by Ashley Gee
I look amazing in this dress, not something I’m used to saying about myself.
Amelia comes up from behind, her gaze meeting mine in our reflection. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
My motives still aren’t completely clear, even to me. But I know that I when I step foot inside of Cortland Manor for the first time in years, I have to be ready for battle.
Maybe it’s not fair to Jake, but tonight he’ll be my shield.
A flattering dress will be my armor.
Makeup will be my war paint.
And like always, Vin will choose our weapons.
Sixteen
Friday morning finds me sitting in a full cafeteria wishing I could make everyone inside of it disappear, including my closest damn friends.
I had made it clear with as few words as possible that Zaya was completely off limits. Most people probably assume I’m planning something truly diabolical, but none would dare ask me that directly.
Cal won’t stop giving me a shit-eating grin from across the lunch table as he shoves way more food than any one person should consume down his throat. From the way Iain refuses to meet my gaze as he stares meditatively down at his phone screen, I can only assume the news about my inheritance has already been shared.
I’d be pissed if not for the fact that we’re the Vice Lords.
We don’t keep secrets from each other, especially not about something like this.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t wipe the knowing smile off Cal’s face if he lets anything annoying come out of his damn mouth. Just because I’ve decided to accept the inevitable, doesn’t mean I want to hear anything from the peanut gallery about it.
Seriously, fuck Cal for thinking anything about this situation is funny.
And fuck Iain for telling him about it in the first place.
Elliot is the only one who displays anything approaching sympathy, and it isn’t even for me.
“That poor girl,” he says, taking a meditative bite of his sandwich. “She must have really corked things up in a previous life.”
My voice is caustic. “Cork? That’s not even a fucking word.”
“You know what I mean, whatever the opposite of a guardian angel is must have a hand in this. Guardian demon, maybe. Nobody deserves to be forced into marrying you.” Elliot dodges the carrot stick I throw at him with ease and takes another bite. His mouth is completely full, which does nothing to stop him from continuing. “If I were her, I’d tell you exactly where to shove your marriage proposal.”
“That’s just because you have a thing for ass play,” Iain comments wryly.
I have to remind myself that my anger should be directed at Zaya for being so stubborn. Girl doesn’t know a good thing when she sees it. There are about a dozen girls in this school who would be on their knees by the time my mouth formed the M in marry me.
But not Zaya.
Never her.
I could push and push her, but when I hit that wall she has erected around herself there won’t be getting any further. It would be easy to admire her if I didn’t hate her so much.
As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Elliot watches me with a pensive expression.
“Most people would wonder why you let all that shit in the past mess with you so many years later.”
I glare at him. “You don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“I would if you ever let us in on this big secret. I heard about how her mom used to bring Zaya to your house and shit. Then one day, you hate each other. What gives?”
Only two people in the entire world know the true story of what happened between Zaya and me. And one of us prefers never speaking again to telling the damn truth.
And a deal is a deal.
“Does it have anything to do with—”
I wing a thick plastic plate at Elliot’s head. He dodges and it bangs against the wall behind him. “If you really want to know, we can take this conversation outside. You know how I feel about gossiping in public spaces.”
A raised eyebrow is his only response. He knows if we go outside that we won’t be talking about anything. Would I beat the shit out of a good friend for asking the wrong questions?
Absolutely, I fucking would.
Elliot just gives me a crooked smile, because he relishes a fight as much as I do. We don’t need an excuse to pummel each other — sometimes you just need to drive your fists into someone. Catharsis, and all that.
“I’m not sure who I should feel more pity for,” Iain murmurs, gaze not rising from handheld gaming device that has suddenly appeared in his hands. “Zaya, or you.”
“That’s easy since you’re not capable of feeling pity for anyone,” Cal says, leaning over Iain’s shoulder to see the screen and wincing as some fantasy character gets beheaded or worse.
Iain only plays games rated for extreme violence.
“True,” he says with a careless shrug.
Elliot turns back to me. “So what are you going to do about this inheritance thing?”
He is like a pit bull with its jaws clamped, just refusing to let shit go. “None of your damn business.”
“It is if you’re going to be all poor and sad in a few months. My family still has some property in the Gulch if you’re going to need a place to crash. But you’ll have to deal with the crackheads on your own.”
“You can fuck right off.” I know it’s a joke, but that doesn’t stop a full body shudder. The thought of living in the Gulch, after a lifetime with a golden spoon in my mouth, has to be the highest form of dramatic irony. If God has a sense of humor, then he is laughing hard enough to give himself a coronary at this point. I would rather leave town and never come back than deal with the shame of it. “That isn’t going to happen.”
“It is, if Zaya Milbourne has anything to say about it. Or not say in her case. Have you even tried being nice to the chick?”
If being nice includes spending a small fortune on renovating her house so it won’t fall down around her ears in the near future. Although, I have no idea if Zaya sees it that way, since she seems to be refusing to communicate with me.
