Betray Me (Willow Heights Prep Academy: The Elite Book 2) Read online

  Here we go with the whole Keeping Up with the Joneses routine. If they have three servants, we’d better have four. Sometimes I think she had five kids because she had to make sure she had more than any of the other Manhattan moms in her circle.

  “There are six of you, so we’re going to need six,” she says, turning to the housekeeper. “Do you have any friends looking for work? We need a cook, a cleaning lady, a butler, a groundskeeper, a gardener, and a driver. And I guess you’ll do for the seventh, since I’m here.”

  Before the poor woman can respond, Mom is back to us. Despite her faults, Mom knows how to get shit done. “Go get dressed. I’m taking you to school.”

  “But Royal—” I start before she waves a hand.

  “The police are looking for him. Your father’s made some calls as well. We’ll find your brother. In the meantime, there’s no use sitting around here stewing in misery. Being with friends will take your mind off things.”

  “Okay,” I say, going to the liquor cabinet. “But let me get your drink before I go. You must be exhausted from traveling.”

  After a couple martinis, Mom relaxes, and we manage to stay home the rest of the day. I pace the floor until I think I’ll wear a track in it. My brothers go out searching and come home drunk. Mom passes out on the couch, and Daddy never comes home at all.

  I find myself sitting alone on the balcony just after dark, listening to the eerie sound of falling leaves skittering down the roof and over the eaves. And then I hear it—the familiar sound that sends a chill racing up my arms. Devlin is out back, throwing the football like he does every night. Like nothing happened.

  No, that’s not exactly right. He hasn’t done that in a while, since he got suspended from the team. But now all must be good in his world, because he’s back at it.

  I want to kill him. I want to hurt him more than he hurt me, but it’s not possible. Because to hurt someone the way they’ve hurt me, that person has to care about someone besides himself. They hurt me by hurting the person I love more than anyone else on earth. Devlin doesn’t love anyone. A heart can’t break if it doesn’t exist.

  I stand and go back into my room, drawing the curtains again. I lie in bed for a long time, listening to the smack of leather across the lawn and the skittering of leaves above. He has to have a weakness. Everyone does. I just need to find out what it is.

  six

  Crystal

  How to survive day 3 without your twin. Dive deep into it. Swan dive for style points. Don’t embrace it—attack it. Wallow in it. Get drunk on it until you can’t even remember who you are or that you have a brother. Overdose on it. Sink to the bottom and let it swallow you like a chlorine pool in summer. And don’t come up from the depths.

  Tuesday morning, we head down the front steps while Duke goes around back for the Hummer. I hear men yelling, and my heart clutches. I turn toward the Darling house, even though I know it’s not my brother. Mr. Darling stands on his porch in front of the front door, his arms crossed over his chest and his feet planted wide, as if blocking the other man from entering. I can’t see the other man, but he’s tall and broad with a full head of silver hair. I remember the policeman saying something about Mr. Darling’s father, and I take it he’s not too happy about the search conducted without a warrant.

  Duke’s Hummer pulls up, and I turn away from the Darlings and climb in with my brothers. I have enough troubles of my own without prying into other people’s. Apparently, the feeling is not mutual. At the gate to our neighborhood, a news van sits idling. A woman with a schooled, tragic expression is talking earnestly into a microphone while a cameraman films.

  “Hold on,” King says, and Duke draws the Hummer to a halt. I can see the reporter nearly cream herself as King and Duke climb out of the car, probably thinking she’ll get an exclusive, the first interview with the family. That, or all the muscles and dark good looks have her knees clenching.

  Baron, who stayed in the car with me, hops over the console and into the driver’s seat, a grin on his face. “Watch and learn, baby sis,” he says. King goes for the camera, and Duke goes for the microphone.

  “Our family’s not your fucking circus,” I hear King snap as another guy comes running from the news van. It’s too late now, though. The camera’s twisted and smashed beyond repair, and the mic dangles from Duke’s hand as he jogs back, slides in next to me while King takes shotgun. Baron takes off, laughing his ass off with Duke as we speed away. For a second, irritation flares in me. But I push it down, knowing we all grieve and cope the best we can, even if it’s not in the same way. Their laughter doesn’t make their pain less real.

