by Selena
“What are you doing?” Devlin asks.
“Getting dressed,” I say, pulling it over my head. “I’m not wearing my dress and doing the walk of shame. Fuck that.”
Before he can answer, I turn and yank open another drawer, finding a pair of sweatpants. They’re ridiculously long and baggy on me, but I tie the drawstring and make do.
When I turn back to Devlin, a small smile plays over his lips, his expression infuriatingly unreadable.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says. “That’s weirdly hot.”
I grab my shoes off the floor and stuff my feet into them, ignoring Devlin’s snickers. When I look up, though, he’s not laughing at me, not in the mean way he has before.
“Come ‘ere,” he says, slinging an arm around me and pulling me in, pressing his lips to my forehead. I resist for a moment, but all I want to do is pull him back onto the bed, curl up in his arms, and stay there forever. I rest my hands on his hips, closing my eyes and breathing him in as deeply as I can, as if I can save this moment forever.
“What now?” I whisper, not daring to open my eyes.
“Shhh,” Devlin says, resting his cheek against the top of my head.
A minute later, knuckles rap on the door, and Devlin pulls away. Without a word, he turns and walks out into the hall. Taking a deep breath, I follow.
To our left, the twins stand with Dolly between them. She’s wearing full, fresh makeup and her dress from the night before, which looks as fresh as if she hung it in the closet overnight, but her expression is wary as she watches us as if waiting for some judgment.
Devlin’s judgment, I realize. I look to him, but I can’t read his expression. He gives them a cool look before turning to the other side. Colt is standing in the hall, having just knocked. Dixie stands behind him wearing her rumpled homecoming dress and holding her shoes in her hand. Her lipstick is gone, and her eye makeup is smudged. Her face is pale under her freckles, and for once, I can’t read her expression. She’s just… Blank.
Footsteps sound on the stairs, and Preston appears looking freshly showered and shaved, his short hair spiked up and a feverish excitement lighting his eyes. He stops when he reaches the landing, and his gaze skims over all of us in one sweep. A shit-eating grin spreads across his face as he stands there waiting, a hand on the railing.
Devlin looks back and forth between us all, and something snaps down over his eyes as if he’s just put on a mask. I can almost feel the temperature drop around him. The playful, dirty-talking, lustful Devlin is gone, replaced with the cold, cruel boy I’ve walked the halls with at school.
“Did you nail ‘em?” Preston asks.
“Yeah,” Colt says with a grin, turning to Devlin. “Did you?”
“Yeah,” Devlin says. “Sometimes you gotta throw a dog a bone.”
Colt’s smile grows wider, and he leers at me in Devlin’s oversized clothes, so casually callous that it makes me want to wrap my arms around myself and hide. His gaze that makes me feel like a commodity whose value he’s appraising. He holds up a hand for Devlin to high-five, but Devlin turns on his heel, facing my brothers. “Get out of my house,” he says. “And take your whores with you.”
“So I guess that truce was just… What?” I ask, too stung to put up any pretense of cool. “A ploy to get in my pants?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Devlin says. “Don’t be naïve. This was never about you.”
“Liar,” I whisper, staring up at him like he’s a stranger. He is. The boy in that room is not the same boy who stands here, not even looking at me.
Colt grins, the smile that never reaches his eyes. “Why don’t you run to daddy and have him fly you back to New York where you belong?”
“You,” I hiss, my words laced with poison. “You’re a liar, too.”
“Did you really think you could be on the same level as the Darlings?” he asks, giving me a pitying look.
“Our family has a name, a history of wealth and privilege,” Devlin says, looking past me to Duke. “We’re this town’s royalty. You think you’re rich, that you can compete with the likes of us? You’re just poor white trash playing dress-up.”
Colt pushes Dixie toward me, barely sparing her a glance. He’s speaking to me. To our family. “Go back to where you came from. You’ll never belong in this town, and you’ll never belong among the likes of the Darlings.”
Duke springs forward, but I dart between them, pressing my palm against his chest. “Let’s just go,” I say, keeping my voice low and steady. I turn back to Dixie. “Come on.”
She gives one pathetic, hopeful look at Colt that nearly breaks my heart. But I have to keep it together right now before someone gets murdered. And I know that’s what’ll happen if I let go of my control, because I’m the one who would do the killing.
Preston steps up behind the twins and takes Dolly’s elbow. “Beautiful job,” he says, smiling at her. “You provided quite the distraction, didn’t you, little minx?”
“Dolly’s with us now,” Baron says, wrapping an arm around her waist from behind.
I stop, glancing between this girl who was apparently part of some elaborate plan to destroy us, and my brothers, who seemingly still want her.
