Soulless: A High School Bully Romance (The Privileged of Pembroke High Book 2)

by Ivy Fox

  I just remember her as another Grayson tragedy.

  Some things are hard to let go, though. How she would lie by my side when I couldn’t sleep at night, too old for a night light, but too proud to admit I was still afraid of the dark. She would describe all the adventures we would have together one day and how brave and valiant I would become. She would stay all night until I felt safe enough to fall asleep. But she never got to see me grow up and become the man she envisioned. And maybe that’s a good thing since I think she would be disappointed in me. No. I know she would be. And if my heart is already a broken, mangled mess, then my mother’s disillusionment with me would be my ultimate end.

  Rome and Henrietta goofing around doesn’t shock me one bit. It’s the giggling, shy girl in the corner who grabs my full attention. When Carmen feels my eyes on her, her round, brown cheeks blush, and she quickly turns away, grabbing some ingredient to hand over to her grandmother, insistent in keeping her face away from my prying eyes.

  “You’re back, I see. And acting the fool, no less. Does that mean you gave yourself an early release? Must be nice, being the warden of everybody’s prison cell and only using the keys to open your own,” I announce in greeting.

  Rome’s back stiffens, instantly losing his good mood. I can’t help but show him my wide smirk. He’s even easier than I accused Kim to be. I always know how to rattle his cage. Some might call it a gift, but Rome probably calls me the bane of his existence. Always the unruly kid brother he can’t control, and somehow left with the job to clean up my messes anyway.

  “Stop being a dick, will you? I’m hungry, so please don’t do something stupid like spoil my appetite with your nonsense,” Elle says from behind me, sporting a clean face without a touch of makeup, wet hair from a shower, and in nothing but boy shorts and a simple white T-shirt.

  Out in the real world, Elle is a fashion icon, with more Instagram followers than Gigi Hadid. For a sixteen-year-old with billions in the bank and carrying the last name Grayson, it’s to be expected. But if anyone saw her inside these walls, they would be in for a surprise. My little sister is a tomboy, and she dresses the part any time she can afford to. Seeing as daddy dearest and the wicked witch of the east are nowhere in sight, she’s taken a day off to look how she wants to.

  “Whatever. Where’s Ollie?” I question, wondering if he’s still so angry with me that he didn’t even knock on my door to tell me they all arrived.

  “Back at the hospital, consoling Vivienne,” Rome informs me, his face stoic as ever.

  “So he drew the short stick, huh?”

  “Sucks to be him,” Elle mumbles, opening the fridge to take out a bottle of water, not one bit sorry that her older brother was left back to deal with the Ice Queen by himself.

  Seems I’m not the only one on Elle’s shitlist. I don’t know why, but she’s been giving me the cold shoulder since Sunday. At first, I thought it was because she was trying to keep it together. I mean, none of us had a relationship with our father that you would write home about, but he never hid the fact that Elle was his favorite. Not that she enjoys his attention, but our father’s current condition may have brought up unresolved resentments that she is now taking out on us since she can’t take it out on him. Glad to see I’m not the only one she’s throwing her frosty shade on. Apparently, Ollie is benefiting from it, too.

  “This new Mrs. Grayson isn’t my favorite person either, but your father has made her part of this família. I’m sure it’s not easy to be new to a household and have this tragedy happen,” Henrietta states, her brows furrowed together.

  “Vivienne is a cunt, Avó. Don’t go grabbing your rosaries and wasting your nightly prayers on her. She doesn’t deserve them,” Rome counters acrimoniously.

  “Lingua, malandro,” she reprimands, hitting him on the back of his head intentionally this time, so he minds his tongue.

  She’s never been one to allow cussing in her kitchen. Anywhere else in the house she wouldn’t say anything or do much about it since our father never gave a rat’s ass about how we behaved indoors—as long as we knew how to behave outside of them. But this kitchen is Henrietta’s church, and we have to respect her rules or suffer a slap upside the head like Rome.

  Rome just chuckles under his breath and begins to take some bowls out from a cupboard to set the table.