  We make plans on the way to school. Preparing for what waits for us for the next seven hours. I feel guilty for thinking of myself right now, when Royal is still missing. But I have to survive, and Mom was right. It takes my mind off him, as much as that’s possible.

  We pull up to the school, and I take a minute to try to calm down. Royal, my rock and anchor, isn’t here to ground me. But after a few minutes, I get my anxiety under control and climb down from the Hummer. I float toward the building on numb legs. At least I know now that they can’t hurt me worse than I’m already hurt. They can’t break me, because I’m already broken. Sure, they can taunt me, but what are a few ugly names when my brother is gone?

  They must think that doing it all at once, ruining me and taking Royal, will send us packing. That it’ll be too much. But in truth, it only makes having sex with Devlin meaningless. I might have been humiliated and crushed that he lied and took my virginity. But now it doesn’t even register on the scale of what’s important.

  When we walk into school, the hall falls silent. Everyone is staring, whispering. Wondering why we’re here, judging us for coming to school when Royal is missing. They’d judge us if we didn’t come, too. I know it’s human nature, but I can’t help but tense up at the unwanted attention. At our last school, I was feared and revered because of my brothers. But this is different. Here, it feels more like being an oddity, a circus freak.

  They can stare all they want. I’ll never give them what they’re after. I’ll never fall apart in front of them. I vow that to myself as I walk. I can shatter into a million fragments when I’m alone, or even with my family. But for these people, who have done nothing but gossip and stare since the moment we got here, I won’t perform.

  My brothers escort me to my locker, then split off when I’m within sight of my next class. The moment they disappear, Colt appears at my elbow as if from thin air. Anger claws at my skin from within, but I ignore him and keep walking. If he has one shred of decency in him, he won’t start with me today, even if he has nothing whatsoever to do with Royal. He knows what happened. The whole fucking town knows.

  In New York, kids disappear every fucking day. No one bats an eye. Here, it’s a fucking circus.

  Okay, so Royal’s disappearance would have been noticed in New York. People like us can’t help but be noticed wherever we go, whether or not we like it.

  Colt nudges me with his elbow, but I notice a difference in the way he’s looking at me. I can’t tell what it is yet, but it’s there. Smugness, maybe. He thinks I care that Devlin used me like a condom and threw me away. He thinks my hymen matters to me.

  “Hey, Sugar Crystal,” he says, all dimples and slow-as-molasses charm.

  “Don’t start,” I say, my voice clipped.

  “Oh, come on, Sweetie Pie, you can’t be mad,” Colt says, giving me those puppy dog eyes that melted my heart one too many times.

  “Try me,” I snap.

  “Ah, baby, don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

  “It’s so much easier to hate both,” I say with a saccharine smile, shoving past some people to escape him. But I can’t shake him. I may have to fight through the other students, but they part for him like he’s fucking royalty. And today, they’re not just watching him. They’re watching us. Waiting to see if we’ll give them a show.

  Well, fuck them, and fuck Colt, too. They got all the show they’re going to get at the party where I walked around shirtless. I’m done playing their fucking games. Royal’s disappearance has made one thing clear. Life is not a game. It’s all too real.

  The appearance of Preston on my other side only reminds me of that.

  “Leave me alone,” I say to them, refusing to even look their way.

  “Don’t be mad at me because of my cousin,” Colt says. “I treated you right on our date.”

  I snort but don’t dignify that bullshit with an answer.

  “Okay, okay, play hard to get,” he says. “But you’re like an M&M. I know you’re still sweet underneath that crispy shell.”

  “I told you, I’m anything but. And if you don’t stop pushing me, you’re going to find that out.”

  Preston leans closer and lowers his voice, speaking into my ear with that voice. “That’s not what I hear,” he purrs. “I hear that pussy’s real sweet and juicy.”

