Callous Prince

by Becker Gray

  And I, Sloane Lauder—daughter without a mother, daughter of a father who chased criminals all around the world, a black belt and a badass—was not prey. Not even for beautiful boys with fingers like magic and lips like sin.

  I moved out of his arms, which made his fingers slide free. My core clenched at the emptiness, but I ignored it. “I’m going with him.”

  He frowned down at his hand, as if unhappy that it was no longer up my skirt. Then he looked back to me. “You’re going with me, Sloane. That’s the end of it.”

  I laughed a little, astounded at his conceit. “Do I look insane to you? I’m not picking you over him. At least he’s the devil I know.”

  “That’s because he is the devil,” Lennox replied. “I am only a monster.”

  I pushed him back enough so that I could smooth my clothes and then turn to open the door. He slammed a hand up to stop me, pressing against me to whisper in my ear.

  “You can’t hide from me, Sloane. You’ve belonged to me since the day I saw you.”

  The first two fingers of his hand were still glistening with me, and the reminder of how they felt inside my panties was enough to make my knees weak. I somehow managed to say, “Belonged to you for what, Prince Lennox?”

  “To toy with,” he said against my ear. And then he ran his nose along the curve of my neck. “To break.”

  I reached back behind me and wrapped my fingers around his unsatisfied length.

  He shuddered.

  I squeezed.

  And then his hand fell from the door as he reached for me again.

  “I don’t break so easy.” I warned him with a final squeeze hard enough to make him growl. And then I opened the door and left him there with the paper towels.

  4

  Sloane

  It was official. I was living in the twilight zone. Not only had Rhys Huntington kissed me twice now—in full view of everyone—but Lennox had just destroyed me in a supply closet with nothing more than his filthy mouth and his long fingers. For the first time in my entire life, I had a boy striving for my attention.

  Two boys, in fact.

  And how do you actually feel about that?

  Oh, Rhys was attractive. I wasn’t blind. He was very pretty to look at. But there was something cold and distant about him. Something told me ice wouldn’t melt in his mouth. But he was a very good kisser.

  Although, I wondered just how irritated Serafina was about the whole thing.

  She hated Rhys. No doubt. But I was an expert at watching people. And there was something about her that was fascinated by him. It could well have been that she wanted to dissect him like a frog, but it couldn’t be denied that there was a part of her that perked to attention every time he was nearby. Or, maybe she just liked fighting with him.

  Then why were you kissing him?

  That was a good question. Maybe because for once, it was nice to feel pretty. Desirable. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, I’d tamped down any and all of my femininity. I wasn’t a beauty queen like Sera, or hell, even Iris. I was pretty, but I didn’t have that knockout body. I was built lean and athletic. Twiggy, actually. And I learned early on that it’s better to have personality and skills than it was to have beauty.

  Or at least, that’s what you’ve told yourself.

  Whatever. The point was, Rhys Huntington had taken to kissing me. And I still wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it.

  I liked being kissed. Kisses, for all intents and purposes, were awesome. And every time he kissed me, something warm blossomed in my chest. It was pleasant. And he was a very, very good kisser. I just—I don’t know.

  Rhys kissing me was nothing like what happened with Lennox in the supply closet. At. All. That was wild, and fiery. And hot. Like I was being burned alive from the inside out.

  The way Iris talked about her and Keaton made it seem like there were firecrackers all around her, but also this sense of tenderness. Lennox certainly hadn’t been tender. God, Iris would know what to do. I missed her terribly. But she was in Paris, having left school early to go live her best arty life. Keaton went to see her every other weekend. That’s what happened when your family had a private jet.

  The fact that she’d gone off to Paris, leaving us mere mortals behind, made me wish it was summer and we could go and visit her already. But we’d gotten good with the online video chats. I checked my watch. Sera, Aurora, and I would wait up until one or two in the morning to talk to her.

