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

by Ashley Gee

  But I’m honest enough to admit that’s a lie.

  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out they’re headed for the pool house where Vin hosts all his legendary parties. I wonder if he is going to finish with her what he started with me. The idea makes me feel dirty and inadequate.

  It makes me feel used.

  I tell myself I don’t care. They’re welcome to each other. I hadn’t been lying when I told Vin that he wouldn’t have a problem finding someone stupid enough to marry him. Sophia will fit in well as another gilded fixture in this cold, dark place.

  Better her than me.

  Jake squeezes my hand and guides me toward the dance floor after they’re gone. His touch is respectful, but demanding. I imagine what his hands might feel like on other parts of my body, but that thought doesn’t arouse anything more than mild interest. I know it would be nice, but not earth-shattering.

  As much as I like Jake, there isn’t any passion here.

  Vin makes me burn, with hate and a dozen other things I wish I didn’t feel.

  But what good is pleasure when it is always accompanied by pain?

  Nineteen

  Jake doesn’t seem to notice that my mind is somewhere else for the rest of the Founder’s Ball. We dance and eat finger foods together, I even manage to smile and laugh at appropriate intervals. But my mind is on Vin and what he must be doing with Sophia.

  I wonder if she even realizes that he is using her. For all I know, she doesn’t care.

  Or maybe I’m the one he’s been playing this entire time.

  What was it he had said? I chose you because I knew you’d be easy to control.

  Sophia wouldn’t know how to play hard to get if you gave her a script with lines to read, so Vin certainly doesn’t need me.

  I hate that the realization bothers me.

  “Ready to go?” Jake smiles at me in the same gentle way he has since that first morning in the hallway at school.

  I realize I’ve missed a good portion of whatever he last said, but nod anyway and return his smile.

  He leads me to the door, obviously intending to give me a ride home. I’d gotten a ride here with my brother and a friend of his that managed to get their hands on a car, but Zion is long gone. I don’t have any way to get back to the Gulch unless Jake takes me or I try to bum a ride with Amelia’s family, if they have any room in their van.

  But Jake’s question, if I’m ready to leave with him, feels charged with an unspoken invitation.

  He drives a gleaming Land Rover Defender that can’t be more than a few years old, but shrugs apologetically when I stroke my hands over the plush leather interior and obviously marvel at the bells and whistles. It’s probably a hand-me-down, from his mother most likely.

  Suburban mom’s in luxury SUVs that were originally intended for tours through the African savannah are a common sight on the Bluffs. This is a car for people who apparently need to always be ready for an off-road excursion on their way to the grocery store.

  An expensive waste of resources for the self-indulgent.

  But Jake is gracious enough to act embarrassed about the ostentatious vehicle. It reminds me of the kind of person who spends all day cleaning and when you arrive gushes don’t mind the mess. I get the impression that he knows his family’s money is something he should pretend not to care too much about.

  “I had fun,” he offers, taking my hand as he settles into the driver’s seat.

  I smile and squeeze his hand back, though I’m grateful when he pulls it away to put the SUV into drive. His palm is slightly clammy, sweaty like I make him nervous.

  Jake is acting so sweet, and all I want to do is go home, crawl into bed, and stay there for the rest of the weekend. It isn’t his fault that my mind has careened off into outer space. But I can’t rewind the clock to an hour ago before I let Vin finger me in a dusty bedroom and then watched him saunter off with Sophia like it never happened.

  Normally my restricted speech is a burden. But right now I’m grateful for it. If I can’t tell Jake the truth, then it saves me from having to lie. He won’t ask me any uncomfortable questions when he knows I can’t provide the answers.

  Because if I did speak, then I’d have to explain to him that this isn’t going to work, and I’d rather put off the inevitable. Like a coward, I don’t want to let him down when I have to be here for his reaction.

  But it isn’t because of Vin.

  My focus needs to stay on getting out of this town and forging a future for myself as far from this place as I can get. Anyone that might tie me tighter to Deception needs to be abandoned, or ignored. For all of his kindness, Jake is another tether to this town that I don’t want. When it’s finally time to leave, I don’t want anything holding me back.

  Halfway down the cliff-side road, I realize he doesn’t know where to go. Reaching for his phone, I plug my address into a navigation app and hold it up for him to see.

  Jake makes a grateful sound, but barely glances at the screen as he drives toward the Gulch.

  I can’t decide if I should be flattered or freaked out that he already seems to know where I live.

  The Land Rover slides smoothly up to the curb in front of my house, stopping right behind a black pickup truck. A shiny gold Cortland Construction logo is emblazoned on both its sides.

  My house looks dark on the inside, so Zion isn’t home yet, assuming he plans to come back tonight at all. The workers must have finished for the night by now, which means they left the truck full of supplies for when they return. I’m surprised Vin hasn’t already called off whatever work he authorized they get done, but he’ll likely get to it in the morning.

  After Sophia is done sucking his dick.

  I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

  Those words have become a mantra I say to myself over and over again in my head, hoping that at some point I’ll actually believe it.

