Wilder: Dark College Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of SIN Book 3)

ONE

The soundof vomit gurgling violently from the twitching man before me makes my stomach turn over. He’s splayed out in his armchair, body twitching as life drains from him and his glassy eyes go blank. I’m stunned, frozen in place, unable to take myself from this scene.

It’s fuckin’ disgusting, the way the mess flows from his mouth like a puke-beige river down his chin. My eyes flick to the football game playing loudly on the den’s big-screen TV. Cold, sticky sweat trickles down my back as I stare, unable to quite believe the horror of it all. I blink. Hard. Then do it again. The air is heavy with both the stench of the cigar left on the ashtray and the rancid stomach contents that now dribble from chin to chest. I inhale and almost gag but choose to focus on the whiskey tumbler that sits beside the cigar, completely empty of the amber liquid he loves so much. He’s always swallowed it down like it’s nothing.

I drag in a shaky breath as I stare down, then suddenly it’s all too much. I can’t handle it. My stomach revolts. The bitterness that’d been threatening surges up to the top of my throat, and I whirl around, stumbling for the small bathroom across the hall with a hand over my mouth. I don’t make it. I fall to my hands and knees, upchucking my dinner all over the cold tile floor.

My heart jumps around in a psychotic rhythm that I can’t control. Shock at the sight of the lifeless bodies in Beckham’s bed slams into me. My ears buzz, static filling them and making me unable to hear anything around me. On instinct, I turn, snatching up the small trash can beside Beckham’s desk. The bourbon I’d drunk earlier comes spewing from me over and over until I’m left gasping and panting.

This is the second time in my life I’ve seen a dead body, not including the cadavers in my anatomy lab. I’d only been able to look for a split second, as the two lying there naked with their throats slit had thrown me directly into the memory of the day my dad died in his favorite armchair, surrounded by his favorite things: booze, cigars, and football.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and set the basket down, telling myself to pull it the fuck together. We’ve got to call for help. There’s a party raging downstairs—a houseful of people who are completely oblivious to the murder scene above their heads.

Swallowing hard, I grimace at the very real possibility that they’ll send Brian Kilroy over here. It’s not a huge police department. There are only so many detectives. Fuck. I rub my hands over my face. People are dead. It doesn’t fucking matter how much I hate my goddamn brother-in-law. Or how ugly things might get for Royal. Or that we’re trying to avoid the cops right now because of Echo’s psycho stalker. We have to call. Now. Every minute we wait makes this look worse.

I turn back to the other three stunned people in the room, my mouth open to say as much, but Echo spins around, crashing into Royal as she tries to flee. He grasps her by her arms, then clutches her to his chest, his eyes still locked on the gruesome scene before us.

Echo wails, her voice frantic. “Getmeoutofhere, getmeoutofhere, getmeoutofhere!” Sobs tear free as panic grips her. She sags against his chest, shaking hard.

“I got you, baby. Don’t look. You don’t need to see any more,” he rasps. He scoops her into his strong arms and turns on his heel, carrying her from the room.

I should follow, but I can’t seem to make my feet fuckin’ move. My breathing is shallow and ragged. “What the fuck,” I grind out, the taste of vomit still lingering on my tongue.

“We’ve gotta call 911. I’m really fucking sorry, Wilder. I know none of us want to bring them to our door.”

It’s then I notice Beckham isn’t even looking at me as he speaks. His eyes travel over the grisly scene with mild curiosity. He’s almost relaxed as he studies the dead bodies of Freya and Zane. Oh my fuck, Freya and her boyfriend are dead. They’re bleeding from stab wounds—or they were. There’s a sea of red on the sheets and pillows. Fuck. I’m well aware that I’m a mess, but poor Echo. This must be like reliving her worst nightmare.

Beck swallows hard, glancing at me before his gaze returns to the bed. He lifts his arm straight out, pointing a trembling finger toward them. “I, uh. We saw something like this in one of my classes the other day.” He lowers his voice—cognizant that Echo doesn’t need to hear anything he says—as he utters, “Double homicide. They were found in their bed, too. The investigators questioned whether it was a murder-suicide but determined that wasn’t the case. They were murdered. It was… fascinating.”