  “Rome is right, Henry. Vivienne is the worst type of snake. If you think she’s upset about our father being on death’s door, you’re wrong. She’s milking the publicity for all it’s worth,” Elle interjects, the corner of her upper lip curling in disgust.

  “The only thing she’s worried about is if the bastard had enough time to add her to his will.” I add my two cents, gaining smiles from both of my siblings.

  My heart starts to warm up at the sight, and I kill the feeling off immediately, reminding myself that I don’t deserve to feel its glow. All I’m worthy of is emptiness, and it would serve me right to remember that. I scowl and take a seat on the far end of the table, not wanting to let another lapse of family bonding get to me.

  “Mrs. Grayson may be all that and more, but her daughter is nothing like her. Sweet and polite, but always so sad; tão triste. She reminds me so much of my Carmen. Sempre tão desolada. Two beautiful girls with such sad souls,” Henrietta laments, looking over at her somber granddaughter who refuses to look her in the eye.

  “So what have you got for us, Henry? I’m starving,” I say instead, wanting to move past the whole topic of Snow, her bitch of a mother, and our father’s impending demise.

  Henrietta throws a wide smile at me, placing a simmering pot of meat soup in the center of the table for us to serve ourselves.

  “I made my mother’s sancocho trifásico. It’s a little taste of her Bogotá with a touch of a few ingredients from my São Paulo.” She winks proudly. “And it’s good you eat. The amount of bottles my Carmenita has brought down from your room tells me you need a hearty meal to soak up all that alcohol you’ve been ingesting.”

  I fill my bowl to the brim and dig in, filling my mouth with Colombian goodness rather than responding to Henrietta’s disapproving comment, even though I feel her eyes boring into my skull.

  She lets out a long sigh, and I breathe easier, knowing she dropped the intended lecture she was about to spew at me. She must have recognized what I already know in my heart—I’m a lost cause.

  “So what is the latest news from Dr. Nasir?” she ventures instead, throwing that question to my older brother.

  “The operation went as expected, but they’ve decided to induce him back into a coma so he can heal properly,” Rome explains evenly, never once mentioning our father by name as if it will summon the devil himself.

  Knowing Rome, he’s probably been sacrificing virgins or bleeding out chickens—or whatever the black juju that runs in his veins calls for—in order to keep the bastard from ever waking up.

  A sinister smirk reaches my lips as I recall something Reid said in our call a few minutes ago. He described Chad Murphy as being a fucking choir boy, portraying him as the most angelic thing to walk the grounds of Pembroke High. I bet if Reid—being Addison’s brother and all—had to give a description of Rome, it would be the devil’s spawn, and frankly, he wouldn’t be wrong.

  Rome has always been more like our father than any one of us, and if I hate myself for having that man’s blood coursing through my veins, then I wonder how Rome must feel upon looking in the mirror each day and seeing the fucker’s reflection smiling back at him. There’s no question that they are both soulless pricks—one already got what he deserved for his evil ways, so I wonder what my big brother’s karma has in store for him.

  A small whisper—of the brother I used to be—hushes inside me, as a reminder that I shouldn’t feel this way about my own flesh and blood. But my resentment of Rome only increases every time I remember that he was the driving force that made me be so fucking awful to Snow. Because of him, I was the first monster Sn
ow had to face on that dark beach, so each day that Rome is in my presence, it’s harder to bear.

  I love him. I know I do, but right now I feel nothing for anyone except hate. And Rome, unfortunately, comes a close second to the people I hate above all.

  Me taking the top spot on the podium, of course.

  If I didn’t let myself believe that Snow was conning us, I wouldn’t have been a total asshole to her. I would have been right by her side and protected her. She would still be my Snow—innocent and strong, kind and trusting, and most of all, I would still have her love.

  All of that ended back in the Hamptons the day Rome did his little dig on her and her mother, feeding Ollie and me with his web of lies. I don’t care if he believed his own pile of shit. I don’t care if he thought he was protecting us from heartbreak. All I care is that Snow is now a shell of herself, and I am this empty vessel that will never be whole again.

  “Well that’s good, I guess,” Henrietta responds timidly, not wanting to hurt our feelings with the lack of affection she holds for our father.

