Heartless Legacy (Heartless Heirs of Canyon Falls #4)

92. Holden

Chapter 92

Holden

T hea and her guards left us in Tijuana to find our own way back to Canyon Falls. I’m just grateful they didn’t take our identification and make it harder for us to cross the border. I called my father once we hit the US side. Finn reached out to someone he knew on base and we waited there until my father could send a car.

When we got back to town, we had a very awkward conversation about how we wound up stranded in Mexico without our wallets. That was tons of fun. Especially since those wallets had been couriered to my dad.

It didn’t help that J.R. was at the house waiting for us, too. I expected a different response than the belly aching laugh they had at our expense after they finally confessed, Thea sent a note with the wallets that said she lured us to Mexico, robbed us, and left us stranded as payback for a prank we pulled on her last year.

J.R. and my father seem weirdly unbothered by the hits we’ve taken to our egos and reputations lately, or that we’re losing support around campus. I’m sitting in The Circle, waiting for Thea to walk by on her way to the dining hall. I left Pax and Finn behind because I wanted a minute alone with her.

Her conversation with LJ falters when she sees me. I get to my feet, but give her the choice to walk closer. This isn’t a situation where I’m chasing her down. What’s about to happen has to be her choice, too. She comes closer, eyebrows raised. “I thought the whole point of following me was not to be seen.”

I scan the bodies walking around us. She would know all about that, since she’s got people hiding in the shadows. “I wanted to walk to lunch with you today.”

“Okay, but what about what I-”

I cut her off with a shake of my head. “No buts. No ulterior motives. Just us walking across campus.”

She mutters a noncommittal, hmmm. I notice the people watching us and sense her stiffen beside me as a few get close, and chattering starts, as if she thinks I really am here to retaliate for what she did or embarrass her in front of all these students. I’m determined to regain her trust. To show her where my loyalties lie.

“Are you two ready to eat?” I ask. LJ grimaces, and I hurry to put her at ease. “If you’re waiting for Austin and Connor, I can meet you guys there. I need time to let the kitchen staff know I’m sitting at a new table.”

Finn has already been sitting with Thea. My move will be a bigger deal than his, because that will leave Pax at our table alone.

“No, we’re going in now.” Thea says, moving forward again. I slide my hand against hers in what I hope is a comforting grip. She stares down at it, but doesn’t pull it away.

Her arm linked with LJ’s, she says, “Let’s go,” and pulls me along behind her. When we enter the dining hall, I feel her grip loosen. I tighten mine, waiting in line with her, where everyone can see us. Our hands stay connected until we get our food. The only reason I let go is so she can carry her tray, and because I’m still waiting for my order. Finn and Pax enter the dining hall, joining me in line.

I turn to see Thea watching us. Her lips twist like she’s holding back a smile, then she leans over and reaches into her backpack. When she straightens, she’s waving three plastic cards. I don’t understand the significance, until Finn laughs, “Well played.”

I look to see him holding up his phone, and read the messages about a withdrawal from his account for enough junk food to feed a small army. Or a group of security guards, as it were. Pax’s phone pings next and he mutters under his breath. “She got you too?” Finn asks.

“Work out equipment.”

I watch her, waiting for my phone to go off. It doesn’t. I don’t know whether to feel upset or happy she didn’t use my card.

I grab my food tray, for the first time I can remember, and carry it over to her table. I sit in the seat next to the one Finn’s usually in. There’s only one other seat left. It’s against the wall across from Connor. I’m cutting into my food when my phone finally goes off. I read the message, my eyes flying to hers. Thea ordered a bunch of gardening supplies. The delivery address is Edgecliff High School, in care of their instructional garden.

“Still no buts?” She asks, with a haughty arch of her brow.

“No buts.” I confirm, dipping my head back to my food. She donated things to a good cause. She knows gardening is one of my hobbies. How can I be mad at that?

Thea

On my walk to the athletic compound to see Wolfe, I hear someone say, “Grifting must run in the family.”

“So does lying about your identity.” Someone else quips. A third person says, “Come on, guys. We all know the truth. She’s just crazy. She had to be, to run away from this place. Can you imagine pretending to be a Bochaump?”

Someone steps in my path and asks, “Oh Thea, have you seen this woman?”

I see red, as she shoves a picture of my mother from that damn newspaper article under my nose. “Where did you get this?” I snatch the printout from her hand, crumpling it into a ball.

“The link was in a Prospectus alert. Aren’t you raising money for information about your missing mommy?”

There’s only one way they could know this photo existed. I’m not even surprised. They’ve told me they’re on my side before, and made a big production about spending time with me, but in the end, their default setting is always the way they grew up and the people they’ve grown up with.

This is retaliation for using their bank accounts for those donations and leaving them stranded in Mexico. I was doing a good thing. I could have left them in Connecticut, or they could be floating out in the middle of the ocean.

How could they’d do this after what I did for Finn? I should’ve left those knives behind. He deserves to go through the hell I went through.

Marching back the way I came, I call Alexz’s direct line. “Egononi?”

“They told everyone. They shared the link of that article about my mom and now they’re gossiping about her on campus. Their little trip wasn’t about helping me. It was a league mission.”

“Are you sure?”

“What other explanation can there be?”

“I don’t know. But I ’ll find out. In the meantime, keep it together and don’t do anything reckless.”

I pace back and forth in my dorm room. My skin buzzes, my blood boils. I need to make someone pay for this. Come at me. Attack me. That’s fine. But my mother… she’s not crazy. She’s a victim. I know it. Now, whatever leads we find in the files will go cold, because someone posted the link to the article on the damn Prospectus app, for leagues members all over the planet to see.

On my third trip past my dresser, I see the gift Pax sent. This is his father’s fault. He’s the reason my mother no longer exists. He tried to make me not exist, too. Pax deserves to feel as powerless as they made me feel. That’s the only present I want from him.

I snatch the bag off my dresser and head back out, stomping an angry path across campus to Vale Tower.