Gabriel Easton was also modern royalty, the son of Logan and Sophia Easton, California's version of the Beckham’s, and he had the biggest fan club on that side of the coast. It had been impossible to hate him with his sandy brown hair and chocolate eyes, and his easy smile put anyone at ease instantly, even if he was a huge narcissist and did all he could to prove it.
Cameron Lancaster was the second son to the founder of a luxury hotel chain. He was a massive bruiser of a guy with cropped dark blond hair and was ultra-competitive and never lost at anything.
And somehow, Theo Valentine had managed to hold his own against all of them. With him in the mix, the school’s dynamics went from a tyranny to an organized dictatorship.
If Ryland was the Ice King, Theo was simply the Devil—not that anyone ever dared to say it to his face. Amongst the boys, Theo was the one who spoke the least, but whenever he did, people tended to shut up and listen because he’d deliver it in the smoothest, most cutting way. His mood was highly volatile, going from cruel amusement to chilling anger in mere seconds.
But more importantly, Theo Valentine was easily bored.
And when he got bored, that’s when things got truly scary.
Just months after he’d arrived in San Juan, rumors started springing up across town about vicious fights between our school’s boys and the ones from Dunford High, our rival. Worse, there were whispers of a dangerous game where the boys took their cars to the cliffs above the coast, charging at each other at full speed to see who would chicken out first and swerve before they all crashed and burned.
As far as we knew, no one was ever caught—or killed—but it had been unspoken knowledge that the new boy in town was behind the chaos. Everyone simultaneously avoided him and tried to stay on his good side.
From the rumors, Theo had only gotten more dangerous in the ten years since then, and there was no one else who believed them more than Alecia Beckett.
“The dirty, lying, double-crossing asshole!” Allie’s hair whipped behind her like a dark cape as she paced the living room.
I kept silent as my sister fumed, knowing better than to interrupt her when she got worked into one of her tempers. So did Ryland Wyatt, apparently.
My sister's boyfriend sat on the sofa beside me with an empty seat between us that was recently vacated by Allie. He watched her patiently, which was surprising because Ryland Wyatt wasn't the kind to be patient.
Ryland was now the infamous CEO of Wyatt Corporation, Manhattan’s ex-favorite-eligible-bachelor and master of the icy glare. He was so cold that when he started talking, the ice caps stopped melting out of respect. The world was at his beck and call and he waited on nothing and no one.
No one except my sister, of course. She could wear a potato sack and he’d still worship her.
Now she was wearing a scooped black tank top and denim cut-offs, which meant that Ryland’s gaze was hungrily following her every move.
“He has all the evidence we need to convict a murderer, he literally held it in his hands and waved it in front of my face, and now he's holding it hostage? What kind of sadist does that!”
“The kind who also happens to be the son of the murderer?” I offered.
Ryland shot me a warning glance, but it was too late.
Allie whipped around like an avenging Valkyrie, her gray eyes wide. “Are you defending him?”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I’m just saying! I’m not sure I wouldn't have done the same thing if I had been in his shoes.”
“K, Theo is not doing this for Estelle. You weren't part of his grand kidnapping plan, but I was, and trust me, that guy is batshit. He put his freaking head to the gun and dared Estelle to pull the trigger. And she did! The bitch actually did it. Sure, the chamber was empty, but do you think Theo Valentine is the kind of guy who would ever let that go?”
I blinked. “Is that a trick question?”
Allie gaped at me. “K, he’s doing this to protect himself! Just imagine the headlines; “Law firm CEO's mother convicted of murder.” He'd go bankrupt overnight. Nothing is stopping us from going to the police and turning him in either, and that’s why he refuses to give us that stupid recording.”
“Or,” I hedged, “he could really be protecting Estelle. She is his only family.”
“That word means nothing to that asshole. I swear to god, if he ever appears in front of me with that smirk again—”
“Come here, babe,” Ryland suddenly said.
