by Huss, JA
When that’s done, she prints me a receipt. I thank her politely, and when I turn around, I realize I’m the only person left in here and everything is quiet.
And when I push open the door to head for the stairs, I realize why.
Dane Valcourt is leaning up against the banister with his arms crossed and a very smug smile on his face.
CHAPTER THREE - COOPER
Capstone orientation is a long, boring introduction to the world of writing academic papers. Which I give zero fucks about, but it’s a necessary evil that must be dealt with.
We don’t talk as we wait in line to grab our Capstone packets, but that’s because we’re on now. On, as in on. The clock has started and the game has begun.
Everything we do from here on out is part of the plan.
By the time Ax and I collect our glossy blue and yellow folders and enter the auditorium, the session is already starting. We pause at the top of the room and look around the stadium-type seating for Lars.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Ax mutters. “He’s in the first row.”
“Yeah. We’re not going there.” I look around and find an empty patch of seats in the last row. “Over here, Ax.”
We push our way past the people on the aisle and walk all the way to the end of the row before sitting. We couldn’t physically get further away from the stage if we tried.
Ax leans over. “What’s your major?” He says it loud enough for everyone around us to hear, which earns us scowls all the way around. Fucking High Court students all have sticks up their asses.
“What?” I also say it loud enough for people to hear. Fuck it. I’m the King, right?
Ax has his folder open and he’s staring intently at the top sheet of paper in his packet. “What’s your major? According to this”—he taps the page and looks at me—“I’m majoring in philosophy.”
I laugh out loud.
“Mr. Valcourt?”
I glance down the long row of seats to the stage where Professor Somebody is looking right at me. “Yes, sir?”
“Are you having an issue that needs attention?”
A couple dozen people turn to look at me.
“Nope. I’m good.”
He continues with whatever the hell the topic of the day is, and I open my folder.
I laugh again when I read what it says.
“Mr. Valcourt!” Professor Whatshisname is definitely about to put me on a list now.
“Sorry,” I yell. “I’ll zip it.”
“Thank you! As I was saying—”
“Dude,” I whisper-yell to Ax. “It says my major is geological engineering.”
Ax guffaws. So loud it echoes off the tall ceiling. And suddenly all sixty-five people in the senior class are turning in their seats to look at us.
“That’s it! Both of you! Out! You can discuss your Capstone with the Chairman, Misters Valcourt and Olsen!”
“Fuck it.” Ax is already getting to his feet. “Let’s go.”
I want to feel bad about this, but I’m still pretty amused that in one year I will be qualified to geologically engineer something. So I just get up and we push our way past all the people on the aisle one more time, then exit the auditorium.
And who do we bump into but my father?
He’s wearing a light gray suit with a blue and gold High Court College tie. His silver hair perfectly coiffed, as per usual. Kinda rocking on his heels as he stares at me.
“Christopher.”
“Dad.”
“Where are you going?”
“We were kicked out.” I don’t even bother to shine this fact up for his consumption. I want him to react.
“So you don’t have any plans to graduate?”
I look at Ax and shoot him eyes that say, I’ll handle this. I don’t want to get kicked out. Cadee is, right now, this very moment, paying for my fall semester’s tuition. I’m not going to waste fifty grand of her Dante money just to get one moment of satisfaction from pissing off my father.
“I do,” I say calmly. “I think Professor… whoever… is just having a bad day. He wants us to plan our Capstone projects with you.”
My father sighs. Like he’s tired. Of me, specifically. “You always did need a lot of attention. Why am I not surprised that you still demand it now?”
“Look—”
“No, Christopher, you look. I’m not playing your games this year. Either you live up to High Court’s standards, or you will be expelled.” His gaze slowly migrates over to Ax. “Alexander, your father would like to see you.”
“No.” Ax is shaking his head. “I’m not going to see him.”
“You will, Alexander.” My father insists this in a low, but firm, tone. “He’s waiting for you in the Chairman’s dining room. Christopher will show you the way.” He sighs and turns back to me. “Christopher, I’m having brunch with the new Fang and Feather pledges.” He kinda stresses the word pledges. Like I’m not aware that I totally fucked up his summer rush and there are only two—Dante and Mona. “I expect you all to be there to welcome them.”
“What are you talking about? I quit. We all quit.”
“You do not get to quit, Christopher. That is not how this works.”
“It does if I don’t show up for any of your rites.”
He smiles at me. “Can I give you a piece of advice, Cooper?”
“I’m Cooper now?”
“Pick and choose your battles, son.”
“We’re not going to your stupid brunch.”
“Isabella will be there.”
“No, she won’t. Isabella is in there.” I nod my head to the Capstone meeting.
My father cocks his head at me. “Are you sure about that?”
Am I sure about that? I didn’t see her when we were looking around for Lars. She, Valentina, and Selina haven’t been around much the past week. But they were doing girl things. Lake trips and… tanning. Or whatever the fuck girls do.
“She will be there, Cooper. She RSVP’d me this morning. And”—he shrugs, both with his shoulders and his hands—“you two are a pair. She can’t go alone. God knows what will happen if she does.”
