Broken Empire: A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance (Boys of Oak Park Prep Book 3)

by Callie Rose

  “Alice Mercer said my mom hated all of them,” I murmured. “But I think she was scared of them too. That’s why she left Roseland. Why she went to the shittiest, most out of the way place she could think of. To get away. To try to live.”

  “And they went after her anyway.” I could hear Mason swallow hard. “Maybe that’s what pushed my mom over the edge. They were best friends once.”

  His breath was becoming shallower, his body more like stone beneath mine. His hand in my hair had stopped moving, and I could practically feel him retreating into himself, into the locked room of guilt that was his mind.

  I sat up, pulling back so I could see him better as I cupped his cheeks in my hands. “Mason—”

  “I’m so fucking sorry, Talia.” The words sounded like they were made of sandpaper, like they had scrubbed his soul raw before scraping out of his mouth. “What they did—what we did… You should hate us forever.”

  Pain meds still made me woozy and loopy, but a strange sort of clarity filtered through my mind anyway. Still cradling Mason’s face in my hands, I leaned closer, holding his reluctant gaze as if I could force him to hear and believe my words.

  “No. You saved me. The four of you today—you saved me. You came for me.” I brushed my thumb over the bruise on his cheekbone, my touch feather light. “You’ve hurt me too, I won’t deny that. But when I needed you, you came for me. We could hold onto our anger and guilt and pain forever, Mason. We could chase them around and around in our hearts and never get anywhere… or we could let them go.”

  I felt his jaw clench beneath my palms, felt him try to shake his head, but I tightened my grip.

  “We are not our parents. Neither one of us. Not me or you or Finn or Cole or Elijah. They made their choices, and we’ll make ours.” I rested my forehead against his, gaze still locked on his churning emerald eyes. “We’re not bound to walk in their footsteps, no matter what happened before. Their story isn’t ours. Theirs was a hate story, and ours…”

  “…is a love story,” he whispered.

  Incrementally, like ice melting on a warm spring day, Mason’s body began to loosen beneath mine. His hands moved over me, soft and careful, brushing my hair back, tracing the line of my jaw, until he held my face in his palms just like I held his.

  When he pressed his lips to mine, I breathed him in like air, letting his warm cedar scent fill me up.

  There was nothing demanding or desperate in his kiss.

  It wasn’t a push or a pull.

  It was just him. Meeting me right where I was.

  We kissed as if we might fuse our souls together through the connection of our lips, and when we finally broke apart, I curled up into him as he wrapped his arms around me, cradling me against the soft shell of his body.

  I pressed my cheek to his chest, and he rested his chin on my head, and we held each other like that for a long time.

  Two orphans of a war we hadn’t even realized was being fought.

  Chapter 24

  We limped into the end of the semester—Cole and me literally—but the story of the Princes’ parents spread like wildfire, and given everything that’d happened, the Oak Park faculty and staff were pretty accommodating, giving us excused absences while we recovered and allowing us to make up for missed classwork.

  All of the Princes’ parents were arrested, although Alice Mercer was released on bail. She’d hired a lawyer from Erin Bennett’s firm to represent her and was working closely with the police as they investigated the two murders. I was sure her lawyer would help negotiate that into a lighter sentence for her, if she was convicted at all—but I was also sure that wasn’t why Alice was doing it.

  She just didn’t want to hold onto the secret anymore.

  Adena’s parents’ company, Allegiant Capital, hadn’t had anything to do with the one the Princes’ parents and mine had started up. The timing of the two investment firms’ inceptions truly had been a coincidence, and it hadn’t been the driving force behind Adena’s hatred of me.

  She’d been driven by more petty and basic emotions—simple jealousy and spite.

  Even through his grief at finding out how and why his daughter had died, Philip seemed to grow into a pillar of strength—he looked younger and sharper than he ever had before, as if he’d found new purpose in his pursuit of justice for her.

