Necessary Cruelty: A Dark Enemies-to-Lovers Bully Romance (Lords of Deception Book 1)

by Ashley Gee

  Things might not have been so bad if I’d been born with a different last name, but that short combination of letters seems like the only thing that matter sometimes. Names are important when that is the only thing you have with any worth.

  Mine is like tarnished gold. It used to shine, but any luster is hidden under years of neglect.

  I walk through these halls like a ghost — no one acknowledges me, and I do my very best to return the favor. Sometimes, the loneliness is a weight on my chest, so heavy I can barely breathe. Other times, I try to think of it as a twisted sort of gift, because having no one to rely on means there isn’t anyone to let me down.

  An unfamiliar voice interrupts my brief moment of self-pity.

  “Antigone, right?”

  I look up into a face that is only vaguely familiar. The guy is generically cute: brown hair and brown eyes with no distracting flaws, but nothing much to recommend him except a disarming smile. It isn’t normal to see an unfamiliar face around here.

  Instead of responding, I just stare up at him with an expression that is deliberately blank. It’s been so long that I don’t think I could hold a civilized conversation if I tried. I don’t bother to try, because that would be against the rules.

  But the new guy tries his best to make up for my obvious deficits. “From the play…you’re dressed up as Antigone, right? It’s not like I thought that was your name. I’m Jake Tully, by the way. I just moved here from Los Angeles. And I clearly didn’t get the memo about dressing up.”

  I almost forgot for a minute that I’m wearing this stupid costume.

  “You shouldn’t be talking to me,” I whisper to him, my voice just loud enough to carry the handful of inches separating us. Regret colors my tone, because he seems nice. I wouldn’t bother to warn him, otherwise.

  There hasn’t been any nice in my life for a long time.

  Talking to him is a risk I shouldn’t take, but I feel bad the way you do when a feeder fish is dropped into the shark tank at an aquarium. The guy hasn’t been here long enough to learn how things work. When he does, it’s going to be a hard lesson.

  But the guy just laughs, which is more confirmation he doesn’t understand the pile of shit he just stepped in. I would pity him if that weren’t such a useless emotion.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I open my mouth to give him one last warning, but it’s already too late.

  The sound of a locker door slamming shut is our only warning.

  Vin Cortland appears like some dark demon summoned from the ether by a single thought. His glare takes in both of us, but lingers on my face when I look away. The heat of it is like a fire on my skin.

  Even though he hasn’t spoken a word, the entire hallway falls silent around us. Standing behind him are the other members of his crew, who rule not only Deception High School but the entire town. They are the founding sons, descendants of the men who claimed this town from the wilderness a few hundred years ago.

  The Vice Lords.

  V.I.C.E.

  Vin. Iain. Cal. Elliot.

  The Lords of Deception, in every meaning of the phrase. Their wealth and status, combined with a ruthlessness rarely seen outside of prison yards, make them untouchable. The thought of it would infuriate me if I had the capacity for anything aside from an intense desire to stay the hell away from them.

  Vin is the leader, the front man, the one who calls all the shots but almost never needs to get his hands dirty. The face of an angel and the soul of a sinner. If he wasn’t such a monster, I might liken him to something out of a magazine spread. At an impressive 6’3”, he towers over most of the other guys at school. But even though he might be the size of a Neanderthal, his face more closely resembles a Renaissance painting, almost too beautiful to be real.

  An angry slash for a mouth that curls in perpetual sneer beneath eyes as hard as flint ruin the perfect image. Dark hair, so true black it is almost violet in certain lights, sets off turquoise eyes that look like a pristine lake when you can see all the way to the bottom. Except the only thing you’ll see in the depths of his eyes is more darkness. Vin is dangerous, and not just because he is capable of anything.

  You can get away with a lot when your dad is the richest guy in town and your uncle is the local district attorney. Vin Cortland is untouchable, and he knows it.

  He pulls from the vape pen in his hand and exhales smoke from his nose directly into the new guy’s face. Vaping, or smoking of any kind, isn’t allowed on school grounds, but the rules have never applied to the Vice Lords and probably never will.

  None of them waste time on conversation, because they just assume someone will explain it to poor Jake later. Iain, who moves so fast that he is little more than a shock of bright red hair and pale skin, rushes Jake and holds his hands behind his back as Elliot and Cal take turns delivering solid punches straight to his gut.

  Vin watches it all with an unreadable expression, taking the occasional pull from his vape pen.

  I don’t beg them to leave the guy alone or put up any kind of protest at all. That would only make things worse for Jake. They don’t stop until he collapses on the ground with tears streaming down his face, gasping for air. No one goes running for a teacher or tries to intervene. One person takes out their phone to record a video, but it will never be used as evidence. None of them would have been able to stop this.

  Everyone who had been watching just as silently as I was turns away when Vin’s narrow gaze sweeps the hallway.

  Why paint a target on your own back?

  Not for some new guy nobody even knows, and certainly not for me.