Allie gave a long-suffering groan and dropped into the sofa beside Ryland, who gave no care about creasing his shirtsleeves as he took Allie's nape and started massaging.
I couldn’t help feeling like I was intruding on a personal moment. Allie had always been the kind of girl who functioned better alone, and it was new seeing her get along so well with a man who had a similarly independent personality. The two of them looked perfectly in sync, a couple made stronger by their partnership.
I felt a little stirring of envy.
“You're going to leave this matter to me, whether it's talking, or trying to knock him out.” Ryland's expression held no room for argument. “The guys and I will handle this, and I want you to assure me you'll stay out of it. Same goes for you,” he told me.
“I can handle him,” Allie grumbled, her eyes still closed as she enjoyed the massage. “You know I can.”
“Just because Theo hasn’t hurt you yet doesn't mean he won't do it in the future. He was my best friend, so I know what he's capable of.” Ryland’s jaw hardened. “And if the rumors are correct, he's only gotten worse. That man's a walking time bomb, and you will stay out of this.”
“Are you ordering me?”
“I’m asking firmly.” He raised a brow that challenged her to contradict. “I can’t let anything happen to you, Allie cat.”
Allie exhaled. “Fine. Don't think I don't know you're managing me.”
“How are you gonna do it?” I piped up.
Theo had said that Ryland tried persuading him, which was quite frankly unlike his practice as a businessman. I thought Ryland would have tried to buy him out like Cam had.
“I met with him a few days ago,” Ryland admitted. “When we last spoke two months back, Theo had a reaction to something I said that made me wonder…” He gave me a speculative look, his sharp blue eyes narrowing in thought. “But it was probably nothing. I came out empty handed.”
“You could try punching him again,” Allie muttered.
“Theo doesn't respond well to hard approaches,” I found myself saying. “I think we should leave him alone for now and come back again when his temper has cooled.”
“You want to coax him out like he's a feral beast?” Allie said incredulously. “What are we, animal rescue?”
Ryland was less outraged. “What makes you say that?”
I shrugged, forcing myself not to shift under his piercing stare. “Just a hunch. Even a broken Karin is right twice a day.”
No one had ever guessed how well Theo and I knew each other back then. Theo was the kind to be insanely private, and I was someone with a reputation for being too romantic. I hadn’t been about to cement that by announcing my friendship with the town’s bad boy.
Besides, Allie would kill Theo if she knew, right before she killed me.
“We don't have time to wait,” she said, her mind going back to the matter again. “We still don't know where Estelle is, and we haven't made progress on Dad's murder at all. Worst of all, you guys are still under her blackmail threat.”
“We're in the clear for now.” Ryland frowned, looking puzzled and suspicious. “God knows why, but Theo’s using the recording to keep us all in this weird limbo. It’s like fucking purgatory.”
“I just want this solved before I start my first semester. I’m finally going to college, and I won’t let that asshole ruin it for me.”
“We’ll work it out, Allie cat.”
They gave each other such an intimate look that I decided that was my cue to go.
“We
lp, I'm off for now. I’ll be downstairs in my swanky new home, so let me know if there's anything I can do to help.”
Ryland got up to walk me to the front door.
“How are you holding up?” he asked as I stepped out of their penthouse.
“I’m fine. Cried a lot at first, but I've had two months to make sense of this. Life’s a party, I’m the piñata, et cetera.” I shrugged. “It’s just surreal when something you thought happened ten years ago is actually more sinister. Especially when it’s someone you know that was behind it.”
And especially so when that someone was a boy you once loved.
I read once before that your first love wasn’t the first person you slept with. It was the first person who broke your heart, ripping it apart into two ugly, jagged pieces that would never mend perfectly.
That kind of love altered you. It cleaved you into who you were before and after it happened. The seams of the wound would always be there, something you couldn’t see but felt just as keenly as the ridges on a scar.
Theo had been that boy for me.
