Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
“He’s fucking blackmailing us,” Niko says, and Thorne tightens his grip around Niko’s throat.
“I know he is,” I say. “And he’s going to succeed.”
“Look at that,” Thorne says. “Brotherly love. Didn’t know the legitimate son would be the easier one to get to. Always did seem like a bit of a doormat, Weston—”
Thorne’s words are cut off as Sev reaches back and clocks him as hard as he can in the jaw.
There’s a cracking sound that accompanies it, and I know Sev broke a bone.
“No,” I call out, lunging over as Thorne collapses to the ground, his knife clattering onto the stone. “Sev, you don’t want bad blood with this person.”
“Leave me alone,” Sev roars as he pulls back for another punch.
Blood spills from Thorne’s nose.
His jaw is already slack, and he only seems dimly conscious.
The implications of Sev’s actions are already speeding through my brain like lightning.
Sevan will be the one who gets in trouble.
Sevan could be expelled from Crimson, thrown in jail, or worse.
I don’t know who else Thorne is friends with. I don’t know who still has loyalty to my father after his death, and I stupidly, naively thought that his death meant this was all over.
“All I had to do was pay him,” I tell Sev, trying to yank him backward by his shoulders.
“Nah, Weston,” Sevan tells me, not looking me in the eye. “All you had to do was tell me the truth.”
I feel hollow.
Hollow like I felt every time I lost something important to me.
I swallow past a dry throat. “I didn’t know about the bribery until long after my father died. I only learned about it days ago. That’s the truth,” I whisper.
Thorne is lying back on the ground, groaning in pain, still bleeding while Sev looks down at him with wild eyes.
Everything is crumbling.
Everything is fucked, and somehow I feel like it’s all my fault.
“And yet you’re still working with Roman, or his family, somehow, to keep the bribery going?” Sev asks.
He still won’t look at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Kieran had his suspicions, but when he asked me to spy, I thought he was nuts. Maybe he wasn’t, Wes.”
My heart is spiraling downward inside me like a sinking stone.
“It’s not like that,” I whisper.
“Then what is it?”
My eyes defocus, then refocus again, like a lens going blurry and almost failing.
“Our plan this year was perfect,” I manage to say. “ We had a deal. Roman and I worked out a deal so we could guarantee all of the society internships would be given to Daggers and Luros members. What my father did was unfair. We needed to make it right.”
Sev is breathing heavy as he touches the side of Thorne’s face. “Hey. You conscious?” he asks.
“I’m happy as a…” Thorne starts to say before coughing. “Happy as a fucking clam, if Knox’s money is in my bank account tonight.”
“My phone is right here,” I tell Thorne, sliding it out of my pocket and holding it up like it’s some fucking olive branch. “I’ll give you my maximum transfer. And then I’ll do another one, four more times this week. Is that enough, you leech?”
Thorne just laughs from his place on the ground, blood coating his white teeth.
“Rich kids are so fucking easy. I’ll look forward to it, Knox.”
Sev stands over Thorne like he’s a bodyguard, watching his every move. Thorne tells me the username of the online account he wants the funds transferred and I put it into my banking app, my hands shaking so badly I can barely hold the phone steady.
Worth the price, if I can save Onyx from being shut down.
Onyx matters more than my personal bank account.
Sev finally looks at me.
His beautiful slate eyes that felt like they were mine.
“So you weren’t making deals to get more connections for Onyx,” Sev says. “You were trying to help the other societies?”
I take in a long breath of air.
The fresh scent of the flowerbuds on the trees feels like a mockery.
All this beautiful spring, surrounding everything, yet my own world is spiraling around me.
“Yes. And you were spying on me?” I ask, my voice feeble.
Sev’s face is grim.
I look at the rose tattoo that’s just slightly peeking out of the top of his unbuttoned collar. The bottom of the raven’s wing, at the base of his sleeve.
Everything about you that’s started to feel like home.
My throat is tight.
And I see something close to heartbreak in his eyes.
“Yes, I was,” Sevan says. “I was supposed to be spying on you, and I was falling for you, instead.”
The tectonic plates shift beneath me again.
The iceberg inside me is being turned upside down.
Like I’m about to be swallowed whole.
I can’t.
I can’t…
“I…”
My words fade in the air.
All I want is to make sense of all this. Instead I’m dissociating, like I’m free-floating somewhere above my body, watching everything in my life as it's thrown into the air.