  She and Keaton were doing the long-distance thing, and then he was going to see her for the holidays. Then it would again be back to long distance until the summer. God, they were so in love. It was crazy. But Rhys and I, we weren’t that. And maybe I was just fascinated by him. Or fascinated by the fact he’d taken notice of me. Because the question was, why had he taken notice of me? Why now?

  I’d known Rhys since freshman year. He wasn’t exactly nice. He could be excessively cruel. Not usually to me though. It was usually the people who dicked with him. If you dicked with him, god help you. He was savage. Unrelenting. And he’d make your life a living hell. I’d mostly just kept out of his way because I already had Lennox obsessed with breaking me—I didn’t need anything worse than perverted bathroom graffiti from Rhys.

  The sudden interest . . . there was something behind it, and I couldn’t quite figure it out.

  Maybe he was just bored.

  Then why did you let him kiss you?

  Maybe I was bored too.

  Or you can’t have who you really want?

  I swallowed that down. Lennox’s kisses were . . . different. I could still feel the tingle of his lips sliding over mine. The way he’d gripped the back of my neck, holding me in place as he completely devoured my mouth. Lennox’s kisses were dangerous. Designed to fog the brain and then make it impossible to think. I had a sharp mind. I liked my mind. And PS, why was Lennox even kissing me? He was very clear on his hatred of me.

  And I hated him.

  Liar.

  Okay fine. Maybe I didn’t hate him exactly, but god, I loathed the way he treated me. He was cruel in the way only the powerful can be in that off-hand manner, giving out insults in mini barbs. I could hold my own. The things he said to me didn’t hurt. But that kiss, at the supply closet today, that one hurt. I knew he was only kissing me, touching me, because Rhys had. I didn’t want to be some dick measuring competition for them. I just wanted someone to notice me. Why was that super hard?

  My cellphone rang as I made it to my room. I was alone, so I plopped on the bed and tossed my bag as I fished the phone out of my back pocket. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Sloane, how was class today?”

  “How do you know I went to class and I wasn’t out ditching?”

  “You’re my daughter. You don’t ditch. You like rules.”

  “That I do. It’s alarming you know me so well. Shouldn’t you factor in at any point that I am a teenager?”

  “You are a teenager, but you are cut from the same cloth as I am. You like rules. You like following them. If you ditch, there would be a damn good reason.”

  I hated that he was right. Maybe a part of me wanted to ditch. Cut class. It was a rite of passage. Why hadn’t I done it more?

  I shoved that thought aside. “What’s up, Dad?”

  “What, I can’t just call my daughter?”

  “It’s not Sunday. You always call on Sundays, 10 a.m.”

  He sighed. “You know, I do miss you at other times other than Sundays at ten.”

  I winced. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. “I’m sorry. It’s just unusual, I guess. Is everything okay?”

  There was a beat of silence. “Yes, everything is fine. I’m healthy, before you start worrying about that.”

  My mother had died of cancer when I was eight. And with Dad’s job, he couldn’t drag me around all the time, so he’d sent me to boarding school. But he’d taken to reassuring me of his health all the time. Probably so I didn’t worry. Unfortunately, that just made me worr
y more. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Definitely okay—a little tired, maybe, since this Constantine case has blown up. I suppose Cash hasn’t been doing anything suspicious lately?”

  “Like what? Trying to fence stolen Bronze Age burial goods in rural Vermont?”

  “Ha,” Dad said dryly. “Very funny, and you know what I mean. The Constantines act like they’re above anything criminal, but we all know that’s hardly the case. They’re just better at hiding it is all, and I’ve got authorities from three different bureaus breathing down my neck about what they’ve imported in the last year alone.”

  Cash’s mother apparently had a yen for collecting antiques—the kind of antiques that were illegally extracted from war zones or unethically lifted from dig sites before they could be catalogued—that sort of thing. Dad had asked more than once if I’d ever seen Cash doing anything untoward, but Cash was a floppy-haired sophomore who liked boobs and extra tacos on taco Tuesday, so obviously not. He was as clean as a whistle. A whistle who loved cafeteria food and boobs.

