Faithless: A High School Bully Romance (The Privileged of Pembroke High Book 3)

by Ivy Fox

  “No. Unfortunately, not all,” she explains with a nasty curl to her upper lip, throwing daggers in Rome’s way.

  “Who was less pleased with your marriage?”

  “Roman Grayson,” she announces clearly for everyone in the courtroom to recognize who she is referring to.

  “How so?”

  “I think he thought I was a threat to him. Just as his father always thought of him,” she adds that last part on bitterly.

  “Objection, Your Honor. The witness is stating her own speculations and hearsay. Therefore, the jury shouldn’t take her feelings into account,” Joel Coen interrupts, not wanting to give my mother any leeway in persuading the jury.

  “Your Honor, the prosecution disagrees. Mrs. Grayson’s feelings are based on her own experiences living with the defendant, and therefore, should be valid and taken into account to demonstrate the hostile living conditions between the defendant and his father.”

  “Objection sustained. Ms. Kelleher, please make sure your next question is factually inclined if you want to proceed with this line of questioning,” Judge Katz informs unfazed, looking at the ADA as if she should know better.

  Ms. Kelleher fixes her stance and walks over to the stand, placing her elbow on the brim, as she gives our defense team the evil eye.

  “Mrs. Grayson, can you give us an example of something you witnessed or experienced, which makes you believe the defendant felt you were a threat?” she interrogates, offering my mother a supportive smile for her to continue.

  “One comes to mind,” my mother replies on cue as if this is the role she has been training all her life for. “And it will hurt and humiliate me deeply, having to reveal it to the whole world. But it’s been weighing on my conscience since I’ve learned of it.”

  “You seem troubled, Mrs. Grayson. Would you like a glass of water?” the prosecutor questions, and I swear both of them are milking the jury’s sympathy for all it’s worth.

  “No, no. There’s no need. I guess the truth was bound to come out eventually. It just sickens me that it happened under my very nose,” she continues, as I watch the jury wait on bated breath for whatever great revelation she’s about to expose.

  “It shames me to say, but while my husband was fighting for his life, in what later would be his death bed, I found out Roman had seduced his stepsister, my daughter, Holland. When I confronted him—pointing out that this type of appalling and sinful behavior was not to be permitted as they were family—he threw me out of my own home.”

  “I’m going to kill her,” Elle grunts, but it’s hard to hear if she said anything else, as the whole courtroom is in an uproar. People up and out of their seats, damning Rome and outraged on behalf of my mother.

  “Silence! Silence!” Judge Katz shouts out above her slamming gavel. “Silence in my court, or I’ll throw every last person out!”

  While everyone is still in full furor and doing very little to settle down, I don’t miss the glint in my mother’s ice-cold eyes as she takes a peek in my direction. The menacing grin she wants to lash out must be killing her to contain, but none of that matters. All that matters is the worshiping look Rome throws at me over his shoulder, telling me that, no matter how vile and dirty my mother just made our love out to be, it’s anything but. What we have, she’ll never be able to taint.

  Not with her cruel words.

  Not with her loathing hate.

  Not with her twisted vengeance.

  “I love you,” I silently mouth at him, and his golden eyes glow brighter than any sun could on a summer’s day. The golden hue shines through him so clearly, as pure as the love he holds for me inside his very soul. And that is something no one, not even my mother, can ruin.

  It takes the courtroom a few more minutes for total silence to ensue, but once it does, the assistant district attorney picks up exactly where my mother left off, eager to defame Rome as much as she can and damage whatever reputation he has left.

  “Why do you believe your stepson acted in such a callous way?”

  “I think he did it to hurt me. To hurt his father. He knew Malcolm considered my daughter as his own flesh and blood. He treated and cared for Holland just as much as he loved his own daughter, Eleanor. For Rome to prey on my daughter with such malice, to take advantage of my child, a vulnerable girl who has suffered most of her life with lupus, is just appalling. If he stooped so low to do this just out of spite, I wonder what else he could have been capable of doing when he didn’t get his way.”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” Joel Coen yells out as he rises from his chair, having had enough of my mother’s defamatory statements. I see actual sweat cover his brow, which tells me our defense team just took a hit they didn’t expect or see coming.