  She’s never come right out and said it, but I know the old broad hates Judge Grayson’s guts just as much as we do. It just sucks that he’s, for all intents and purposes, still her boss, even if her weekly wage is paid out from the Grayson household trust my mother set up. The vindictive asshole could still fire her if he wanted to, so I guess announcing to the world you work for a piece of shit isn’t the best way to keep your job.

  “So, do you have to go back? Or can you stay a while and rest? You all have been spending so much time at Liberty General. I’m not sure how good it is for your well-being,” she adds, this time not making a fuss at camouflaging her true concern.

  “Actually, on our way home, Rome and I were talking about that, and we’ve decided I’m going back to school tomorrow,” Elle explains, between spoonfuls of meaty soup.

  “Is that so? You two are the ones now deciding who does what and who goes where, huh? Glad to know Ollie and I weren’t summoned for the meeting of who takes Judge Grayson’s chair in ruling over us with his gavel,” I spit out, slamming my spoon on the table beside my bowl with a loud thump.

  “Stop being a dick, Ash. This whole broody, intoxicated persona you’ve got going on isn’t cute. Just grow a fucking pair and deal with it like a man, instead of the privileged jerk you are,” Elle snarls at me with so much venom it feels like its poison is prickling my skin.

  “Okay, Eleanor. The fuck I do to you, huh? You’ve been acting like a bitch to me for the last three days. Did I steal your favorite toy or something?” I grunt, standing up from my seat, palms down on the table.

  “Meninos—” Henrietta begins to beg frantically.

  “Sit your ass down, Asher, before I make you,” Rome hollers over Henrietta’s plea, always rising to defend our baby sister.

  What he fails to acknowledge is that Elle has claws of her own and has surpassed the need for her big brother to look out for her.

  “Make me,” I goad Rome, gunning for any excuse I can find to get my hands on him and release this blazing wrath I’m tormented with.

  Rome’s shark-like grin appears on his face, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’d be up for a fistfight in a heartbeat. Maybe he, too, needs the thrill of a little blood being spilled to feel something other than this hellish rollercoaster ride we’ve been on since this weekend.

  “Oh, for fuck sake! You two need to cool the macho bullshit! I just left the hospital. I don’t want to have to drive you both back there because you went all alpha on me. Jesus!” Elle interrupts, rolling her eyes as if this shit went down every day.

  Growing up, Rome and I have surely butted heads from time to time, but if she knew what the root cause of our current animosity was, she wouldn’t downplay it so casually.

  “You want to know why I’m upset with you, Ash? Aside from you acting the drunkard and pothead-fool these past few days? Well, I’ll tell you, dear brother,” she continues, looking at me like she doesn’t even know me.

  I want to yell at her that I’m the same guy who taught her how to use a slingshot when she was nine. The brother who taught her how to knee her bullies in the balls, and knock them out with a throat punch when she was eleven. The same one that got her a fake ID and snuck her out one night to go dancing for the first time in a night club. But I don’t say any of this. I leave those memories locked away inside the dark corners of my mind, lost and never to resurface.

  Because that Asher doesn’t exist anymore.

  All that’s left of him is this hollow carcass, and if Elle has a problem with that, then she’s the one who has to deal with it. I’m done caring. Using my heart, for any purpose, will just guarantee more heartache. I’m no good. I’m my father’s son, after all. So if that’s what she’s picking up on, it’s best she gets used to it. And maybe one day she’ll open her big, beautiful, golden-brown eyes and understand that, as much as she wants to fight it, we are all the same—born to ugliness and pain; a Grayson trait none of us can outrun.

  “Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I discovered that the girl who I consoled all night Saturday was your Snow. The girl my brothers claimed to be in love with, but then treated her like shit. You and Oliver should have told me the minute our father married that witch. But I understand why you didn’t. If you told me the truth, then you also would have had to tell me how despicably you treated her. I never thought I’d be ashamed of you, Asher, but after what Holland told me, I am. And until you make it right with her, don’t expect me to be in your corner. You don’t deserve her anyway, after what you’ve done,” she spits out, pushing her bowl in front of her, and then tilting her head over to Rome.