My heart rate jacks up at his implied threat. “Stay the fuck away from Isabella. She’s doing well now.”
“Is she?” My father presses his lips together like he’s thinking this over. “I’m glad. Let’s keep her on that path. The brunch is at eleven. If you want to bring a date—” He pauses. And I know I’m making a face at that word. Because if Isabella is there, she is my date. “Feel free to bring Cadee Hunter. We’re going to celebrate her acceptance into the club.”
I just stare at him for a moment. Trying to parse all those words and make them fit together in a way that makes sense.
But Ax takes over. “She’s not in your little club. None of us are in your fucking club, Chairman. And I’m not going to that meeting.”
“Well,” my father replies, “I’m sure Cadee will be disappointed. I sent Dane to collect her. Just to make sure her invitation didn’t get lost in the mail.”
“What?” I’m so angry, I can literally hear the blood rushing in my ears.
“She’s waiting for you in my dining room. Now.” He straightens his tie. “I have to deliver the Capstone welcome speech. I’m sorry you’ll miss it, boys. But we’ll catch up on all that later. In private.”
And then he brushes past me—kinda bumping my shoulder like an asshole—and disappears into the auditorium.
I turn to Ax. “What the fuck was that?”
“I’m not going.”
“None of us are going.” I pull out my phone and text Isabella. Where are you? I need to see you.
I wait for the read receipt. Nothing. So I call her. It rings. Goes to voice mail. “Isabella, text me back right now. It’s important.”
Nothing.
“Was she in the auditorium?” I ask Ax.
He looks at the double doors and shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t see her. But I wasn’t looking.” Th
en he pulls out his phone. “I’ll text Valentina.” He gets a reply almost immediately. “Shit. They’re already there.”
“Where?”
“The Chairman’s dining room.”
“Doing what?”
He types. We wait. “Meeting with their fathers.” Ax looks up at me. “Everyone is there. All the pledges.”
I force myself to remain calm. “Why?”
But Ax is typing. Then reading. Then sighing. “Shit. They’re all being told that they’re not allowed to quit. Basically, what your father just told us. I guess that’s why I’m supposed to go talk to my father too.”
“Is Cadee there?”
He texts. Waits. “No. She’s not there.”
“Thank God. Let’s go find her before Dane does. She’s probably still at the bursar’s office.”
We head outside, cross the campus, and go into the admin building. There is a line of people waiting to see my father. A line so long it goes all the way down the stairs. He’s not there, obviously. He’s giving some speech to the Capstone class.
But there’s almost an equally long line leading down the stairs to the bursar’s office too. We push past everyone and when we make it down to the outer lobby, it’s even more packed. It’s like everyone who is not in the senior class is in this building at the moment.
“Do you see her?”
Ax shakes his head.
“Cadee!” I call. “Are you here?”
Everyone looks at us. But no one answers. So we push our way through the crowd to make our way to the inner office door.
Ax peeks his head in. Then withdraws. “She’s not in there.”
“Fuck. Where is she?”
“Maybe she’s in the dining room already?”
I close my eyes and sigh. “Well. I guess he gets his way again. Because I have to go up there and check.”
“I’ll go too.”
“No. Your father is there.”
“Fuck him. I don’t know who Cadee could be meeting with. She has no father and she’s not a pledge. So if she is there, she needs saving.”
And that’s the end of that discussion. We have no choice.
Ax and I make our way back up the basement stairs, then do it all again to get up to the second level. My father has a new assistant. She’s a younger version of Laurie. But I don’t know her name or recognize her face so we just push through the crowd and head towards the Chairman’s dining room. There is a faculty dining room located next to the cafeteria building. The one we’re going to is not for faculty. It’s for my father and it’s where all the Fang and Feather business meetings take place.
Which is not a good sign.
And things go from bad to worse when we enter the massive room filled with my wayward pledges, the seniors—except for Lars—and their fathers.
I see Isabella immediately. Her back is to me, so she doesn’t know I’m here.
“Fuck,” Ax says.
And when I look where his gaze is directed, I see his father.
Listen, I don’t know much about judges except they’re basically assholes. But I do know that one does not just wake up and say, “I think I’ll be a judge today.” It’s a process that involves, at the very least, some law school, some law practice, and, in the case of Monrovian County, an election.
In other words, it’s a career path. It’s a plan.
Ax’s father, Wesley ‘call me Wes’ Olsen, doesn’t look like a judge. He doesn’t look like a man who opens books, let alone studies them and memorizes legal codes. He looks like… well, a Navy SEAL. A Navy SEAL who was dishonorably discharged for… oh, probably maniacally killing innocent villagers in some faraway land. He is that massive and mean-looking.
You don’t see him with bare arms very often because he’s got the whole buttoned-up-tight judge look down. But I’ve seen his bare arms and I know they are as tatted up as his son’s.
He’s a scary man. Let’s just leave it at that.
And even though Ax is a scary dude as well, he’s got nothing on his father. Who is, right now, standing up and beckoning us towards him with one crooked finger.
Ax takes a deep breath. “I’ll be right back.”
“I can come—”
“No. I got this.”