  “Hey, I wanted to ask,” Dad continued, “you’re close to that Lincoln-Ward kid, right?”

  I frowned. “Lennox? We’re not friends, but I know him, I guess.”

  “Right, right. Listen, can you do me a favor and keep an eye on him?”

  “An eye? For you?” I was honestly baffled. Lennox wasn’t a good person, but it wasn’t like he was collecting stolen antiques like Cash’s mom. “Why?”

  My dad cleared his throat. “You remember his father? The investigation that put him in prison?”

  Uneasiness dripped down my neck like cold water. “Yes. You said you consulted on it once.”

  Another throat clearing. “I wasn’t—well, I wasn’t entirely forthright about that. I did work on the case quite a bit, in fact. I was the arresting agent on the scene.”

  I took a moment to respond, because I wasn’t sure how to respond. Dad and I never lied to each other. Not ever. Lying was what art thieves and con men and fences did—not family. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  It could explain why Lennox disliked me so much . . . although that didn’t really make sense either. Not if he’d told Aurora that he wanted his dad in prison. Why hate the daughter of the man who put him there then?

  “It’s not a stage of my career I’m proud of,” Dad said slowly. “It’s a little difficult to look back at the things I did then, much less talk about them.”

  “Things you did during the investigation?” I asked, the uneasiness growing into horror. “Like unethical things?”

  “Oh god, no, no, not that,” Dad said. “Nothing illegal or immoral. I just didn’t handle the . . . political . . . aspects of the case very well.”

  “Political? Like intra-bureau politics?”

  “Among other things,” Dad murmured. “But nevertheless, the older Lincoln-Ward keeps coming back to haunt me, like a bad penny. A bad, conniving penny. He’s making noise about an appeal now, of all things, and we’re still trying to figure out where he’s hid the rest of his money to get the victims the restitution they deserve. And it’s possible that he squirrelled that money away for his kids somehow. Which maybe they’re aware of, maybe they aren’t. Which is why if you could keep an eye on him . . . see if he’s doing anything other than the norm . . .”

  He trailed off. I was staring at my ceiling, seeing nothing, my chest tight.

  “You want me to . . . what? Tail him?”

  “Of course not, honey,” Dad said, his tone the epitome of reason and sanity, as if I were the unreasonable one right now. “You know, it merely would be great if you can get information from his laptop. Or something.”

  I frowned, the unease making my stomach cramp. Illegality shouldn’t bother me; I knew that on an abstract, intellectual level. Sometimes there was a greater need and all. But it was like the lying . . . I didn’t think we were supposed to do that. I didn’t think we did do that.

  “At school, he must leave it around sometimes,” Dad prompted.

  I frowned even deeper at that. On the one hand, my father, my idol, basically, was asking me to take part in a job to actually assist him at work. He knew how much I wanted to be like him. How much I wanted to work in intelligence one day. So this was the opportunity of a lifetime. On the other hand, it made me feel squicky.

  Oh, Lennox was cruel. And worse, he was deliberate in his cruelness. He’d tortured me for years. But there was something about this that made me feel like I shouldn’t.

  “Sloane,” my father prompted. “Can you do it?”

  I’d been silent for too long. “Yeah, but Dad. I mean, Lennox is just a kid. He’s eighteen like me, so there’s a great possibility that he’s not involved with his father. We’re too young for that.”

  “Like you’re too young to be creeping around campus solving certain problems for your peers?”

  “Uh . . .”

  Dad laughed a little. “Yes, I know about that. And no, you’re not in trouble. I know you do what you do in order to help the people you know need it. Which is why I’m asking this of you—I know you’re capable and lots of people need your help right now. Not just me, but all the victims Lincoln-Ward swindled. If he succeeds in moving the last of his money around, we may never be able to return it to the people it was stolen from.”

  I sighed. He was right.

