enough to hiss in my face. "For a stranger to know the business of the familje is unheard of. It's not just unheard of, it's unfuckingconceivable."

From this distance, I noticed that his eyes were not just blue, like I had always supposed, but tinged with a silvery gold around his pupil, making his blue eyes look even more electrifying.

My bedroom had never seemed so small than when there was a boy six feet tall towering over me. I swallowed. His presence made the walls shrink around us and with horror I realized he had cornered me against the dresser. The knobs dug into my back and I gritted my teeth against the discomfort.

Reed's eyes widened when he realized I'd placed my palms flat against his chest. With a mighty shove, I pushed him away from me and he stumbled, almost falling onto the bed.

"Maniakal." Reed shot upright, glaring daggers at me.

"Me maniacal? I'm not the one sneaking into other people's bedrooms!"

"Maybe you should be! If you got some, then maybe you wouldn't be this uptight!"

Our staring contest had no victor. Reed was the first to look away and only then did I feel secure enough to blink my eyes rapidly, easing the burning of leaving them open for so long.

"The things you've written are more true than you know." Reed eased himself onto the foot of my bed, hunching his shoulders in a nervous gesture that looked unnatural on him. "What do you know about the Albanian mafia?"

"...Mafia?" I repeated faintly. "I...I..." My fingers bunched together at the bottom of my shirt, crumpling the fabric. "Nothing."

"You knew about my brother. About my mother. The things you've written are a direct link to my family and their activities. How did you know?"

"I didn't. It's fiction, Reed."

But it wasn't. My skin flushed with heat. It wasn't fiction. I'd known it was true, just not known it had been about him. Scattered phrases of my father's telephone conversations or the quiet murmurs of his evening chats with my mother after Kiran and I went to bed had been the fodder for my imagination. I had cherry-picked information and woven it into a fictional story with Reed and Mia at the center of it.

"You're lying," he accused.

"I'm not."

"You think I can't tell when a girl is lying?" He no longer looked meek as he came toward me, his narrow hips swaying with purpose. Everything about his body looked sleek and feline, reminding me of a jungle cat padding through foliage, using the environment to camouflage itself. He came to a stop in front of me, his eyes an intense, stormy blue.

"I don't know. You're not as clever as you think you are. You never know the answers in class," I said, kicking myself for baiting him. What the hell are you doing, Mayuri? You do not poke the bear. That is like, life lesson number one!