  And Jacqueline…

  Well, Jacqueline couldn’t look at me. She could barely talk to me. I was certain my fuzzy memory of her hugging me at the hospital was accurate, but that was the only time it’d happened.

  At least I was pretty sure I knew why though.

  When I’d first come to live with my grandparents, she had been stiff and standoffish because of pride. Then, later, it’d been because of anger. Now, it was because of guilt. The same kind of crushing, consuming guilt that had infected Mason for so long.

  I wasn’t sure it was my job to absolve her of it—and honestly, I wasn’t sure how—so I just let the silence exist between us. Jacqueline was capable of love, I could finally see that. Maybe one day she would learn how to actually express it.

  Two weeks before finals, I celebrated my birthday in Cole’s hospital room. An old action movie played on the TV in the corner as we ate cupcakes the guys and I had picked up on our way over. Cole was set to be discharged the next day, and I could tell he was ready—he’d been getting progressively more growly and cranky with the nurses, which I took to mean he was feeling better.

  The healing wound that ran down his chest and across part of his abdomen was ugly and raw, but just like my leg, it would heal.

  Still, I would never dance professionally.

  Mr. Mercer’s attack on me and my fight for survival in the warehouse had re-injured my leg, compounding the damage the car crash had done. I would likely be able to walk normally someday, but the joint would always be too weak to sustain a dance career.

  Doctor Garrett had delivered that news as gently and kindly as he could, and had stressed several times that medical professionals couldn’t predict everything, that amazing recoveries did sometimes happen—but I knew he didn’t believe that would be the case with me.

  It didn’t matter though.

  I wouldn’t let myself give up. I would keep working toward recovery, keep forging ahead, and would make the best of whatever my new normal was.

  “Oh my God, these are fucking delicious,” Leah groaned, her eyes rolling back in her head as she took a gigantic bite of frosting off the top of her cupcake. She polished off the rest of the frosting and then set the untouched cake part down on a napkin, flipping open the bakery box lid again.

  “Uh, no. No seconds till you finish your first.” Finn gave her a narrow-eyed look as he slapped the lid back down.

  “Yeah, but I already ate the good part.” She batted her eyelashes at him, flashing a hopeful smile, but he just arched a brow.

  “Here, I’ll trade you.” Maggie held out hers. “I don’t really like frosting, so you can have all the frosting and I’ll have all the cake.”

  Leah shook her head. “It’s insane that you don’t like frosting. I would say we can’t be friends anymore, except now we have the perfect symbiotic relationship.”

  Dan chuckled as the two of them organized their cupcake eating, draping his arm over the back of Maggie’s chair.

  I glanced toward the door to make sure no nurses were nearby, since they hated when I did this, then crawled up onto Cole’s bed beside him. My cast was clunky and awkward, but when I settled next to him, he wrapped his arm around me, tucking me against the side of his body and pressing a kiss to my hair.

  Finn picked up the large pastry box and carried it over to us, flipping it open like he was presenting jewels to the Queen of England.

  “Birthday girl gets to have as many as she wants. And if you want to lick the frosting off of every single one, I’m not opposed.”

  His expression was both teasing and heated, and a flush worked its way up my cheeks.

  I bit back a
smile as I sat up to pluck two little cakes out of the box, presenting one to Cole. His hand brushed mine as he took it, and he let the contact linger, holding my gaze for a moment. Then we both settled back against the angled mattress, peeling the wrappers down as conversation carried on around us, rising over the low sound of shouts and explosions from the TV.

  Mason and Elijah sat in chairs against the wall, their heads bent together as they talked. Elijah’s grandparents were still alive, thank fuck, and they’d flown up from San Diego to take care of his younger siblings—but I knew it hadn’t been easy explaining to the two younger kids what was going on.

  “Happy birthday, Tal,” Cole said softly, drawing my attention back to him.

  He hadn’t taken a bite of his cupcake yet. He just held it in one hand, staring at it like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. When he felt my gaze on him, he looked up at me, shaking his head.

