by E. M. Moore
The nerve of him to break my door down and assume I’ll give up my family’s secrets to him of all people. That I can be bought out. I ball my hands to fists, praying I look as threatening as I feel on the inside. “I already told your son, I’m not fucking interested. Breaking down my door like you’re some sort of badass—which is truly funny when I think about how much time you sit behind your desk—isn’t going to win me over either.”
His eyes flare, zeroing in on me. “I think you’re about to become really interested when you realize what we can do to you. Boys.”
Just this one word, and my room erupts. Wyatt and Lucas spread out. Everything they touch gets smashed or ripped or broken under their heel. “Hey,” I call out when Wyatt grabs my laptop off the floor. Stone’s arms surround me, yanking me back to his solid chest. My half-written English paper is on that laptop. Wyatt throws it at Lance who catches it out of the air, nodding at the boy who continues to wreck my apartment.
I struggle to free myself from Stone’s grip, but he’s strong as fuck. I slam my foot down on his toes, and he growls in my ear, fingers digging into me. “Know your place.”
Fury rises in me, making my neck and cheeks flush with an angry red hot heat. I watch a little longer as Lucas and Wyatt systematically go through my apartment. I narrow my gaze at them. They’re not just trashing it for trashing sake, they’re searching for something too. I laugh, the sound ruthless and harsh to my own ears. “What you’re looking for isn’t here.”
There was a period when my grandfather was alive that everyone tried to “steal” what we knew. He had a number of break-ins and scary run-ins with people who meant him harm. I guess we’re in that part of the treasure hunting process again. When no one found what they were looking for, that’s when the town turned against us, calling us all kooks. Suddenly, we weren’t these adventurers who were going to find a piece of missing American history, we were just crazies. Because they couldn’t find it, they thought the whole treasure had been made up and followed by a bunch of ignorant nobody’s.
“Your father had all the maps. The lore. He had everything he needed to find what’s hidden. Now that he’s dead, you have it.”
I swallow, my throat about as prickly as a hundred cacti. “That’s right, I do. And you’re never going to get your hands on it.”
“Give it to me!” Lance yells, his face akin to a devil mask on Halloween. He’s furious, yes, but there’s something else there, too. He’s desperate. If he wasn’t, he would’ve already pulled this shit on us
My fingers clench. “Fuck. Off.”
Lance raises his hand, bringing it back to his ear like he’s going to whip it forward to bitch slap me. My stomach bottoms out, but Stone swings me to the side, taking me just out of his father’s reach. “Dad,” he warns.
My heart catapults around in my chest. Dread slithers in with an icy fear. He was going to hit me. This isn’t just some fear tactic, he was going to take this to a whole different level until Stone called him to his senses.
Alright, that’s enough.
I assess the situation, then shoot my arm forward to the weakest point of Stone’s hold, the space between his fingers and thumb while they’re wrapped around my arm. It doesn’t hurt that he’s still preoccupied with his father when I slam my elbow into his chest. He stumbles, falling onto my rustic coffee table and sliding off onto his back. He gets up with a growl, his shoulders heaving. His father laughs. “I guess she out schooled you.”
The fire in Stone’s eyes burns brighter at his father’s comment. The destruction that’s happening in my bedroom stops and out walks Wyatt and Lucas, the former fixing his cowboy hat to sit properly on his head once more. The slight shake of Lucas’s head makes me certain they were looking for something, and no, they’re not going to find it. I was telling them the truth before. The most important details I know about the Superstition Mountains are in my head. The rest of it is somewhere no one will ever find.
I reach out for my laptop, but Lance pulls it just out of reach. “Let’s play a game. The game is called ruining the stupid girl who thinks she has options.” The amusement in his words sends a shudder through me. It’s one thing to fight about the treasure, to have a competition about who’s going to find it first, but this is a whole different matter altogether. I don’t know why I’m surprised. The Jacobs have always been the shadows lurking. “Saint Clary’s is everything to you right now. Am I right? It’s the only thing you had besides the hunt and your dad, and you don’t have those things anymore. I’m guessing it’s even how you’re eating.” Lance drifts his gaze to the fridge where Lucas yanks it open, revealing its bare interior.