  “And though we haven’t talked about it yet, I’m still pissed at you too, Roman, for letting that skank go after Holland back at Lace and Trevor’s party. You could have stopped it and chose not to. Disappoint me like that again, and you’ll be on the same shitlist Asher is on. Understood?”

  “Understood.” Rome nods passively.

  “Good. Sorry, Henry. I guess I’m no longer hungry,” she adds, once again throwing me the evil eye and leaving the kitchen with her head held high, like the regal princess she is.

  After Elle’s punishing words, an awkward silence fills the room, so Carmen begins to fill it by removing the dishes from the table, her rare smile no longer present on her face.

  “She’ll get over it. You know Elle can’t stay mad for long.” Rome tries to placate me, and it kills me that I hear genuine worry for me in his voice.

  “True, but she knows how to hold a grudge,” I retort back.

  “That she does,” he confirms with a gruff chuckle.

  I shake my head as if Elle’s reprimanding words could be easily ignored.

  “But if Elle is going back to school, I want to go, too. I can’t handle another day at that hospital, Rome. I just can’t,” I confess truthfully, showing a smidge of my soft underbelly.

  Rome gets up from his seat and comes over to me, throwing his arms around me. The physical affection is so foreign to me; I feel as if I’m being pulled under by quicksand. I don’t deserve his compassion. Anyone’s, actually. But coming from Rome, it feels even more wrong. I can’t let him worm his way into my heart. Not him. Not anyone, ever again. I want it to continue to be this empty hole. That way, I will always remember who I am, instead of reminiscing on who I once was or could have been.

  This is my punishment, and I will see it through.

  Chapter 9

  Holland

  “I’m going to kill her!” Elle screams out at the top of her lungs, making me shrink down in my chair, and resent Chad a tiny bit for opening up his big mouth.

  “Damn it, girl! Sit your fine ass down. If I knew you’d get this bent out of shape I wouldn’t have said anything,” Chad declares, mimicking my thoughts exactly.

  “Have you met me?! Of course, I’d be upset. That lying, skanky hoe is always up to no
good. But like hell, will I let her get away with this!” Elle exclaims, getting up from her seat, her eyes scouring the cafeteria crowd until she’s found her soon-to-be victim.

  “Here we go,” Chad mumbles, also getting up from his chair while Saint just leans back, getting comfortable with a devilish smirk on his face.

  “This should be fun,” his velvet-smooth voice insinuates as he plays with the silver barbell on his tongue.

  One minute she’s standing beside me and the next, Elle’s gone, with Chad running to catch up with her. I cringe at what’s about to happen, but instead of bowing my head in embarrassment—like every instinct in my body tells me to do—I keep my shoulders squared, even though the scene Elle is about to make has me wishing the earth would open up and swallow me whole.

  “Five, four, three, two, one.” Saint counts down, overtly amused, and when he reaches zero, I hear the mother-of-all-slaps being delivered.

  “You fucking bitch! You hit me!” I hear Addison belt out, shocked and angry that my new stepsister had the audacity to strike her.

  “Oh, fuck! Princess laid it on her good,” Saint reports excitedly as if commentating some sporting event.

  His hand goes under the table, and I think he’s actually adjusting himself. Not wanting to see Saint getting turned on by the girl-on-girl fight, I turn to watch the madness with my own two eyes. The noise of chairs being dragged and flipped over on the floor, and loud catcalls being hollered, tell me I’m not the only one interested in watching this fiasco.

  First thing I register is that Chad has his arms firmly around Elle’s waist, as she frantically kicks her legs up in the air toward Addison while ordering him to let her go so she can finish the job.

  My eyes travel to the mean girl taking center stage with my friend, and establish that Addison has her own referee—a dark-haired guy I’ve seen in passing around Avery House’s halls keeps pulling her back with just as much force as Chad is using on Elle. They both share the same goal—keep the two girls safe and away from each other, using the least amount of strength possible to avoid hurting them. Although it looks like he’s trying to be gentle with Addison, she isn’t as cautious. Her nails are sunken deep into his flesh—to the point of drawing blood—and she almost succeeds in breaking away from his tight grip.