“I’m fine,” I assured Ryland again. “Don’t worry about me.”
Ryland watched me closely with his striking blue eyes. I felt like I was staring into the eyes of a White Walker, if the White Walker was freakishly tall and unfrozen and all-round hunky.
“I promised your sister I'll take care of her,” he told me, “and I'll do the same for you. Allie and I aren't married yet, but I hope you'll be able to see me as a brother.”
“Wellll, you did pay off my student loans plus give me a sweet new apartment. Karin is a free elf.” I squinted at him. “So when are you proposing? I want cute dark-haired nieces and nephews ASAP.”
Ryland returned my grin, a startling sight from someone who was once renowned for being a block of ice. “Pretty soon, actually, but don’t say a word.”
On an impulsive move, I threw my arms around his neck. He was so tall that I could only hook my forearms around him.
“Thanks for taking care of my sister,” I whispered. “She's happy with you, I can tell.”
Ryland was surprised, but he recovered quickly, squeezing me back before letting go. “I plan to make her happier. Crazy huh,” he mused, rubbing the back of his neck like he was embarrassed. “Ten years ago, the four of us guys were so close and we barely knew you and Allie. Now we’re going to be family. If Allie accepts my proposal,” he added.
“Oh, she will,” I assured him.
But I couldn’t help wondering about what he said. We were all together now, all except Theo.
And ever since that night that I went to his apartment, I couldn’t help thinking that he had seemed so...alone.
That didn't change the fact that he was in the wrong, though.
Allie was right, I was sympathizing too much with the enemy. If a person’s goodness could be measured by the shade of oil paints, Theo Valentine would be the second-darkest one—Payne’s Gray, just teetering on Mars Black. He was cunning and unscrupulous enough that trusting him would prove a fatal mistake. It was one I couldn't afford to make again.
My resolve grew stronger.
If I wanted my plan to work out, I had to keep my head screwed on the right way, and my eye on the prize.
I would get my hands on the flash drive and give nothing of myself in return. Zip in, zip out, and bam!
“Karin, you haven't given me your promise.”
Dang it, I was hoping he'd forgotten. “Promised what?”
Ryland raised a brow. “Focus on your upcoming graduation, and don't get involved with Valentine. He's more dangerous than you realize.”
Didn't I know it. One full week had passed and I could still feel the heat from his body, his tongue on my skin. Theo was dangerous precisely because of the reaction he could coax from my body.
“I want your word.” Ryland folded his arms in that pose that made even the most powerful men in the country rush to obey. “Do not have anything to do with Theo Valentine.”
“Okay.” I crossed my fingers behind my back. “I promise.”
Ten years ago
Boring.
The garish laser lights, the repetitive dance beats pounding from the speakers, the hot crush of the crowd jumping up and down like they wanted to sink this town into oblivion.
Downright. Fucking. Dull.
“Remind me again why I even bother with this.”
“Street cred, man. Our rep’s been through the roof ever since you started throwing these parties.” Gabriel lounged in the deck chair by the poolside, swigging his beer. “Dumbfuck High can’t beat this shit, especially now that we’re seniors. We’re running this whole town.”
Of course. That was the only thing Gabriel obsessed over aside from his reflection: Showing up the other high school in San Juan, Dunford High.
Cam popped another beer. “Still smarting over the game?”
“Dude, they bought out the referee! They’re cheating fucks and they had this coming.”
“Yeah? You sure it’s nothing to do with their line-backer wiping the floor with your face in front of the cheerleaders?”
“That too,” Gabriel admitted freely. “And payback’s a bitch.”
I didn’t join their conversation as I surveyed the party happening around us.
When the architects designed the back gardens of the Beckett Mansion, I was certain that they had expected a dinner party of fifty people to be the maximum capacity the garden would see at any given time.
There were over a hundred high-schoolers here now, laying waste to the place like a horde of ravaging Mongols.