I swallow. The lack of food is something I’ve tried not to think about. There’s just no money. I used what I had over the summer when I was still up in the mountains searching desperately for Dad when everyone else went home. I was relieved to go to school today because I knew I could eat. A banana sits in my bag right now that I took for dinner but didn’t need to eat because Dickie fed me. “I’d have food if your whore of an ex hadn’t taken off with our money.”
Stone’s gaze turns even more furious. He’s molten heat, ready to burn everything in his path like lava.
I don’t care.
Lance tsks and holds up his other hand. Lucas drops a manila folder into it that I hadn’t even noticed he’d been holding. Lance feathers through the paperwork and then tosses it onto my British Lit textbook. “This is my offer. I suggest you look through it and get back to me.”
“I don’t need to look at it. My answer is no.”
A tick in Lance’s jaw starts. Stone peeks at him, then returns his gaze to me, his stare never wavering.
Lance, though, gets even more agitated. His hands turn to fists. Before I can open my mouth to tell him to get fucked again, the almost same gray-blue eyes his son has sear into me. No, actually, his aren’t the same at all. They’re darker. Like a living nightmare. “You think I can’t make your life miserable if you don’t do as I say?” He grins, composing himself. “You think your scholarship is safe at Saint Clary’s?” The mirth in his eyes dances with unrestrained happiness while my life feels like it’s on a high wire. “Oh no, Miss Wilder, it’s not. You’re looking at one of the new donors to the school. I reckon they’ll do anything to keep their new funding.” He nods toward the files on the coffee table. “You can be a winner. Or you can be a loser.”
I let out a breath. I feel as if I’ve been knocked off my feet even though I’m still standing with the coffee table between me and them. It’s like we’ve drawn sides in a war. I’m the opposition. I don’t want to be on their side. I can’t. It goes against everything I believe.
“If you don’t do this, I’ll ruin your whole life, Dakota Wilder. Get back to me by tomorrow.” He strides from the room, my prehistoric laptop dangling from his fingers. The guys follow him, but Lance tells Wyatt to hang back, winking at me. “We have to make sure our precious commodity is safe before she makes the right decision.”
Wyatt closes the door behind his friends, admiring the splinters he put in the wood when he tried kicking it down. I can’t hold myself up anymore, so I slide to the couch at my back. I’ve heard of a lot of shit that goes on with treasure hunting. Most of it is old stories. Betrayal. Greed. I know some of it from first-hand experience, but this takes the cake. The Jacobs are threatening me.
Fuck me. The only thing I have left is college and now they want to take that away?
“You look like someone kicked your puppy.”
“Take this in the worst way you can possibly imagine,” I say. “Fuck. Off.”
I grab the manila folder and retreat to my bedroom. Slamming and locking the door behind me, I throw the contents of the folder on my bed. There’s no use trying to get him to leave. It doesn’t matter. He’ll be as miserable as me here anyway. I run my hands over my curls. I’d taken my hair out of the hair tie after the guys left the first time to try to alleviate the pounding drums in my head, but t
hey’re back with a crescendo.
I’m almost scared to look at the contract. Even a peek is like backstabbing my family.
I stare up at the ceiling, closing my eyes tightly. “Seriously?” I say into thin air as hopelessness covers me like a shroud. Like it’s not enough that my father went missing a couple of months ago, now some guy with a god complex thinks he can buy my family’s legacy?
When two hundred million is on the line, people think with their pockets. My dad said that all the time. He wasn’t immune to it either. He had associates who funded some of our trips up the mountain. He spent so much time researching that he didn’t always have a steady paycheck, yet somehow, we always got by even if it was by a sliver. I can do the same. Pick up a job somewhere… Right. In an area that has one of the worst unemployment rates around?
