by Dani René
Deviant
Black Mountain Academy
Dani René
Contents
Prologue
1. HER
2. Elian
3. Arabella
4. HIM
5. Elian
6. Arabella
7. Elian
8. HER
9. Arabella
10. Arabella
11. HIM
12. Elian
13. Arabella
14. HER
15. Elian
16. Arabella
17. Ahren
18. HIM
19. Arabella
20. HER
21. Elian
22. Arabella
23. Elian
24. HER
25. Arabella
26. Arabella
27. Elian
28. Elian
29. Arabella
30. HIM
31. Elian
32. Arabella
33. Elian
34. Arabella
35. Ahren
36. Elian
37. Arabella
38. Elian
39. Arabella
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Dani René
About the Author
Copyright © 2020 by Dani René
Published by Dani René
Cover Design by Lori Jackson
Edited by Candice Royer
Proofed by Marjorie Lord
Cover Model: Pat Tanksi
Cover Photography by Wander Aguiar
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
The following story contains mature themes, strong language, and sexual situations. It is intended for adult readers.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in the work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
For more information about all the books in this collection, head over to the link below.
BLACK MOUNTAIN ACADEMY
Black Mountain Academy. From the outside, it may look perfect and ideal—school uniforms, exemplary teachers, privileged students.
But anyone on the inside could tell you about the debauchery, the scandals, the drama, the forbidden–taboo–romances.
Because where Black Mountain Academy is concerned… never judge a book by its cover.
Playlist
Would Anyone Care - Citizen Soldier
Impatient - Dark Signal
My Type - Saweetie
When We Make Love - Trey Songz
Na Na - Trey Songz
Twisted Games - Night Panda
Bad Decisions - Trey Songz
King - Niykee Heaton
lovely - Billie Eilish, Khalid
bad guy - Billie Eilish
everything i wanted - Billie Eilish
Fuck it I love you - Lana Del Rey
Guest Room - Echos
Mask - Niykee Heaton
For the full playlist, click HERE
Dedication
To the good girls who love to be bad and aren’t ashamed to admit it. This one is for you!
Mad love,
Dani xo
Prologue
Arabella
Two months ago
One heartbreak.
One choice.
One mistake.
And my life has taken a turn, and I’m no longer the girl my dad raised. Haven’t been for a long time, and now I’m the reason he’s no longer here. My father was everything to me, my rock and foundation. And now he’s gone. The police officer paces in front of me, back and forth, left and right. I can’t swallow. My heart is thudding painfully in my throat, threatening to choke me.
They all know who I am. In this city, Dad’s name is everything, and my face on camera is proof that I’m in big shit. I know they’ll be wanting a payout to let me go, but with the news they just delivered, I’m not sure they’ll get what they want.
I fucked up.
I broke my promise.
What the hell did they expect me to do?
Act normal when they told me I’m being shipped off to some shithole town?
My folks pulled me into the living room two days ago, telling me that they’re sending me to some academy. It’s bullshit, and they know it. They didn’t want me around when my dad’s about to run for office. I have a feeling my mother is behind it, more so than dad. She doesn’t want me around, and it’s not a secret.
I was furious.
I refused to go.
But the law had been laid down.
Instead of being the dutiful daughter and agreeing to go to Black Mountain Academy where my mom and aunt attended school, I fought back and partied for two days straight. That was until a couple of hours ago when I was arrested for something I never should have done.
Anger surges through my veins, but the more I attempt to focus on what they’re telling me, I can’t because all I can think about is the shit I’m in. I could go to jail. I could be sent away to somewhere far worse than an elite school in the middle of the mountains. I have two months before I’m nineteen. Having to repeat my senior year will be embarrassing enough, but now I may not even be able to do that.
I don’t want to be sent to prison.
“And she’s going to take primary custody of you while you’re in Black Mountain.” The words break through my panic, and I snap my gaze up at the large, burly man with a receding hairline and salt-and-pepper moustache that makes me shudder.
“What?” I ask instead.
His dark eyes glare at me with annoyance, which glints with the frustration of someone interrupted mid-coitus. The thought would usually make me want to laugh, but I don’t. Instead, I bite the inside of my cheek to remind myself what a shitshow I’ve gotten myself into. This is real fucking life, not some kid’s game gone wrong. I’m eighteen, and they could try me as an adult.