  “Sustained. The jury will disregard Mrs. Grayson’s last testimony. Ms. Kelleher, please proceed.”

  “We have no further questions for the witness, Your Honor,” Ms. Kelleher states before heading toward her desk.

  “Very well. I think we’ve had enough for one day. Mrs. Grayson, you may step down. We will convene again Monday morning at ten,” Judge Katz announces, slamming her gavel once again, and looking at her wits’ end with the mockery being done in the courtroom.

  “This fucking bitch!” Ash roars, unable to hold the cool facade that he kept for most of the trial. Of course it had to be my mother’s testimony to make everyone lose it. But I can’t do a thing to settle his temper since I’m still trembling with rage, just watching Vivienne’s triumphant, smug face pass me by.

  “Snow.” I hear Rome call out, bringing me back to the here and now, and away from the woman who is set in destroying all the good in my life.

  I look over at him and behold the first sign of pain in his eyes, as the officer cuffs his wrist behind his back. He stiffly shakes his head, and I know what he’s trying to tell me, even if he can’t let it out in a room full of strangers.

  Don’t do anything foolish.

  When the bailiff finally instructs the officer to take Rome away from the room, my stomach sinks, thinking how can I ever be capable of following his wishes now.

  “I need to see him,” I tell Ash, grabbing his arm to keep me steady next to him.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Snow. You’re pretty shaken up, and after what your mother just said on the stand, you visiting Rome today might not work in his favor.”

  “I don’t care,” I yell, gaining all the curious eyes around me.

  “I’ll take you,” Ollie says, placing his hand on the small of my back, trying to keep me from losing it completely.

  Ash nods his approval, reluctantly letting us have our way, even though I know he doesn’t like the idea in the least. He’s right, though. After what my mother just blurted out in open court, the whole world will reach their sordid conclusions. And pretty soon, it will be my face printed on gossip magazines and posted online.

  “What about school?” Elle asks, biting at her thumb nail, her own nerves at play.

  “Fuck school. Isn’t that what you wanted us to do anyway? Tell Principle Green to shove it up his ass?” Ash bellows, his brows up in the air at his sister for even mentioning it.

  “In so many words.” She winks at her brother, with a tug on her upper lip.

  From holding Ollie’s hand throughout the whole hearing, to the little smirk of gratitude to Ash, Elle may finally be ready to forgive them for concealing what happened to me all those months ago. I know she’s still sore with both of them, but at least it’s a start.

  “Go see Rome, Snow,” Ash says, his eyes turning soft at me. “This shitstorm your mother just created must be making him crazy. It’ll be good for him to see you. Public opinion be damned. My brother needs you right now.”

  And I need him, too.

  Chapter 9

  Roman

  I crack my neck, my abdomen still bruised and sore from yesterday’s little confrontation in the yard. I don’t care who you are; wh
en five tough-looking assholes have it in for you, then you are as good as done for. But it’s not the bruises to my stomach or the cuts to the jaw that have me incensed. Those I can hide with the overgrown beard I’m sporting and the ugly-ass uniform that comes with the inmate life. Not even the little performance Vivienne put in court today struck a nerve with me.

  Nope.

  The thing that has me seething was the small warning one of the tattooed brutes hushed in my ear before he took his first swing, ‘You fucked with the wrong bitch, asshole.’

  It must have been Vivienne’s little prison welcoming gift. Her way of showing me she can get to me inside the courtroom, as well as outside.

  I can’t believe she’s still pissed about me choosing Holland over her. How delusional could she be to think I’d ever touch her, even if Snow wasn’t in the picture? Or maybe she’s sore because I was the only one who ever turned her down. Rejection must be a hard pill to swallow if I’m still the one she’s gunning for.