I pick my way through the strewn clothes all over the floor and lie down on the newly unmade bed, propping my head up with my palm and moving the folder closer. Looking at this is siding with the devil. It might take care of my immediate problems, but it’s like signing my soul away and putting it into a monster’s hands.
6
I dreamt of wading through inky black oil that grew thicker and thicker until it was almost sludge. Ahead of me, a full moon rose in the distance over a beautiful sandy beach. No matter how hard I tried to reach the shore, the molasses-like substance moved around me, keeping me in place until I was just spinning my wheels, drowning in sorrow and worry.
If I had balls, the Jacobs would have me by them. Lance knows it. Stone and his friends know it. Now, I know it, too. Play their game or risk my life, basically. Maybe not in the physical sense but what about everything else? You have to work for a good life. It’s not just handed to you, especially for people like me. Lance knows that, and he’s using it against me. It’s a very real threat that I can’t take lightly no matter how much I want to tell him to just go fuck himself.
After getting ready the next morning, I listen at my bedroom door for a moment to see if I can hear any signs of Wyatt before going out into the main room. I’d imagine he’s still out there since Lance told him to stay and because the three boys will do anything he says. They always have.
I turn and pull the knob after silence greets me. The door opens with a slight creak. I tiptoe across the threadbare carpet, hoping I can just sneak out without Wyatt noticing. I need to meet with Dickie to see if he knows anything about Lance that I don’t. Then, I need to go to school because as of right now, I still have a school to go to.
I get partway through the living room, the door in sight, when a short snore pulls my attention away from escaping. I glance over at the couch to find Wyatt lying across the cushions. He’s only wearing his jeans, his black cowboy hat perched on his chest. In the early light of the morning, he doesn’t look like the guy who kicked my door in yesterday and used bolt cutters to snip the lock.
Yep, still not over that invasion of space. Or the mess they left in here. Assholes.
I swallow as I glance at the dips and planes of his abs. His naked torso peeks out from around the brim of his hat before dipping low, his jeans hiding everything south of his Adonis belt, that taper that makes women flutter their eyelashes. Heat consumes me as I wonder what it would be like to let this cowboy ride me until I remember he completely trashed my room yesterday. There’s a fine line between lust and hate, and I need to remember which side I fall on.
This asshole is just going to sleep on my couch looking like he doesn’t have a care in the world? No, no, no. That’s not happening.
I stride toward the coffee table where a glass of tap water still sits half-full, unbelievably still there despite Stone tripping over it yesterday. I grip it in my hand, towering over Wyatt’s still form. My body crackles with new energy. Vengeance, maybe. Just a little. Though, this will never make up for what they’re doing to me.
I throw the tap water in his face.
He splutters awake, gasping for air. Eyes wild with an emotion that’s akin to fear, he pulls himself to an almost sitting position before he narrows his gaze at me. “What the fuck, Dakota?” His eyes burn, dancing all over my body as my chest moves up and down sharply. Yes, I liked that very much. Take that, asshole.
I go to turn but Wyatt grabs my wrist. He gives it a quick tug, spinning me and pulling me forward until I have no option but to fall onto him. He stealthily moves my legs to either side of his thighs, his hands on my lower back, keeping pressure there. My fingers land on his collar bone, tickling the edges of the slight indent of skin as he gazes up at me.
He licks a drop of water from his lips. “There’s only one way I like to wake up wet.”
My nipples peak. I’ve seriously just been transported into one of my fantasies. No, Wyatt isn’t currently wearing his cowboy hat, but he has hat hair, you know? The kind that’s flat against his head from wearing one. It’s the promise of that cowboy hat that does it for me.
The water glistens on his chest, dripping from his angular jaw, down his rippled abs before wetting my shorts where we connect. If I’m not careful, I’m about to soak another article of my clothing, too. I push off him, jumping to my feet. He grins like he knows he got to me. Great. That’s just what I need. My body to betray me.