He walks off. I watch the two of them as he approaches the table. There are some words exchanged, then the Judge pans his hand to a seat across from him. Which, unfortunately, means that Ax’s back is to me and I can’t gauge how things are going.
“Cooper.”
I turn to find Isabella walking towards me. “Have you seen Cadee?”
“No, Coop. But my father wants you to join us.”
I glance over at the table where her father sits. He smiles at me. He’s always been nice to me, but I don’t smile back. “Why? What’s going on here? I need to find Cadee. She was going to pay everyone’s tuition this morning but she wasn’t down in the bursar’s office.”
“Our tuition has been paid. Everyone’s tuition has been paid. We all have new cars, and new bank accounts, and—”
I place a hand on her shoulder and lean in. “No, Isabella. No. We’re not doing this. We got out.”
She lets out a long, slow breath and looks down at her feet. “We’re not out, Cooper. We’re all very much in.” Then she looks up at me. “And it’s a little bit of a relief, to be honest.” Then she pans her hand around the room. “I mean, look at them. They’re not unhappy. Not even Sophie.”
She’s right. All the pledges who were so desperate to get out of their Fang and Feather duties are—if not outright smiling at their fathers across the table—at the very least looking completely at ease. Even Sophie, who drove me crazy all summer with her whining and crying about wanting to leave.
“I can’t fucking believe this.” Then I glance at Ax. He’s slouched down in his chair, arms crossed. And even though I can’t see his face, it’s very clear that things over there are not OK by his father’s finger-pointing and angry expression.
“My father wants to have a few words with you.”
“Why?”
She grabs my arm suddenly, almost digging her nails into my skin, and pulls me forward into her personal space. “Why do you think? I know you’re obsessed with Cadee Hunter. But you and I are a team, Cooper. You promised me. You promised to get me through this. And now it very much feels like you’re cashing me in for a newer model.”
“Isabella.” Her name comes out as a low, deep growl. “It was a business arrangement. That was always understood.”
“I am fully aware.” She growls these words back at me. “And now it’s time for you to do some business. So pull on your big-boy panties and let’s. Go.”
I sigh. Look back at Ax. I think he’s talking now, because his father is looking him in the eyes and his mouth isn’t moving. “Fine. But I’m not staying long. I need to find Cadee.”
She tugs me over to her table. “Here he is, Daddy.”
Daddy? I want to throw up.
And she says it sweetly too. I cannot believe I didn’t see this coming. My father isn’t the type of person to sit around after a threat. When he went radio-silent after my big scene at the tomb I should’ve seen it for what it was. Some downtime to formulate a plan.
He is the Chairman for a reason. I’m not sure what that reason is, but this is not his first rodeo. He’s been wrangling pledges into submission for more than two decades now.
He is a man of action.
And now that action is playing out right in front of my face and every single person—with the exception of Cadee, Ax, and Lars—has fallen prey to his scheming.
They’re all going to cave. They’re all going to smile, and take their money, and cars, and tuition payments and not think twice about it.
Even Isabella.
“There he is.” Mr. Huntington is a tall man with a thick head of white hair and deep piercing green eyes. His suit is bespoke—probably tailored in London—and his expression is firm, but not stern. He stands up
and offers me his hand. I could refuse to shake it. Should refuse to shake it. But I just want to get this over with and starting a fight with him will only prolong things.
I shake it and he pulls back and sits back down.
“Nice to see you, son. We missed you at the last rite.”
“Oh, I was there,” I say. “I just couldn’t stay.”
“Mm-hmm. Take a seat, Cooper.”
I look back at Ax, but whatever is happening over there has been blocked from my view.
I sit.
Mr. Huntington presses his lips together tightly, then sucks in a long breath through his nose and exhales out. “We have decided to reschedule the rite. Give you kids some time to settle down. But now it’s time to get back to business. Your pledge to Isabella will take place in two weeks.”
I just stare at him. Willing myself to argue. To disagree. To tell him, in no uncertain terms, that even though I did promise to marry Isabella after our own freshman rush, it’s not going to happen.
But I don’t.
Because that’s not going to help things.
I know what this is about. They are calling my bluff about the secrets I’m holding.
It wasn’t a bluff. When I threatened my father, I was dead serious. But it was just a threat. Actually going through with it won’t be as easy as it sounds.
I don’t know all the members of Fang and Feather. I could take a good guess, but this school has existed for almost two hundred years. And even though most of them are probably dead now, or too old to be any kind of serious threat, there are enough alumni members in high places to eliminate a couple of college seniors who have big dreams of taking them down.
That’s why Dante’s plan needs to be executed in complete secrecy.
My inaction bolsters Mr. Huntington. “Good,” he says. “That’s more like it. I told your father that you’d come around.” Then he pans his hand around the room. “As they all have. You kids had your fun. You’re not the first to insist on a renegotiation. We’re ready and willing. Make a list, Cooper. Let us know what you need and we’ll be happy to provide. No limits. Run wild, son. Ask for everything. It might be your only chance.” Then he turns to Isabella. “Your mother would like to take you shopping for the wedding dress. She’s picked out a date. June fourth. Does that work, sweetie?”