  “Not for you,” I shoot back. “I don’t get wet for lying little bitches who hide behind their grand-daddy’s big name.”

  Preston’s eyes harden for just a second, but just as quickly, it disappears behind a grin. “That’s okay, Manhattan,” he drawls. “Devlin can keep that pussy wet until you’re ready for the real fun to begin.”

  Ignoring his words, I turn over the implications behind that flash of anger. I saw it before he slammed that door in my face and returned to the easy smile that can’t touch his eyes, the gaze that’s all apathy and boredom, like he can’t be bothered to care. But he cares. I saw it. He’s sensitive about… What? His name? His grandfather? Being called a little bitch?

  Colt slides into the seat next to me with an easy grin, an easy grace. The weightlessness, the carelessness of his movements speaks of a boy who’s never had a trouble in his life. We have nothing in common. This boy can’t begin to understand my life. And any naïve notion I had about us being friends before is gone.

  “Why are you here?” I ask, turning to Preston, who followed us into class and sat down on my other side. I try not to notice how close they are, the two of them caging me in like they think I might run.

  “Because you are, Sweet Thing,” Colt says.

  “So, what? You’re going to harass me until I run back to Manhattan?”

  “This one ain’t too dumb after all,” Preston says, looking me over with an appraising glance. “Needs to dress a little more slutty, but I’m not complaining. This leaves something to the imagination.”

  I roll my eyes. “Why do you care so much? Aren’t you supposed to swagger around like a big man, gloating to everyone that you fucked me, you’re done, and I’m a used up old slut?”

  “Oh, I will,” Preston says, sitting back in his chair and tilting his chin up to look down at me with those fierce blue eyes. “After I fuck you.”

  A weaker woman might melt for him, but I know him for the sociopath he is. No matter how dominating and commanding he looks, no matter how sexy it is when he gets all possessive, I know the truth. There’s nothing inside his chest but toxic black rot.

  “Then you’ll be waiting a long fucking time,” I say. “Because it won’t happen in my lifetime.”

  “Oh, Sweetie Pie, don’t be naïve,” Colt drawls. “All three of us fuck the dogs at this school. How else are you supposed relieve the stress of being the Darling Dog? It’s an important role at this school.”

  “Trust me, I can relieve my own stress just fine.”

  Preston grins, but his eyes are colder than a snake’s. “I’d like to see that,” he says, taking my hand. I try to pull away, but his grip tightens around my palm. He strokes my fingers with his free hand, a light touch of his skin against mine that makes my hand curl into a fist around his. He runs the pad of his thumb across the knuckles of my fist. “I’d like to see these sweet little fingers knuckle deep in the pink.”

  I can feel my face heat, unused to a guy talking to me like this. Sure, my brothers say shit like that about other girls all the time, but Preston is gazing into my eyes, talking about the most personal thing a person can do.

  “Yeah, well, like I said, never gonna happen,” I mutter, glancing at the teacher who strides into the room just then.

  “I think it is,” Preston drawls, releasing my hand and sliding out of his seat. He leans down, resting his hands on the edge of my desk and getting right in my face. “And you’ll be grateful when we throw you a bone, because there’s not another guy in this school who’ll fuck his own dog, Sweetheart. And they sure as hell won’t try to fuck ours.”

  I turn to Colt. “So, what’s your game? You all want to fuck me? Why? Just to humiliate me? Devlin said it wasn’t about me.”

  Colt grins and shakes a finger at me. “Oh, no,” he says. “You don’t get to ask the questions, Sweetie Pie. You don’t make the rules in this game.”

  “It’s not a game,” I grit out, feeling the throbbing ache in my heart at the thought of my brother.

  “Everything’s a game,” he says. “You gotta play, or you gotta pay.”

  Is that it? Royal wouldn’t play their game, by their rules?

  No, that can’t be it. My brothers have been playing that stupid game with them since the moment we walked into this school. They love the game. And yet, somehow, Royal lost. How?