“Your aunt, she’s your mother’s sister. Your mother has given us her contact details, and we managed to track her down when she was home in Black Mountain. I spoke to her earlier, and she’s agreed to the terms. You’ll be able to stay with her and finish your senior year.”
My brows furrow in confusion. “What about my mother?”
The officer shakes his head, his face a picture of pity and sadness as his moustache twitches. Frustration at my mother burns through my veins. Emotion trickles down my spine, settling inside me, seeping into my bones, and I know what he’s going to say before he even says it.
He doesn’t look at me; he’s no longer glaring directly at me when he finally responds, “She’s agreed to have you live with your aunt until you graduate.”
“I’ll be nineteen in a few weeks. Can’t I live on my own? I have my trust fund, which I can live off while I finish school,
” I inform him. I’m sure I could live on my own. I mean, it can’t be too hard. My inheritance will ensure I’m taken care of until I can find a job.
“You’ll stay with Midge Olivier until you finish your school year, or you’re welcome to finish your senior year while in jail.” He turns around as if he’s dismissing me to face the other, younger man, who’s been observing our conversation from the corner in his uniform.
“That … I can’t … That makes no sense. Can I speak to my mother?” Fear laces my words. Usually, I’m a pain in the ass, I admit that, but fear is slowly sinking into my chest, causing my stomach to twist into knots.
Mr. Moustache glances over his shoulder, annoyance etched into his expression as if I were a wayward child. He spins on his heel before his fist slams on the table. Looming over my much smaller frame, the anger on his face says it—I’m lucky to even get this option.
“Your name, your public persona, has been splashed all over the front pages of every newspaper in the city. Spoilt brats should be put in a jail cell,” he sneers. I can’t deny he’s right. I am spoiled. I am a brat. But I don’t respond to him; instead, I lower my head in guilt and try to keep the burning tears at bay.
The agony lodged in my throat chokes me, just like the salty emotion that stings my eyes. I’ve been taught to keep my pain in check, instead plastering a cool, aloof expression in place.
“I thought so,” he utters before he pushes to full height, and I can’t stop the shiver from taking hold of my body.
At first, I thought he seemed cool, as if he were trying to be nice, but right now, anger overrides all my thoughts, and I notice how he looks at me, as if I’m lucky. And I am. There’s no doubt about it.
My lashes are heavy, and if I blink, the tears will fall. In my mind’s eye, I see my dad. The man who was always there for me, no matter what. And I know he’ll no longer be there to bail me out of shit. My mother is the ice queen. The heartless, emotionless bitch. But Dad, he was my hero, the one who would love me unconditionally. He’s gone. The realization slams into me like a freight train, and my breath is stolen for a long moment.
All the love, the security, everything is gone. The fact that he’s no longer here to bail me out of trouble has my stomach flipping over, a reminder that I’m actually alone. I can’t depend on my mother. She’s never wanted me.
I was Daddy’s princess.
But with this shitshow I’ve gotten myself into, I’ve disappointed him. He can’t see it. I know he would only shake his head with sadness. My lips tremble, and even though I fight the tears, one lone salty path of pain trickles down my cheek when I realize just how broken I truly am.
“Listen to me, Ms. Davenport. Being angry is fine, so is being sad, or heartbroken,” Detective Moustache tells me when I don’t respond. “But making a mess of your life is not the way to do it. So, what would you like to do?”
I can’t not go to Black Mountain. I’m the mistake my mother doesn’t even want to raise. Before my thirteenth birthday, it was different. She did love me, but it was such a long time ago, at least it feels as if it was. But slowly, I think she came to realize my father loved me more than he did her.
“Ms. Davenport?” The detective cautions again, and I lift my watery gaze to his cool, aloof one. At this point, my only option is to go with my aunt. And if that doesn’t work out, once I’m nineteen, I can book a plane ticket and run as far as possible.
“I’ll go to Black Mountain,” I whisper as the festering guilt and unbearable defeat crush my soul. And it’s clear in my tone as the words tumble from my lips.
He nods, looking pleased with himself for ensuring I made the right choice. But is it? I can’t know that until I’m there. Perhaps a fresh start where nobody knows me is what I need. Being in a brand-new town sounds like the answer, but that’s only if everyone doesn’t find out my secret. If they do, I’ll be fucked once more.