  From what Ash has confided in me during our phone calls, Vivienne likes her lovers young, having gone as far as to set her claws on Trevor Manning. I guess she didn’t waste any time finding a substitute to fill her empty bed when I dismissed her advances.

  Or perhaps it’s the fact that she’s unsatisfied with the runner up she ended up with and wants me to suffer just as she must be, considering she’s now screwing around with ‘One Pump’ Trevor. Whatever the reason for my beat down, I’d take all the jabs and punches again with a fucking smile on my face. If Vivienne thinks a little schoolyard scuffle will break me, she is dead wrong.

  There is only one person who could cause me pain, and she’d be the last one to do it. As long as I know that Snow is safe and protected with both my brothers zealously guarding over her, then all is right in my world.

  Still, when her bitch of a mother aired out her dirty laundry, letting the whole world know that Snow and I are an item, it killed me to see the horror on my girl’s beautiful face. The cruel witch made it sound like I seduced Snow out of some misguided notion of revenge. That I purposely preyed on Snow just to get back at my father and his ice-queen wife.

  The worst of all is that, with Vivienne’s testimony, the general public will perceive our relationship as something filthy and unnatural. I can just imagine the field day the press is having with this piece of juicy information right now. Headlines like ‘Ruthless Son Kills Father While Defiling Stepsister,’ or ‘Grayson Incest Shame Revealed,’ must be on every news media outlet, with no concern of who they are hurting with their so-called news.

  Fuck it.

  If Vivienne thinks outing us will bring me to heel, she has another think coming. The only thing I’m pissed about is not being there for Snow to handle the aftermath of such a publicized lie. I know Snow. She’s a private person, and to be thrown into the limelight in such a degrading manner, must be sickening to her very core.

  Hopefully, Ash and Ollie can calm her down and make her realize the outside world doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

  All that is truly important in our lives is what we know to be true. The outside world can defame and ridicule our love, make it out to be something sinful and immoral, but they’ll never know the blessing of finding such a wonder—one that is stronger than any side-eye or ill-spit word condemning it. A love that, in this very minute, is giving me the strength I need to wake up every morning and face whatever hurdles Rikers can throw at me. All the beat downs and humiliation, the lack of sleep and crappy food, even those god-awful hours of total isolation don’t scare me in the least. Not when I know that I have something most people only read about or see in movies.

  I’ve got my endgame.

  And that’s my perfect little liar.

  The rest is meaningless.

  It’s not that I’m okay with the idea of being stuck in prison for the rest of my life. Of course, I’m not. But the minute I imagine that Snow could be living this same hell, locked away in a tiny cell, then all of me rises to the challenge of keeping that nightmarish existence away from her.

  I’ll take all of this and more in stride.

  I can bear it.

  Because what I feel for the white-haired girl, transcends any punishment, solitude, or pain. And even if I’m old and gray when I leave this cage, I know she’ll be waiting for me. She’ll always wait for me. And there is a certain peace and comfort I can take from knowing that, no matter how much time or space we need to spend apart, our love will never waver or crumble. It will only intensify and bloom stronger inside of our very souls, until the day we can finally reunite them and turn them to one beating force of nature.

  How many people can say they have that?

  “Grayson, get your ass up!” the guard yells, making the pain in my head erupt and bringing me out of my reverie.

  Fuck.

  I don’t know what’s worse, the fucking jacked-up assholes in the yard, or the guards who are paid to look the other way. These assholes are just as bad as the men they have locked inside here, doing time with me. They like to provoke us and see us squirm under their watchful eye. They get their kicks in using violence when they don’t need to, to then justify it as discipline.

  I thought county lockup was bad, but these fuckers are just the same. And it doesn’t help that my arrival at Rikers hit everybody’s radar fast. It gives them a sick satisfaction to see a guy like me in here. Especially because most of the privileged assholes go to those country-club prisons, and live out their sentences with better commodities than the average Joe. My appearance at Rikers was like a fucking Christmas bonus to them—unexpected, but oh so enjoyable.