  Truth was, I didn’t know Lennox that well. I mean, I did, but it was more on an emotional visceral level. Something like this, I couldn’t say whether he would or wouldn’t do it. I had no idea.

  “Listen, Sloane, I know you’ve been wanting to intern at INTERPOL before you go to Georgetown. I think we can work that out. This is a small opportunity for you to prove yourself.”

  Way to twist the knife, Dad. “Fine. I’ll do it. Just information from his laptop, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Nothing else. Obviously, I don’t want you to take any unnecessary risks.”

  “I won’t,” I mumble, a knot forming in my gut.

  “We want information only. Strictly for surveillance. Do not get any more involved than that. You can do that, right?”

  I swallowed. “It’ll be easy, Dad. He leaves his laptop everywhere.” Actually, I didn’t know if that was true. I’d seen him and the Hellfire boys sitting around it watching dumb videos on the lawn a few times, but that was only when the weather was nice, which November in Vermont rarely was. But sometimes in the classroom he left it lying around, so I just had to find my window. Enough to do a recon. “I can get it done. When do you need it by?”

  “Within the next week or two.”

  “Consider it done.”

  He was silent for a beat. “I knew I could count on you.”

  As he hung up, the words I love you were at the tip of my tongue. But I knew they’d only be met with a me too. So I hung up as well.

  Just how the hell are you going to get this done?

  I could do it. I could do anything. Even if it meant getting a little closer to Lennox Lincoln-Ward than I wanted to.

  5

  Lennox

  I don’t break so easily . . .

  Sloane’s words echoed through my mind as anger and lust hit me in the gut. It had been three days since the cupboard, three days since I’d dry-shagged her with her uniform skirt pushed up around her hips. Three days since I informed her that she was going to the gala with me, damn it all.

  Because she was mine. And she had been since I was fourteen, she just hadn’t known it yet.

  Mine to torture. Mine to break.

  I deserved her.

  “Daddy wants a call,” an airy voice said from behind me in my room.

  I turned from my desk to see my sister throwing herself into my chair, as if she belonged here and not in her own bloody dorm. As if my bloody door hadn’t been locked.

  I scowled. “How did you get in here?”

  Aurora kicked her feet in the air before grinning at me. Normally her hair was as unnaturally blonde as mine, but for s
ome unknowable sister reason, she’d dyed it black last summer. Now whenever she smiled with her gold eyes and midnight hair, she looked like she was about to carve out a boy’s heart. With a dull knife. While it was still beating in his chest.

  “Sloane’s been teaching me a few tricks.”

  My body gave an automatic stir at the mention of her name. “Of course. Probably learned it from her father.”

  Aurora leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “You have to stop blaming her for what her father did. I have.”

  “Her father ruined us. Ruined our mother. Ruined everything.”

  My sister made a face, her eyes still closed. “No, Len, our father ruined everything. Remember?”

  I didn’t answer her. I didn’t need to, because I did remember.

  As children, we only knew our British billionaire father worked in the city doing something with money. Like a banker, but an artist too, he’d told us once. I paint entire worlds with money. I paint a new life for people.

  Of course he was an artist; that made sense to us. He was creative and playful and charming—the kind of father who would come home late from a trip and wake us up to eat all the treats he’d brought for us. The kind of father who’d play hide and seek, who’d make silly faces at the table, who’d give us ice lollies whenever we scraped our knees.

  We worshipped him; even our mother worshipped him. He was often late, often absent when he shouldn’t have been, often caught in small lies that had seemed harmless at the time. But he was so charming, so funny and so full of smiles, it was impossible to stay angry with him, and our mother never could.

  Until the day it all came crashing down.

  Aurora and I were thirteen—me at school in England, her at a Swiss boarding school—when it happened: a years-long international investigation came to an end, definitively proving my father was the mastermind behind a sprawling Ponzi scheme that totaled billions and billions. Proving my father was a swindler and a liar who had defrauded thousands of investors.