CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 10

(CLARA POV)

It wasn’t just a case of me not trusting Alina or something.

It was that I knew that girl.

I know that snake.

Always too sweet when she wanted something. Too quiet when she was hiding something.

And very recently… I could not help but notice that she had been both.

I leaned against the stair rail, watching through the half-drawn curtain as she stepped into the yard earlier this morning.

Her head kept high, hair brushed too perfectly for a lazy day at home.

She was dressed like she was going somewhere important, but pretending like she wasn’t.

She always had this way of thinking she was smarter than the rest of us. That she could just lie her way out of anything.

But I wasn’t a fool.

And as far as these kind of games were concerned I was her mistress.

“Her fucking boss.”

My fingers were wrapping tighter around the phone in my hand.

Then, once outside I saw a man in a black car, honking and waiting outside with that confident impudent look on his face like he