  That’s not even the most frustrating part. The frustrating part is that I can’t keep up with the game, where I’m never told the rules, and just when I think I’ve figured them out, they change. Or maybe there are no rules at all. Not for these boys. These boys make the rules, and break their own rules, and rule the town. Only the Darlings know what game we’re playing, who’s a player, and who’s a pawn.

  seven

  Crystal

  How can I sit through class with this boy, a boy who pretended to be my friend, a boy who came into my room and made a truce with me, who kissed me like he meant it—my first kiss. And all along, it was all a ploy? How can I look at that boy in the eye and know he’s laughing at what a sucker I am, that I could believe he cared about me? And worse, so much worse, that he might have planned it all so he could hurt my brother?

  There’s only one way.

  Revenge.

  When I step out of class, Colt on my heels, all heads turn our way. A pause ensues, where the hall goes quiet, the air crackling with anticipation. And then the first deep woof comes right behind me. Colt. That fucking bastard. The sound echoes down the hall, but not for long. After a single second, twenty more voices join in. Their football team, guys I don’t know, girls. I swallow the sick feeling in my stomach, duck my head, and plow forward. I can’t look at them. I won’t look because today, I’m not sure I can hide behind the Dolce mask. Today, my eyes would give me away.

  I make it to my next class, my heart thundering in my ears. I slide into my seat, ready to let my guard down, to breathe, to have a moment of relief.

  But then Devlin slides into his seat beside me.

  Fuck. My. Life.

  “I’m going home,” I mutter, grabbing my books and standing.

  Devlin grabs my arm and pulls me back down beside him. “No, you’re not,” he says in an even voice, his eyes straight ahead.

  “What do you care?” I ask. “You already won. You wanted to break me, and you did. Congratu-fucking-lations. You win, I lose, and we all live happily ever after. Now leave me alone.”

  “That might be all well and good for you,” he says. “But you had to go and call the fucking cops, spreading your lies around.”

  “I didn’t lie,” I say through clenched teeth. “I had to fucking tell my father that I wanted to have sex with you. I’m sure that makes you real fucking happy.”

  Devlin’s mouth twitches, and I can tell the bastard is trying not to laugh. “Why would you tell your dad that?” he asks, sounding genuinely curious. And also like he’s still amused. The bastard.

  “Because you told him we fucked,” I point out. “And the cops. And your family.”

  “In hindsight, not my best decision,” he admits with a grimace.

  “Why?” I demand. “I didn’t lie to the cops about it, despite Daddy’s encouragement to tell them otherwise.”

  Devlin’s eyes narrow. “Your dad wanted you to tell the cops I raped you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say, wishing I hadn’t said anything. I cross my arms over my chest and slide down in my seat. “I didn’t lie to the cops.”

  “Yeah, well, you called them,” he says. “And now our grandfather is involved. Which means no one wins.”

  “I don’t care about your family drama,” I snap. “You kidnapped my brother.”

  “I didn’t fucking kidnap your brother,” Devlin says. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me?” I ask incredulously. I notice other kids quieting to listen, but I don’t even care anymore. “You fucked up Royal’s car, dragged me around a party on a leash letting guys grope me, and fucked me just so you could high-five your buddies. What’s wrong with you?”

  “Stop. Talking.” Devlin’s voice is low and commanding, his glare trained on mine with barely restrained fury.

  But I’m tired of playing by his rules. If he gets to publicly shame me, I get to tell my side of the story. I’m not some cowering dogs who’s going to take it lying down. I’m done being quiet about it. He doesn’t get to write this narrative, make a joke around the school of how obedient his Darling Dog is. There’s another side to this story, and he clearly doesn’t want it told.

  “Why?” I challenge, lifting my chin to stare back at him. “What are you afraid I’ll say, Devlin? Are you afraid I’ll reveal the Darlings for the cowards you are?”

  “I said, shut up,” Devlin says, his blue eyes blazing, his hands clamped around the edge of his desk.