I’ve sent her maybe a dozen text messages on the brand new phone I picked out, but she didn’t bother to respond. The damn thing is even the same color as the lavender gel pens she always uses in class, because I assume that’s her favorite color.
If that isn’t nice, then what the fuck is?
For some reason, her continued silence annoys me more than anything else has up to this point. It isn’t like I necessarily expected obvious gratitude after everything that has gone on between us, but some acknowledgement would be nice.
I tell myself that the hot feeling burning in my chest is simple rage, because anger is an emotion I’m familiar with. It’s practically my comfort animal at this point. I don’t want to explore the possibility that the emotion I’m feeling might be anything else.
“You could always sneak into her room in the middle of the night, assuming you can get drunk enough for it to seem like a good idea without passing out first,” Iain comments, tone droll.
Cal laughs, but immediately sobers when he sees the look on my face.
I’m going to murder them, take us all out in a blaze of glory. That has to be preferable to dealing with Zaya Milbourne right now.
The more I think about it, the more anger becomes the dominant emotion churning in my gut. Who does the girl think she is to just refuse a deal that will benefit both of us? Without my help, there is no way she will ever rise out of the muck of the Gulch, not with all the forces conspiring to hold her back. But she would rather be poor for the rest of her life than deal with me for a year.
That realization burns just like rage, but with a dark edge of something else.
Iain lets the game system drop to the table with a clatter and opens his lunch bag. “Just so you know, Zaya is going to the Founder’s Ball with Jake Tully.”
Ice slides through my veins, painfully cold.
“How the fuck do you know that?”
He pulls a crumpled paper out of his pocket and tosses it at me. I unfold the thing and quickly scan it. One set of handwriting is immediately recognizable, it definitely belongs to Zaya. And the icy cold inside me quickly turns to heat as I read the flirtatious banter that turns into an invitation.
An invitation that is accepted.
It feels good to be angry, like an embrace from an old friend.
“How long have you had this?” The paper crumples into a ball in my fist.
Iain shrugs and takes a bite of his apple. “A few days.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me about it until now?”
“Forgot.”
“Your mom forgot not to drop you on your head as a baby.” I want to blame him for this, but getting mad at Iain is like spitting into the wind. The loogie is just coming back to land in your face. “Fucking Jake.”
Iain raises a sardonic eyebrow. “You want us to drive him out to the cliffs and toss him off?”
I don’t really think Iain is serious, but he says everything in the same bored monotone, so I can never be completely sure. He describes brutal murders with the same inflection as plans for dinner.
“So Zaya can cry crocodile tears at this dick’s funeral? No thanks. I’ll figure out a way to deal with Jake, apparently violence isn’t going to do the trick.”
I’m going to destroy him, grind him into the dirt until there isn’t anything left to mourn.
This isn’t about jealousy.
This is about ownership.
Zaya Milbourne is mine. Her pain is mine. Her voice is mine.
She owes me a debt, and only I get to decide when it finally gets paid.
Both of them are going to learn that lesson in as complete a way as possible.
The only question is how.
With the same impeccable timing as always, Sophia sidles up behind me and covers my eyes with her clammy hands.
“Guess who?” she trills, voice pitched just a few notes too high.
I already know who it is, because nobody else wears the same perfume she does, likely because she issued some sort of threat to the other girls to keep it exclusive. She smells like a knock-off Ariana Grande with the cloying combination of baby powder and cucumber-melon body spray.
It’s suffocating.
The easy thing would be to turn my anger and frustration on her. Sophia makes a good target. I think of her like one of those blow-up clowns that eagerly pops right back up every time you punch it down.
But as much fun as it would be to make her cry for the hell of it, I’m playing a longer game.
“Nurse Reynolds? I don’t need my temperature checked again, thanks.”
“You’re so bad.” Sophia giggles and slaps me lightly on the arm as she comes around to wedge herself between me and Elliot on the bench seat. “And you haven’t asked anyone to the Founder’s Ball yet. If you wait much longer, there won’t be any girls left.”
This particular girl couldn’t be more obvious if she tried — sometimes I find her obvious desperation a bit charming. From what I’ve heard, she already turned down half a dozen invitations to the Founder’s Ball in the hopes that I’ll finally get around to asking her.
I don’t do dates. It’s hard to see the point. If a girl is willing to lay down and spread her legs regardless, then why waste time with dinner and roses? Even if I show up alone to the Founder’s Ball, that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave that way.
Then I remember what I’ve just learned about Jake and how he has been sniffing around Zaya since the moment he showed up in town. I haven’t decided how to handle that he had the nerve to ask her to the Founder’s Ball.
My Founder’s Ball.
The one my family has been throwing every year for the past hundred. Just thinking about them strolling into my house together, arm in arm, makes my blood boil.
So an idea forms.
“You want to go?” I ask Sophia. Casual, like it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.