It’s all bullshit.
But I’ll do it.
1
HER
THE PAST
I didn’t realize just how ominous this day was until I stepped off the plane moments ago. Now that I’m in the back seat of the car, I see everything and nothing. The storm clouds overhead remind me that this wasn’t my choice as much as I was forced into it.
I wanted to run.
I wanted to hide.
But I knew this is where I’m meant to be. Not because of the second chance I’m receiving, but because he is here, and I’m going to make him see me. For the first time in a long while, I feel as if my life is going to work out.
But things don’t always go according to plan.
Darkness descends as the car winds its way into the town. It’s eerie out. The moon is hidden by the clouds that hang heavily, threatening rain on the way. And I wish I could stand in the upcoming downpour and bask in the wetness hoping it will wash my sins away.
But I know it won’t.
Nothing can take away the bad things I’ve done.
As I’m taken home, my lungs struggle to take in air. We weave closer, and I inhale a deep breath, trying to calm my erratic heartbeat. The moment the car pulls to a stop and the familiar three-story home comes into view, I smile. Even in the dimly lit night, I can see the foreboding building waiting for me. There are secrets within the walls of the house that will never be released.
Three floors of rooms filled with opulence.
My new life.
Vastly different from where I’m coming from.
And I know nothing can stop the deviance that simmers through my veins.
2
Elian
Present Day
It only takes a moment for your life to change.
A split second for everything to be turned on its head.
I had to learn how to shut off the misguided notions of normalcy when I chose a new life over the one I grew up in. Grief is a shadow that follows me, and to this day, it still lingers. I don’t have space for anything else—not happiness, not love. Emotions, feelings, whatever you want to call them have no home for an enigma like me.
I tried it once and internally grimace at the memory.
In college, I thought I could be normal, and the girl who did manage to find a man underneath the cold, hard exterior did the one thing I can never forgive—she broke her loyalty to me. But if I’m truthful, it wasn’t all her fault. I’m not the easiest person to be with. But I did and do expect loyalty above all.
My mind is not my own most times, and when the darkness consumes me, I must allow it to seek its pleasure in ways that would make most women balk. I don’t frequent clubs where my needs can be met, so I focus on my career.
I’ve learned women aren’t who they say they are with their fake pristine smiles and shiny veneers. It’s nothing but a front, an act, a part they play so well. Moving to Black Mountain, I found them in spades. The bored housewives who fucked the pool boy for breakfast and the gardener for lunch.
Loyalty is everything. And if I can’t find that in your pretty gaze when you bat those extra-long lashes at me, it isn’t happening. If you can’t control yourself once, what’s to say it won’t happen again? And that’s the reason I’m alone in Black Mountain.
Once I finished my degrees in History and English, I found myself wanting to teach. I never thought I would feel comfortable standing in front of students who looked up to me because I’m far from perfect.
I break everything I touch.
My past is littered with the scraps of pain and heartache I can no longer piece together. Human need allows us to make choices based on our desires, and in doing so, we’re torn apart, broken, and left for dead.
I have allowed myself to fall prey to those desires one too many times. It doesn’t take much for the guilt to gnaw at my insides, for it to feast on my pain, my agony. And as I step foot inside my classroom, I know that my choices brought me here.
After leaving Miami, I completed my studies at Stanford University, but even being away from my ho
me, destruction followed. My father’s death was hard. It broke me because I never got to say goodbye to him. I never had the chance to tell him all the things he needed to hear from his eldest son.
Christmas Eve will always haunt me. I stepped into the house overlooking the ocean, and that’s when the call came. Ahren, my foster brother, had left for college, and even though he wasn’t blood, I knew it would gut him as much as it did me. All our lives, Ezra Donati was a father who raised us with an iron fist, but he also loved us unconditionally.
He was taken from us, killed, murdered in cold blood.
Shot by a colleague in broad daylight, left for dead while meeting with a man he trusted. And the guilt that will always weigh on me is that I never got to tell him that I’m sorry for not wanting to be a part of his organization. I never felt the need to become what he was.
As soon as the house in Miami was sold, I never looked back. I took myself to the middle of nowhere, a town where I could hide but also live. When I arrived in Black Mountain a couple of years ago, I knew I could never go back. But the town now allows me the opportunity to exact my revenge. It will allow me to find the man who killed my father.