  “Sorry it’s not a better one.”

  I huffed a soft laugh.

  We’d been finding little patches of normalcy and happiness where we could, finding ways to stay positive and keep moving forward, but beneath it all, there was the undeniable fact that our lives right now were extremely fucked up.

  Leaning closer to him, I let myself fall into his enigmatic, ice-blue gaze, losing myself in their depths for a moment. Then I shook my head, glancing back around the room.

  “It is a good one. It’s everything I need.”

  Epilogue

  Two Years Later

  There are strings attached to everything.

  It was a lesson I’d learned over and over again after Leo Parker had died and I had moved to Roseland to live with my grandparents. I had learned not to trust those strings, not to trust the mysterious, dark corners they disappeared into.

  But not all strings were bad.

  In fact, some of them were lifesaving.

  There were four threads that traveled from my heart to the hearts of four men, that bound us together as surely as any physical ties ever could—that connected my soul to theirs. And I wouldn’t sever those bonds even if I could.

  “Mmm. Morning, Legs.”

  An arm wrapped around my waist under the covers, tugging me back against a hard chest. Finn’s breath stirred my hair, and I tilted my head to bring my lips to his. Our kiss was soft and sleepy, and when he rolled me over onto my back and draped his body over mine, I melted beneath him.

  “What time is it?” Elijah asked, a yawn in his voice.

  Finn and I broke apart, and the blond man peeked at the clock on the nightstand.

  “Ah, fuck. Almost nine. I gotta get to class.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Elijah rolled over and buried his face in my hair, trailing his lips over the skin of my shoulder in a way that sure didn’t make it seem like he had anywhere to be. I squirmed under his touch, grinning broadly as I tilted my head to give him access to more of my neck.

  He took it greedily, and Finn kissed my lips again before pulling away with a groan.

  “Goddammit. Is passing this class really that important?”

  I laughed and shoved at his chest lightly. “Yes. Go!”

  His dimples popped as he grinned at me, and he leaned over to steal one more kiss, deepening it just enough to leave me breathless.

  “Love you, Legs.”

  He threw the covers off and hopped out of bed, heading out of my room as I turned back toward Elijah.

  “That goes for you too, you know. You need to get up,” I told him, although I didn’t protest when his lips found my neck again, his hand wandering up underneath my tank top to gently massage my breast.

  “Yeah. I will. I just need another minute,” he said against my skin.

  I knew what he meant.

  The guys and I had been living together for a year, but it still sometimes felt like it wasn’t enough—like we could never touch each other enough, never hold each other close enough. We all still carried scars from our pasts, and one of mine was the persistent fear that the people I loved would vanish from my life in a blink.

  But I tried not to live in that place or let old thoughts and fears drag me down.

  Life was too fucking short for that.

  When Elijah ran his lips along my jaw, I turned toward him and wrapped my arms around him, and we made out like it was a lazy Saturday morning instead of a Tuesday late in our second semester of college.

  We were all freshmen at Stanford—we’d collectively taken a year off after graduation, and it’d been the best, most healing year of my life. The Princes had watched their parents be tried and convicted of embezzlement and murder, and although it’d been painful, there had been something therapeutic about it too. I thought maybe it was the thing that had finally convinced Mason I was right—that we weren’t our parents.

  We had stayed in Roseland for that entire year, and I’d continued to work with Scott on my rehabilitation. About six months after I graduated, he’d finally caved and become a permanent resident of the city—he’d been taking on additional clients at the rehab facility for a while by that point, and he didn’t have any strong attachments back in Oregon.

  It was a little thing, his decision to stay, but it made me glad. He and Philip had become weirdly good friends, and knowing my grandpa had a buddy around had made it easier for me to leave for Stanford.

  He also had Jacqueline, of course, and I was glad about that too. I was working to forgive my grandmother for everything she’d done in the past. It was still a struggle sometimes, but I tried a little harder because I didn’t think she’d ever forgive herself.