Elliot makes a choking sound from behind her that I choose to ignore. I don’t need to hear his opinion on this clusterfuck of a situation.
Her squeal is loud enough to burst ear drums, and I let her hug me even though it makes my skin crawl. Sophia is a pretty girl, even I notice that, but her looks don’t do anything for me. Sometimes I wish they did, if just because it would make things easier.
“Come by early and you can stand in the receiving line with me,” I tell her. The more this idea percolates in my brain, the more I like it.
Sophia’s eyes are so bright they’re practically strobe lights. She says something appropriately fawning and enthusiastic, but I’ve already stopped listening. I hold my hand up to stop her when she starts prattling about matching her gown to my cummerbund. The details don’t matter to me.
Every year, my family stands at the entrance of Cortland Manor to welcome each guest personally to our mausoleum of a home.
Every single person who comes to the ball has to walk the receiving line. It’s tradition. That means the entire town will see Sophia at my side, playing queen of the manor.
Standing up there with me is an honor, communicating something significantly more than status as a fuck buddy, and Sophia knows it.
Zaya will, too.
Iain and Cal just look on in mild amusement as Sophia peppers me with questions about what time she should arrive and if she should bring a gift for my mother. Elliot watches me with obvious disapproval, but I don’t have time for his crap right now.
I didn’t start this game, but I will be the one who wins it.
Seventeen
I pull at my bowtie, fighting the urge to rip the stupid thing off my neck and throw it across the room. Wearing a tuxedo feels about as binding as a straightjacket and puts me in a similar frame of mind.
You’d have to be a little crazy to get any pleasure out of this shit.
The last thing I want to do is throw open the doors of Cortland Manor and let every knuckle dragger in Deception wander through our house, but it isn’t as if I have a choice.
Sophia is just happy to be here, if the dozens of text messages she sent over the last few hours are any indication. Her excitement is naïve and might even be flattering under different circumstances.
I remind myself that she doesn’t want me because I’m me. Everybody wants Vincent Renaldo Cortland, prince of Deception. Twirling on my arm in a ball gown while the whole town watches with envy is just part of the fantasy. She wouldn’t be so excited to sit out front of a shanty house in the Gulch and drink light beer.
If my inheritance disappeared, so would she.
That makes it easier to take advantage of her with a clear conscience, or at least one that has gone mercifully quiet. The angel and devil on my shoulder went to war years ago, and it doesn’t take an idiot to figure out which side won that battle.
I stand sandwiched between my little sister and Sophia in the receiving line. Emma keeps casting curious, if reserved, glances Sophia’s way, but doesn’t say anything until a few dozen people have gone past us.
“She is wearing really tall shoes,” Emma whispers to me during a break in the flow of people, because she hasn’t learned what stripper heels are yet. “I hope she doesn’t tip over, because then everyone will see up her skirt.”
I just shake my head and try not to laugh.
Or cry.
My father seems surprised to see me with a date, but he doesn’t say anything, either. He knows better than to comment on how I handle this situation, especially considering his terrible decision making got me here in the first place. Giselle doesn’t even seem to notice anything is different. Her focus is exclusively on all the effusive compliments as people marvel over that dramatic crystal chandelier or the original wood paneling.
Sophia’s hand tightens on my arm whenever a girl from our school moves through the receiving line, nails practically digging into the skin. I’m sure she has already told
anyone who will listen that she has officially staked a claim. At some point, I assume she’ll raise her dress and piss on my leg, just to make it clear to anyone in smelling distance that I belong to her.
At any other point, I’d feel the need to put her back in her place. But even standing right next to me, Sophia is barely on my radar right now.
Zaya hasn’t shown up yet, and neither has Jake. I can’t help but wonder if they’ve decided to skip the ball completely. Maybe they’re holed up somewhere together, engaging in other forms of entertainment.
The thought makes my blood boil.
The crowd of arrivals eventually thins until there is only a trickle of late arrivals. My father and Giselle wander off to mingle while Emma is dragged back upstairs by her nanny.
“Do you want to dance?” Sophia asks, trailing her fingers up and down my arm in a way she must think is flirtatious but is mostly just annoying.
“In a minute.”
My gaze stays trained on the massive front doors, willing them to open again. Almost everyone I’ve ever met has wandered past us at this point. If Zaya and Jake aren’t here, then they have to be alone because Deception is basically a ghost town at this point.
Sophia shifts closer to me, her hand moving down the front of my pants. “Or we could do something else if you want.”
My hands rise to her shoulders with every intention of pushing her away.
Then the door opens again.
Zaya appears first, peeking her head furtively through the opening as if afraid someone might slam it in her face. Her gaze takes in the empty entryway as she slowly enters the house with Jake right behind her, his hand on the small of her back.
I wait for her attention to shift across the room. She visibly startles to find me standing there and staring her down. She stops short and freezes, gaze lingering on where my hands rest over Sophia’s shoulders.