For a second, no one speaks. Then Dolly pulls herself up to her full, impressive height. “I’ve had enough of being the Darling’s pawn,” she says, staring straight at Devlin.
A flicker of surprise crosses his face, along with something else I can’t identify before it’s gone. This girl isn’t just Devlin’s fangirl. She’s someone so important to him that all his fangirls carry her stamp. Someone he’s known all his life, who might be his first love, his first kiss, his first time.
The thought makes something funny turn over inside me.
“What are you saying, Dolly?” Devlin asks. “You’re not a pawn.”
“Aren’t I?” she asks, a challenge in her voice. She turns from him to Colt, and lastly to Preston, who still stands against the railing of the upstairs balcony. “You might say otherwise, but this girl opened my eyes.”
When she looks at me, all the Darlings do, too. A week ago, a day ago, I would have cringed. But what are they going to do to me now? They had me. They broke me. There’s nothing left to fear.
Dolly’s on a roll, and she keeps going. She’s a sight to behold, well over six feet with her hair piled as high as it is and her six-inch heels. “The only difference between a Darling Doll and a Darling Dog is that you say there is a difference,” she says. “In truth, we’re all the same. We all do your bidding. But you know what? I’m not a doll. I’m tired of acting like one, waiting for you to take me down and play with me.”
“Aw, baby, we’re not playing with you,” Colt says.
“I’m done,” she says, glaring at Devlin. “With you, with your cousins, with all of you.”
If she’s trying to get him to flinch, she’s in for some sobering truth. He doesn’t even blink, just stares back at her, his eyes cold as a snake’s, unaffected by her words.
“Then let’s go,” I say. “We’re all done here.”
Devlin stares at my brothers, not even bothering to glance at me as I walk away. I can’t feel my legs, only an ache between them reminding me that Devlin took something from me I’ll never get back. I keep waiting for his words to come true, for me to start hating him. But I don’t. I can’t feel anything but a coldness where my heart should be. This must be how Devlin feels all the time. Heartless. Emotionless. Ruthless.
I run my fingers along the banister all the way down the winding staircase, trying to feel some kind of nostalgia for the place where I lost my virginity. Each step makes a dart of pain shoot between my legs, but I don’t walk carefully. I relish the pain. The dirty, wet feeling of Devlin’s cum still trickling out of me, wetting my underwear. I don’t look back, but I hear the footsteps of my brothers on the stairs. The clack of Dolly’s heels, and the muffled thud of Dixie’s bare footfalls join them. I can’t hear my own feet, ca
n’t feel them. It’s as if I’m floating.
I don’t stop until I reach the gravel drive. That’s when reality hits. We’re here without a car. Dolly groans and rubs her forehead, squinting against the bright, late-morning sun. Dixie hasn’t said a word. Someone shut her up at last. She stands there like a shell-shocked ghost.
“I’ll call King,” Baron says, taking out his phone.
“Did you really fuck Devlin Darling?” Duke asks, staring at me. I understand everything in that look. Like he’s not sure he can keep it together, like he might explode at any moment. Like he doesn’t know who I am anymore, like he can’t make sense of a world where I’ve done the thing I’ve done. Like he’s not sure if he still loves and respects me, or if he’s ashamed to call me his sister. I understand everything in his eyes as if they’re a mirror to my own feelings about myself.
“Does it really matter?” I ask.
Baron hangs up his phone and turns to us, his face pale and sober. Dread twists hard in my chest, and for a second, I can’t breathe.
“Royal,” I whisper.
“King’s coming to get us,” he says, staring at the house behind me.
“What’s wrong?”
Baron forces his gaze to mine. “He never made it home last night.”
“Maybe he went home with someone,” I say, my voice thin with panic.
Royal is the only one of my brothers who isn’t like that. He doesn’t just go home with girls.
“King already talked to the limo driver,” Baron says. “Royal left right after us, and the driver dropped him off at the end of the driveway.”
“What?” I ask, barely able to breathe past the knot in my throat.
Baron glances at the house where the Darling cousins remain, his jaw hard. “The driver said Royal met a man in the driveway. He didn’t see much because it was dark, but he described the guy as tall and blond.”
“Preston,” I whisper. Was that all this was? A decoy? A distraction?
“The driver left when they were just talking,” Baron says. “But King says Royal never made it to the house.”
“You don’t think…” I break off and swallow hard, not finishing that sentence. I don’t have to. We’re all thinking the same thing. Devlin said it wasn’t personal, but he has no idea what he’s dealing with. We’re the Dolces, and we’re anything but sweet. Our blood is thicker than chocolate. Our family always comes first. And if they hurt our family, things are about to get really fucking personal. Because if they hurt my brothers, I’ll hunt them to the ends of the earth to exact revenge.
*
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