  Vin catches me watching him, and his expression doesn’t change. He says nothing, but reaches out to touch the noose I have looped around my neck. It’s part of my costume, a symbol, because the character hanged herself. He pulls it hard enough that the breath catches in my throat as the rope tightens in the hollow of my throat. A faint smile touches his lips when I let out an involuntary gasp. It isn’t a pleasant smile, but the kind that is prelude to a nightmare. He finally lets me go and walks away.

  I don’t take a deep breath until the Vice Lords disappear around the corner.

  “You don’t talk to her,” Billy Harkniss says as he helps Jake to his feet. Billy has been in the same homeroom as me since freshman year, but doesn’t even spare me a glance as he leads Jake down the hallway in the opposite direction of the Vice Lords. “Trust me, man. It’s just not worth it.”

  The other students have already lost interest now that the show is over. None of them speak to me as they continue past me down the hallway. They’ll clear a path, dodging out of the way and averting their eyes when they see me coming, but they won’t speak. They never speak.

  And neither do I.

  I’ll hear them chatting with each other as I round a corner, but they always fall quiet the moment I appear and avoid my gaze. So I spend my days at school surrounded by silence.

  Silence so oppressive I could drown in it.

  And if Vin Cortland ever gets his way, I will.

  Two

  I choke down my lunch even though I hate cafeteria food. This is the only meal I’m likely to get between now and the end of the weekend. That is one of the few good things about coming to school, we’re poor enough to qualify for the free lunch program, so at least I’m guaranteed a meal.

  Only poor kids from the Gulch eat the food served at school. Everyone else has Paleo-inspired bento boxes packed by bored housekeepers while their society mothers sleep off a late-night liquid dinner. Lunches that wouldn’t look out of place on the covers of culinary magazines and usually get dumped in the trashcan in favor of runs off campus, even though we’re not supposed to leave during the lunch period.

  The cafeteria is a hive of movement and noise, one of the few places where the cone of silence surrounding me is lifted. Nobody will talk to me, but I can bathe in the glow of their conversation and pretend for a bit that I’m still part of the real world. Sit
ting in my corner, alone at a table, people seem to forget that I’m even here.

  My head is down as I study my battered copy of Antigone over a cold grilled cheese sandwich and stale fries. We’d been given our choice of Greek tragedies to study for the unit and I’d chosen this one, although I already regretted dressing up. The extra credit had seemed worthwhile at the time, but now I’m walking around with a literal noose around my neck.

  Antigone had seemed like an appropriate choice at the time. Better to be the woman who killed herself as a moral statement than a pretty bitch whose only purpose was to have men fight over her. At least, that was what I told myself when I picked the play. It’s always easier to pretend you don’t want the things you know you can’t have.

  The lunch period is almost over when someone slips into the seat across from me. I don’t have to look up to know who it is. Only one person in this school is brave enough to sit across from me at lunch.

  I look up and cast a steely-eyed gaze over my younger brother, Zion, trying to determine if he got high before coming to school. We don’t speak, but words aren’t necessary between us.

  When I raise my eyebrows, the meaning is clear. I’m surprised that the administration let him back on campus after his last suspension. I think it was for drug possession this time. He was selling benzodiazepines, that he swears weren’t stolen from Grandpa’s medication drawer, outside of the gym between first and second period.

  Zion grins and taps his watch. His most recent punishment must have ended today. He has spent more days out of school than he has inside the building, whether it’s for fighting or truancy or any number of lesser crimes. Our family name is the only thing that keeps him from getting expelled completely, not that it carries much weight these days.

  Deception High is the sort of school where fights break out between every class, weapons of all types are confiscated on a daily basis, and the administration is happy if everyone survives to the end of the day. No one is going to jam Zion up for cutting class and dealing a few prescription pills.

  But when Principal Friedman needs to make a show of cleaning up the school, my brother always gets rounded up as one of the usual suspects. Living in the Gulch keeps a target on our backs, and it doesn’t help that the two of us stand out like sore thumbs in a place like this.

  Our skin is a few shades past the wrong side of tan, and our hair holds curls that are too tight, crossing the boundary line into kinks. We’re the dark marks on this town’s illustrious history. The Milbournes are a founding family, but the money dried up generations ago, and we look just like the cross-bred mutts everyone says we are.

  Some people wonder why the rich families on the Bluffs don’t send their kids to the fancy private school a few towns over or try to have the district lines redrawn so they can go to the much better county-run public school.

  But I know the answer to that very stupid question:

  It’s better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.

  I can tell from the mischievous look in his eyes that my brother didn’t come find me just to be social. His lunch tray only has a pack of cigarettes and a Dr. Pepper on it, so clearly he isn’t here to eat.

  He produces a neatly folded piece of paper and waves it under my nose as I just stare at him. Zion likes to play games, he always has. It’s his way of coping with the devastation of our lives, pretending he doesn’t take any of it seriously.

  From Jake, he mouths and tosses the folded paper across the table so it lands on my tray.

  I open the note, even though it would be a better idea to throw it away. If this Jake guy had even a bit of sense, he would have already forgotten that I exist, not use my brother to pass notes to me like we’re in third grade.

  It isn’t exactly impressive that he figured out me and Zion’s family connection so quickly. Not like anyone else in the school looks like us. Honestly, it bugs me anyone would assume that two people who happen to be the same skin color must also be related, even if it happens to be true.