I turn on my heel and go to the small kitchenette, placing the glass that’s still in my hand on the countertop. Then, I get my bag together, pulling the strap out from underneath Wyatt’s haphazardly placed bare feet, glowering at him the whole time for taking over my space unwanted.
He chuckles. “I would’ve had you pegged for a ray of sunshine in the morning. I didn’t know you were prickly.”
“It’s the company,” I bite out, trying not to look at my ruined dorm room. I don’t want him to know how much what they did bothered me. I spent all night cleaning my room while thinking over the contract.
“You didn’t seem to mind my company just now.”
I grit my teeth. These guys know exactly the charms they have. I’ve seen them use it when we’ve crossed paths before. I’ve just never been on the receiving end of it because we keep our distance from each other.
When I don’t lower myself to replying to his statement, Wyatt asks, “Did you look at Lance’s contract?”
I barely contain a growl just thinking about it. It’s evident Lance is one of those men who think they can buy their way into things. My family’s centuries of research will buy me their word I can stay in school and a hefty sum of money.
The true cost of signing on the dotted line, though, is my pride and...my family’s legacy. I can’t forget that part.
But what does that matter when you’re poor, right? Money and college are necessities in my life right now. Without money, I won’t be able to keep my family’s house, or you know, eat. Without college, I can kiss my future goodbye. The decision seems inevitable even though I’m still trying to fight it.
My dad once said that the treasure was my family’s Achilles heel. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s greed. If I had any self-respect, I’d walk away from Lance Jacobs’ deal. I’d figure everything out on my own. Literally alone. And maybe that’s why it seems like too much is on the line to refuse it.
Being poor is a stain upon your soul that if you’ve never been without, you couldn’t possibly know how it feels.
Wyatt leans back on the couch, his glorious muscles in full view. I remember thinking it was rare to see someone his age so well-endowed, and I feel it now, too. Or maybe that’s just my lack of experience and my small-town roots talking. Maybe there are guys like this everywhere else, just not in Clary.
He doesn’t seem the least bit ashamed that he’s sitting here in just low-slung jeans either. My cheeks flame. From an outsider’s perspective, this probably looks like the morning after a one-night stand. The guy sitting there proudly while the girl is a mess of wondering what the guy thinks of her or if he’ll even call her or remember her name. From the looks of the state of this room, it was some epic sex, even if that’s not the ca
se at all.
“Are you going to sign it?” he asks, eyebrows piqued.
“None of your business.”
He grins. “I didn’t think you’d be this feisty, Wilder. I like it.” His gaze pours over me like aged wine. A confidence he shouldn’t have oozes out of his every pore. My skin pricks in response. I’ve only had a couple of sexual experiences myself, and they were totally lacking in the sexy department. That’s why I read books and have a generous imagination. After a couple of tries and fails, I figured I was better on my own. And I have been, but there’s just something about Wyatt that makes me think he’d be so fucking great in bed that I wouldn’t ever want to leave.
Which is exactly why I need to stay away.
I turn, heading for the door. “Where are you going?” Wyatt asks.
With my hand on the knob, I give him a smile. “Crazy.”
Wyatt stands slowly, taking his time as if he’s telling each muscle to move individually just to drive me insane. I turn the knob, hoping to move out of range, where the fact that he’s standing shirtless in front of me doesn’t matter. Hot boy immunity, that’s what I need. Don’t worry. His personality is doing wonders as an immunization.
He perches his hands on his muscular hips once he’s in a standing position. His hat hair still flat against his scalp like it usually is. “I’d answer Lance as soon as possible if I were you. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting. And whatever you think he’s capable of, think ten times worse, Dakota.”
A shiver of fear rattles down my spine, but I stick my chin in the air. They want to see my fear, but I’m not going to give it to them. Not now. Not ever. I whip the door open and cross over the threshold. Wyatt shouts after me, asking me where I’m going while yanking his shirt on. Getting my bike stops me momentarily since it’s hard to maneuver through the narrow doorway, but I get myself and my bike out before he’s even done putting his shoes on.