  My thoughts distract me long enough that Jake has already shut his door by the time I realize I should get out. He leaps up onto curb and comes to my side, pulling the passenger door open before my fumbling fingers can find the handle in the dark. Like the true gentleman he is, Jake helps me out of the car and keeps his steadying hand on my elbow as we mount the steep dirt path leading up to the front door.

  “Did a hurricane come through here?” Jake laughs awkwardly as he helps me over a pile of rubble from the excavation work.

  I had met him at the ball, instead of having him pick me up, precisely so he wouldn’t see any of this.

  I can only imagine what he’s noticing about our house. The listing foundation that makes the house look a bit like a boat about to capsize. Scrubby grass out front made entirely of barely tamed weeds. The general air of abandonment and neglect.

  It makes me feel pathetic.

  I unlock the door, relieved that Vin hadn’t rekeyed it without bothering to tell me. The level of invasion into my life it requires for him to remodel my house without even consulting me first doesn’t surprise me at this point.

  That is the saddest thought I’ve had all night.

  Jake does surprise me when he steps into the house after me and closes the door behind him. He catches my expression and gives me a lopsided smile.

  “I thought we could hang out a little longer. Spending time with you is nice.”

  The look I cast him is curious and openly doubtful. You’d think by this point he would be getting tired of putting up with all my baggage.

  “It doesn’t bother me that you don’t talk,” he says, anticipating my thoughts. “The silence is sort of nice, actually. I usually can’t get past the awkward conversation stage with a girl, and we get to blow right past that. Although, I don’t know where you get the willpower to never say anything to some of the assholes at our school.”

  I smile weakly because his words are meant to be funny, but the smile is more than a little sad.

  “If you did talk to me, I wouldn’t tell him.” Jake takes a step closer. “Guy d
oesn’t deserve to even look at you, much less treat you the way he does. I don’t get why everyone in this town acts like he shits solid gold.”

  All it would take is for the Cortland’s to pack up their money and their businesses for half the town to lose their only source of income. Almost everyone in Deception has worked for a Cortland company at some point, or has a family member that does. They own the only strip mall in the Gulch and the holding company that has majority shares in most of the real estate everywhere else in town. First Bank of Deception, another Cortland family holding, backs pretty much every mortgage.

  You can’t make a life in this town if you end up on the Cortland’s bad side.

  Jake will figure that out eventually, it’s only a matter of time.

  And then he will never speak to me again.

  That is the only reason I don’t try to make him leave. I want to appreciate the one friend I have at Deception High before this relationship evaporates like everything else good in my life. Even though we spent the last few hours pressed against each other while we danced, standing together in my dark and silent house feels somehow more intimate.

  Maybe because there isn’t anyone here to interrupt whatever happens between us.

  Instead of attempting to answer without words, I hold my fingers to my lips and point to the living room. Even in the near-darkness, Grandpa’s hospital bed shines a dull white. The machine feeding him oxygen hisses every few seconds in time with each slumbering breath.

  A pang of regret shoots through me as I remember that comfortable setup is only a result of Vin’s attempts at bribery. Now that I’ve rejected him, the expensive hospital bed and day nurse will go back wherever they came from.

  But I won’t be bought. Not for this or anything else.

  Moving past the living room, I take Jake on an impromptu tour of the first floor of our house, pretending to check that the doors and windows are all locked. Even in the Gulch, nobody would bother trying to steal from us. Even with Vin’s upgrades, there isn’t anything in this house worth the effort.

  I hesitate when we get back to the entryway, unsure of precisely what he wants from me.

  And even if I were willing to speak, I probably still wouldn’t ask him because I’m not sure I want the answer.

  Jake leans against the wall next to a floating shelf full of worthless knickknacks: pottery projects Zion and I made in middle school and some pieces of raw quartz we found in the backyard. Unlike the entryway of Cortland Manor, there are no pictures of Milbourne ancestors hanging on the walls. Anything of value got sold off generations ago, and we’d lost possession of anything sentimental that wouldn’t be refused by the pawn shop. There used to be a few pictures of Zion and I with our mother, but Grandpa had us take them down after she left because the reminder made him angry.

  She didn’t just leave her children without so much as a goodbye, but her father too.

  Just like me, she stayed in Deception until she couldn’t take it anymore and had to run away. I’ll probably never know why she didn’t take us with her.

  A few years back, I’d tried searching for her online. I used to think the only way she wouldn’t come back is if she couldn’t. She obviously never left a forwarding address, but Google searches for her name always came up empty. I checked the obituaries of neighboring counties and ran a database search for death certificates, but nothing ever came of it.

  If my mother is still alive, she has no interest in being found.

  I shouldn’t miss her, not after the mess she left for me to clean up, but I still do.

  Even when I’ve lost all respect for her.

  Perhaps sensing my unease, Jake doesn’t try to go upstairs. But he does shift closer, eating up the small amount of personal space separating us.