  “I said get up, you entitled prick. This isn’t the Met, you know.”

  I stand up, looking at him like he’s a bug not worth to be smashed under my shoe. My shark-like grin always gets a rise out of these fuckers. It pretty much says that I’m not one bit intimidated by him or any other bully with a stick. They hate that. And aside from having the said stick knock me around a few times, it makes my day to see that I got under their skin. It’s one of my favorite entertainments in this hell hole.

  Slowly I get up, grabbing hold of the iron bed to get my bearings. The ringing in my ears is just as powerful as it was yesterday. Still, I do my best not to show the guard by the door that I’m less than a hundred percent. Bullies like him prefer their prey already damaged and vulnerable. It makes their job easier when they want to get creative and inflict pain.

  ‘Pussies, the lot of them.’ That’s what Ash said when I gave him a little insight into prison life. But he also cautioned me to keep my head down while I’m in this place, and as much as I know he’s right, it’s not in my nature to bend over and take it.

  Fuck that.

  “Today, Grayson,” the guard groans, looking like he has better things to do with his time than chaperoning me. But he doesn’t, so in my mind, he can wait a fucking minute.

  As this isn’t my first rodeo, I stand in front of him and then turn around as expected, stretching my arms through the breach in the cell door so he can cuff me. You pick up fast on protocol around here. And if you’re a slow learner, well, let’s just say that most of these guards don’t believe in a learning curve.

  Like clockwork, he cuffs me before opening the door and pushes me to stand in front of him, clutching my shoulder where it aches most. The fucker knows I’m black and blue under this orange mess, but I don’t give him the satisfaction to see me cringe. He can lash out and inflict all the physical pain he wants, as it still doesn’t compare to the mental abuse I have suffered in my lifetime.

  Instead of giving him what he wants, I start walking as if I’m right as rain. I keep the charade up until we get to the side of the building leading to the visitors’ room, where they wait patiently to see their loved ones.

  The only good thing that came out of my transfer to Rikers is that I no longer have a thick glass separating me from my visitors. It’s the only—somewhat—privat
e time I have together with my girl or my siblings, and we can talk things out.

  Court days, no matter how unpleasant they are, is the only other chance I have to see them all at once. But when they come to visit, even if one at a time, my heart truly soars. I always knew family meant everything to me, but now that I’m being kept away from mine, I realize how important their presence in my life has always been. Not being able to be there for my brothers and my sister is bad enough. But not spending my days and my nights with Snow at my side is fucking torture.

  At court this morning, I know I was successful in hiding my bruised-up body from them. But whoever is waiting for me on the other side of this door will be able to get an eyeful. The protective side of me hopes it’s one of my brothers and not Snow. But then the selfish part shakes its head at that nonsense. I know she’ll freak with the new batch of bruises on my face, but one look at her will make me whole again. And since I’m afforded two hugs, one at the start of the visit and one at the end, her warm body close to mine is the best medicine I could wish for.

  The guard opens the door to the visitor lounge, and my eyes immediately scout over the crowd, yearning to see my silver-eyed girl. But to my utter surprise, it’s not Snow that awaits me at a corner table. Actually, it’s not anyone that I expected, which suddenly increases my anxiety levels. I start to think in all sorts of macabre things that could have prevented Snow or my siblings from being here, and sending Henrietta’s granddaughter, Carmen, in their stead.

  I rush over to the table and sit my ass down, my nerves already showing on my bristly face.

  “Carmen, what’s wrong? Is Holland okay? Elle? My brothers? Why are you here, Carmen? Did something happen to them? Is it Avó? Oh, my God! Did something happen to Henrietta?” I ask, horrified by my final statement.

  “No, no, Rome. My grandmother is fine. Everyone is fine,” she susurrates, her usually soft voice barely audible due to the loud excitement from the other visitors in the room.