  I’m just like the drug dealer crying about profiling during a traffic stop, despite the pounds of drugs in my trunk.

  Hypocrisy, thy name is Zaya Milbourne.

  Cramped writing greets me as I flatten the paper on the table.

  Is that asshole your boyfriend, or something?

  I carefully refold the note before squeezing it in my fist. My gaze passes quickly over the sea of faces in the cafeteria, but I don’t see Jake among them. He has balls, I’ll give him that. Getting his ass kicked in the middle of the hallway wasn’t near the deterrent I thought it would be.

  I’d be flattered if I wasn’t terrified.

  When I hold out my hand with every intention of giving the note back to Zion unanswered, I see his eyes widen.

  A shadow falls over the table.

  Strong hands grip my wrist hard enough to leave a bruise, and I wince as the fine bones are ground together. I look up to see Vin’s impassive face staring down at me. His crew of assholes flank him on either side, watching us with varying degrees of interest.

  I squeeze my fingers into a hard fist, but I shouldn’t have even bothered. He plucks the note from my hands as easily as picking a ripe apple from a tree. His expression doesn’t change as he scans it and tosses it aside.

  Vin’s voice is mild and even-toned, but still carries over the din of conversation. “Lunch is over. Everybody out.”

  The room empties as quickly as it would if someone had pulled the fire alarm. Zion looks like he wants to argue when I subtly shake my head at him. This isn’t worth the fight, especially with the odds so stacked against him. The Vice Lords obviously don’t have a problem going four against one.

  “Even for me?” Sophia Taylor sidles up to Vin’s side, all simpering smile, baby-blue eyes, and wheedling voice. One of the few natural blondes, her hair is done in long ringlets beneath a gold signet woven through a crown of braided hair across the top of her head. Sophia is the only girl at school who pulls off the whole Helen of Troy look without seeming desperate for attention.

  Don’t get me wrong, she is absolutely desperate for attention. Just better at hiding it than the rest. And she seems to get a kick out of reminding me of my position at the bottom of the totem pole.

  As if I need another reason to dislike her.

  Now she stares down at me with a moue of distaste, like I’m a rat that’s been caught in a trap. She is just waiting for someone to crush me under their boot heel.

  He doesn’t bother to look at her. “Pretty sure I said everybody.”

  “Boo, you never let me have any fun.” Sophia makes a point of stroking her hand down Vin’s arm, like a dog pissing on a tree to let the world know it’s been claimed. “Don’t forget to meet me by the bleachers before basketball practice.”

  Vin doesn’t respond. She finally slinks away, brushing her long fall of curls over her shoulder in a wide arc so it hits the side of my face.

  He still has a hold of my arm, raising it high enough that the muscles tingle painfully as the blood drains away from the appendage. But I don’t speak a word of complaint, breaking the rules is never worth what comes after.

  I’ve had to learn that the hard way.

  Zion casts me one more look of concern as he rises, and I tip my head gently to the side as encouragement to leave. The Vice Lords have mostly left my brother alone over the years, and I don’t want that to change. He blows out a sharp rush of air, but stomps out of the otherwise empty cafeteria.

  Finally releasing my arm, Vin comes around the table and takes Zion’s vacated seat. The surrounding silence is profound, even to me. This room is too large for so much empty air, and the pressure of it pushes against my skin, making it difficult to breathe.

  Or maybe it’s just that I know no one is coming to save me.

  Vin picks up the note and taps it on the table. “This was a very bad idea.”

  I spread my arms wide and shrug. It isn’t as if I wrote the damn thing.

  “This ne
w guy,” Vin muses, playacting as if he doesn’t know Jake’s name. “Is today the first time he’s talked to you?”

  My head nods, even though I want to spit in his face. There isn’t a point in pretending things are different than they are. Vin doesn’t ask questions unless he already know the answers.

  All of our families have been in Deception for generations. I don’t have the luxury of secrets, not in a town where everyone’s favorite pastime is getting into each other’s business.

  The forced silence is meant to hurt me, but it’s done me the small favor of keeping my mouth from getting me into trouble. Because if I tell them what I’m actually thinking, there is no way I’d be walking out of here in one piece.

  Vin feigns confusion as he leans forward and steeples his finger beneath his chin, regarding me steadily as if I’m the only thing that exists in the universe. “Have you forgotten the terms of our deal?”

  I shake my head, heart fluttering in my chest. Not for the first time, I wonder how far I could get if I decided to run. But that train of thought always derails when I realize there isn’t anywhere for me to go.

  But Vin just shakes his head, still wearing the expression of mock confusion. I know him well enough to recognize he is moments from laughing in my face. His voice turns low and dangerous. “You remember, right? The deal that says you aren’t allowed to speak.”

  It’s only then that I remember my earlier mistake. I had spoken to Jake, if just to tell him he shouldn’t be talking to me. It was a dumb move, but I liked how sweet his smile had been, and I didn’t want to see his teeth shattered.

  Stupid.

  Vin studies my face, lips twisting in a sneer as he watches the realization grow in my changed expression. He glances up at the rest of his crew still standing behind me.