Freya Arsov sits on top of a world of diamonds and sports cars. Her father is a billionaire, head of a world-renown company, her mother, an esteemed lawyer. She attends the most prestigious boarding school in England. She has four amazing best frien...
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RAINA STUDIED MATTHEW AS THEY VEERED DOWN the crowded London streets.
His hands were calm on the wheel of his car, fingers tapping along casually to the song on the radio. He did not seem the least bit nervous or off-put by their venture.
It was past two on a Thursday and they'd both ducked out of their final periods in favour of driving to London, to ambush Saiid at his hotel. Much to Raina's surprise, Gray had found out the hotel that Saiid was at and it wasn't the Jabir Regency. For as long as she recalled, her family stayed at Bilal Jabir's hotels, no matter where they were at in the world. In a way, she considered the Jabir Regencies to be her slice of Riyadh in whatever city she may be in.
But no, Saiid was staying at The Connaught.
Raina recalled the weeks ago when she and the girls had lunch there after shopping for Helena's party. It felt like a lifetime ago. Then, they'd been tense, yes, wrought with worry, especially after the Mafia had delivered a flash drive to Freya on the street outside the boutique like it was nothing. But now, the air in Ebony House was more than tense, it was suffocating.
Raina wondered if this was how it always felt for Freya. If the girl always felt like the world itself was closing in on her.
If so, she'd done a good job of hiding it for years. Freya was a liar like that. But Raina was struggling to resist to urge to burst into tears for no reason at all. She wasn't even sure why she wanted to cry. Was it because of Anakin Graves? Or the fact that Kirova had turned his eye onto her older brother? Was it because Freya was upset with her though she'd never admit it? Raina just felt a little useless in the grand scheme of things. And she was no good at hiding it.
Fiddling with the collar of her beige long coat, she glanced again at Matthew. He hadn't spoken much, rather let them sit in the small silence where only the pop songs on the radio played.
He was always utterly at ease with the world. At least to the observant eye. He walked with a surety in his steps, he spoke with an easy confidence in his words, he was always utterly calm, as if the world was his and he commanded it. Anyone would believe Matthew al Nassar's image that he'd painted for himself. He was a liar, just like Freya on that front.
But Raina knew he wasn't always calm. Although he gave no sign of it, she knew there was a storm below his skin just like there was one underneath hers, underneath Freya's, underneath Anakin's. And she'd glanced at it only a few times. The first time when he beat the living daylights out of Theodore Altringham that night in Cyan Hall. And the other time when he stood on the steps of Ebony House, gold eyes wild as he realised that he'd lost Freya.