  “You look really pretty tonight. Your hair looks great.” He pushes a gentle hand into my hair, fingers teasing at the painstakingly straightened strands. Without my hours of effort, his fingers would have caught in my curls. “I’m glad you decided to come with me to the Founder’s Ball. I had fun, even with all that shit from Cortland. He really knows how to ruin a good time.”

  When he lowers his head to kiss me, all I want to do is push him away. The churn of emotion at the pit of my belly feels like physical sickness. I turn my head so his lips brush across my cheek, and even that small touch leaves me feeling cold.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, realizing my hands on his shoulders are forceful enough to keep some space between us. “Are you okay?”

  If I could explain it to him, I would.

  It isn’t an unwillingness to speak that makes that impossible, there just aren’t words to accurately describe the turmoil of my thoughts. But instead I just shake my head and gesture at the door.

  “You want me to leave?” He sounds incredulous.

  I try to smile in apology, even as I nod and gesture again toward the door. I have no idea what I’m apologizing for, but he doesn’t even notice.

  His eyes have narrowed. “Seriously?”

  Grandpa coughs in his sleep, and the oxygen tank hooked up to him to makes a sort of wheezing sound that echoes off the walls. Jake seems to remember where he is. He backs up a step, but glares down at me.

  “Is this because of fucking Cortland? I knew there was something weird going on between the two of you.”

  I shake my head in sharp negation. I’m not lying to him, but I haven’t determined yet if I’m lying to myself. Like always, Vin manages to sneak into moments that shouldn’t have anything to do with him. But this is about me and Jake, about how continuing to lead him on would be cruel when there isn’t anywhere for the two of us to go together.

  “You know what, screw this. I don’t know why I’m bothering. You’re just a fucking tease.”

  With an angry curse, Jake pushes past me.

  I don’t watch him leave.

  The door slams hard enough that I wince. If it hadn’t just been repaired, that would have been enough to break it.

  I stay standing there for another few minutes, just staring at nothing in the darkness, trying to decide if I’ve made a terrible mistake by letting him walk away.

  A tease is someone who acts like it’s a yes, but then still says no.

  And I don’t say anything at all.

  But that’s boys for you. They worry so much about whether or not a girl will say no, when all girls can think about is whether or not they’ll listen when we do.

  The screech of tires peeling out on the street feels like a nice counterpoint to the night. Jake won’t be back, not now that I’ve ripped away the last few shreds of pride he managed to hang onto.

  His reaction is what I deserve.

  I check on Grandpa one last time, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes more easily than he has in years. I wonder how much all of this equipment costs, if paying for it myself would even be within the realm of possibility.

  My new phone is lit up on the desk upstairs. The dress I’m wearing obviously doesn’t have pockets, and I’m so unused to carrying a phone that it didn’t occur to take it with me to the Founder’s Ball. Amelia and Zion are the only people who have the number, aside from Vin of course. But the screen is full of dozens of notifications for missed calls.

  Most of the calls are from a blocked number, and there aren’t any voicemails because I haven’t bothered to set the voicemail up yet. The most recent call is from a number I recognize because I’ve dialed it many times before when Zion needed to check in with his probation officer. He would only do it if I picked up the phone, dialed the number, and shoved it into his face right before the other end picked up.

  This is the number for the Deception Police Department, which can only mean one thing.

  My brother has been arrested.

  Twenty

  Sophia is waiting in my driveway when I leave for school Monday morning. She leans against the door of my Maserati like I haven’t broken other people’s jaws for doing the same damn thing. />
  “What do you want?” I ask as I stride up, not bothering to look at her.

  “Last night you said we could ride to school together.” The simpering look on her face tells me she’s lying through her teeth. I’m never drunk enough to black out, and I have no memory of saying anything that even sounds like riding together.

  “I got a bunch of crap in the front seat. Sorry, no room.”

  “Please. I can’t afford to be late again. I have Ms. D’onofrio first period, and she’ll give me detention.”

  I shrug. “Not my problem.”

  “How am I supposed to get to school?”

  She lives less than two blocks away and has her own car. Riding with me is a power move, not a necessity.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  Never one to take a hint, Sophia chases after me. Her too high heels clack against the pavement. “After last night, I just thought it would be nice to spend some more time together.”

  I regretted that kiss pretty much the moment I laid it on her. Her mouth tasted like lipstick wax and left me looking like I snarfed a glass of red Kool-aid.

  I don’t exactly feel bad for using her, because Sophia spends pretty much every moment of her day begging to be used. But the girl is like a venereal disease, one mistake and she never completely goes away.

  When I climb in the driver’s seat and close the door, she leans through the open window. If I drive off now, the car will take off her head.

  “What?”

  “Did you hear what happened in the Gulch last night?”

  The engine starts with a satisfying rumble, and I give her a look that says she is moments from getting her feet run over. “Like I give a fuck.”

  She raises a micro-bladed eyebrow. “Even if it involves Zaya Milbourne?”

  My fingers drum against the steering wheel. Little bitch knows she has me interested. “What happened? Something bad, I hope.”