That being said, there wasn’t much that was lost in the way of aesthetics.
Horace Beckett was the kind of man who became successful through sheer dumb luck—by being in the right place at the right time with the right people.
But being a businessman of middling success wasn’t the same as being recognized as part of elite society, which was what Horace desperately wanted to be. His unpolished ambition showed that, manifesting itself in everything he did, from his abrasive personality to his choices for home decor.
The result of that unchecked ambition was, quite simply, a horror show.
Greek statues of naked women pouring water out of their pots—and their tits—lined one length of the pool in a macabre row. The lawn across them housed floodlights in the ground that shone upwards to illuminate the pale, sickly-white brick face of the mansion, which was itself a crass eyesore of a structure.
That didn’t seem to bother the three guys beside me, who were was giving exactly zero shits to the scenery.
Gabriel had shifted to a spot on the table to flirt with a sophomore. Cam already had two giggling blondes draped over him, and Ryland lounged in a deck chair and nursed his beer, looking deep in thought. It was his usual look these days. Knowing him, it had something to do with his father and his company.
The alliance between us hadn’t been hard to forge since we all stood to gain something out of it. I had fully expected us to kill each other long before this, but apparently we all had our eyes on a bigger prize—the power that our combined influence brought us.
“No kidding though, we were already big around these parts, but ever since you came? We’re untouchable.” Gabriel smiled quizzically. “What do they teach you in those boarding schools?”
“Hierarchy,” I said simply. “Barclay worships the English elite. When you’re at a school established centuries ago by some long-dead duke, bloodlines and money outweigh everything.”
“I’ve heard of those,” Ryland said, finally turning his attention back to us. “The entire student body is made up of wealthy pieces of shits with sticks up their starched asses.”
“Isn’t that a description of you?” Cam said dryly.
“Nah, I’m just a wealthy piece of shit.”
I sat back and watched the partying crowd get up to their antics, not truly taking in anything. It seemed like a glaze of boredom came over my vision whenever I
was at these parties. Sometimes I almost thought I missed my life back at Barclay. It might have been my personal hell on earth, but at least it was eventful.
“All this power play won’t matter once we graduate.” Cam arranged the two now-topless, giggling girls in his lap like they were dolls for his entertainment. They obliged his wordless demand and began making out with each other. “It’s just petty bullshit.”
“It’s a trial run. We’re gonna play the same game in the future, but on a larger scale. Might as well start practicing now.” Ryland glanced at me, utterly uninterested in the girls. “By the way, I got my dad to sign our upcoming project with Beckett like you wanted. You owe me one.”
If there was any doubt about my mother’s and my standing with Horace, it would be erased with this single move. I had helped endear my mother to her rich boyfriend simply with my association with the three most powerful last names in California, the kind of last name Horace wanted Beckett to be.
But in doing so, Ryland also looked good in front of his father, something I knew he obsessed over.
“It’s a win for both of us, so no, I do not owe you.”
“Fucker.”
Beyond us, the party raged on. The music changed with the charts, but aside that, nothing new ever happened. Everything was agonizingly repetitive, and even the people acted like marionettes.
There were the jocks who were desperate to be part of our clique. The cheerleaders who wanted to fuck us for bragging rights. The freshmen who were out of their depth but acted like they belonged anyway.
All smiling the same damned way, all dancing the same damned way. One-dimensional automatons programmed to act the way they did.
Tonight, these people were going to trash this place with their partying. Tomorrow morning, the servants would arrive to clear the vomit and broken glass and spilled beer and weed, erasing every trace of the chaos as if it had never existed. The cycle continued the next week, and the week after, a never-ending loop that made no difference in the grand scheme of things.
I was tempted to find out how just how far I could go before Horace Beckett ejected me from his estate, but instead of exerting his authority as the master of the house, Horace seemed to be relinquishing it bit by bit. Lust was one hell of a powerful drug, and my mother used that to her every advantage.
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