  She still sucked at expressing her feelings, and she was still stiff and uncomfortable with me in person. But she’d started writing me letters—the old fashioned, arrive-in-the-mailbox kind—and in her careful, elegant handwriting, I could feel both warmth and sorrow. At first, I’d felt strange writing back, not quite sure what to say. But our letters to each other had gotten longer and longer, and I thought maybe someday we’d find a way to say all those things to each other face-to-face.

  Reluctantly, Elijah pulled away from me, his hazel eyes sparking with heat and his hands still roaming my body.

  “You have class today?” he asked.

  “Uh huh, but not till eleven. Then I’m seeing a couple clients this evening.”

  “Yeah?” He beamed. “Good.”

  I grinned back. “Yep, I’m excited. But seriously, you better go, or Finn’s gonna come back in here and get you.”

  He rolled his eyes but pressed away from me and stood up. The fallen angel tattoo on his back shifted with his movements as he walked across the room, and I watched him go.

  I had traced every inch of that tattoo with my fingertips more times than I could count, but I never got tired of seeing it.

  Sometimes you have to fall to be free.

  When I emerged from my bedroom a few minutes later, Finn and Elijah were nowhere to be seen, but Mason and Cole were at the table eating breakfast. They tended to be the early risers among us, even when they didn’t have to be up for anything in particular.

  I knew part of it was because Cole didn’t always sleep well. Some nights, he would knock on my door and crawl into bed with me, and I would do my best to wrap my small frame around his larger one, as if I could shield him from whatever nightmares tormented him.

  But the violence that lived inside him was tempered more and more by the sweetness and gentleness that had always been there too.

  I could see it in the way he was with Penny. In the way he was with his mom.

  In the way he was with me.

  A nerve in my leg pinched as I crossed toward the table, and I gave a stutter-step, sucking in a short breath. Mason and Cole both looked up quickly, twin looks of concern reflecting in blue and green eyes.

  “You okay, Princess?” Mason was already half out of his chair, like he was about to pick me up and carry me the rest of the way to the table.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. Just a little twinge.”


  I shook my head and waved him off, rolling my ankle in careful circles to work the kinks out. It was still stiff in the mornings, some days worse than others, but my strength and flexibility were improving. I could walk almost normally now, and although I had to modify the steps a lot, I’d been able to start dancing again.

  Just like Elijah had promised, he played and I danced.

  Mason watched me with narrowed eyes as I started toward them again, and when I reached the table and gave a flourishing little bow, he grinned sardonically.

  “Like a champ.”

  Cole reached up and hooked the back of my neck, tugging me down for a kiss, and as I settled into the seat beside him, Mason’s feet found mine under the table.

  Elijah left a few minutes later, and Finn rushed out a little while after that, calling out a goodbye over his shoulder. But two seconds later, he darted back inside and crossed around the table to kiss me again before muttering something that sounded like “love you” and “gonna be late”.

  The other guys rolled their eyes at him as I watched him leave, a dopey grin on my face.

  I had told him once that if he ever wanted to earn my trust back, he would have to show me, over and over and over, that I could trust him. He’d earned it back with interest by now, but I didn’t think he’d ever stop trying to prove he deserved it, and I loved him even more for that.

  Erin Bennett had helped me access more of my trust, and in another year, I would receive the remainder. The Princes’ still had family money, although none of them were set to inherit the vast fortunes some of our classmates from Oak Park would anymore. But none of them seemed to care too much about it, maybe because they’d seen what greed had done to their parents.

  I was studying business and had started interning at a clinic that specialized in using dance as a form of rehabilitation, with the goal of opening my own facility one day.

  For now, I was just getting my feet wet, but I loved it—maybe even more than dancing under bright lights on a big stage. I helped people who’d had their lives turned upside down by tragedy or trauma find their bodies—find their voices—again. I helped them move, and I listened to the stories they told through those movements.