I give him a what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about look, my brows slamming together.

“I’m just saying. I found the whole process interesting.” He shrugs, unfazed.

I huff out a breath, my eyes roaming over him. At least he seems to have been scared fucking sober if he can spout off about some case they studied in one of his courses. He just keeps staring, and it’s weird as fuck. But if I had to guess, I’d say this is the way his shock displays itself.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Beckham scrubs a hand through his wildly tousled tresses, slowly shaking his head. “This is fucked, though. This is fucking real. We’ve gotta go.”

My eyes crash shut, trying to steady myself as another wave of nausea greets me. “Yeah.” My ploy to find equilibrium fails, and I stumble before catching myself.

Beckham puts a hand to my shoulder, squeezing. “Stop looking at them. Grab your puke bucket, hot stuff. We shouldn’t be in here.”

My teeth clench, knowing he’s right, and I nod. “Fuck this.” I snatch up the trash basket, as he suggested, careful not to splash the contents as I turn and exit. Royal and Echo are just outside the door, huddled together. Beckham is right behind me, and he stops to talk to them, the question of who is making the call meets my ears while I advance across the hall to my room. I don’t care who calls, but it can’t be me. I can’t do that again.

Making quick work of cleaning out the trash can and brushing my teeth, I head directly back to my people. Harsh, awful memories of everything that happened after I called 911 for my father swirl in my head.

Doing a physical check of myself as I leave my room, I find my heart slamming viciously behind my rib cage, which might explain why my skin is clammy and hot. My stomach flips again as my eyes flick to Beckham’s door. What lies just beyond it is— Nope. Don’t go there. Thankfully, Beckham had the foresight to shut it behind him. I draw in a shaky breath through my teeth, imagining that it doesn’t matter if he touched the doorknob or not. It’s his room after all.

But where is he? I look up and down the hall. “He didn’t go back in there, did he?”

There are dead people in Beckham’s bed.

Royal lifts his head to meet my eyes, holding a rigid Echo on his lap. “No. Beck went down to my room to call the cops. We didn’t feel like we should leave the room unattended. ’Cause…” He swallows, his eyes traveling to the door. “Fuck. You know.” Exhaling sharply, he glances down at Echo as he strokes a careful hand over her head. “What do we do? I’m— Fuck. I’m fucked. They’re going to look at me. I’m the one with the record.”

My jaw works to the side. He’s not wrong. I slide down the wall next to him, then run the backs of my fingers over Echo’s cheek. Quietly, I murmur, “Hang in there. Both of you. We didn’t do anything wrong and were together, anyway. We’re each other’s alibis. We’ll be okay.” I lower my voice further. “That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway.”

The sound of sirens screaming through the night stops us from discussing anything more. Beckham emerges from Royal’s room and holds up a hand, gesturing that we should stay put as he walks downstairs with his phone to his ear. I can make out his footsteps, and before he gets to the last step, there’s a sharp rap of knuckles on the door, along with a few rings of the doorbell. The music continues to pump through the house as if nothing has happened. I doubt anyone will notice their fun is officially over until the cops begin to corral them for questioning. A shit ton of people partying in a frat house with a double homicide upstairs—I wouldn’t want to be the one in charge of the investigation, that’s for damn sure.

Getting Royal’s attention, I motion with a slight jerk of my head that I’m going to the end of the hall to listen, then point at them with two fingers, then to his room, hoping to get them to move. He nods, immediately going about helping Echo up. It’s probably for the best that she doesn’t hear any of the investigative stuff that’s about to go down in that room. It’s bad enough we’ll all be questioned, and they likely won’t let one of us be there with her. They’ll come up here to clear each room on their way down the hall to make sure the perpetrator isn’t still present in the house. Like they did before. My gut pitches and rolls, another memory smacking me upside the head and taking my breath away. Police officers had flooded my childhood home like a swarm of bees, buzzing and buzzing around me. This isn’t happening. Can’t be.

But it is.

My brain spins out. There are dead people in Beckham’s bed. I can’t get that phrase out of my head. It’s stuck there on repeat, taunting the fuck out of me. Who would want to kill Freya, anyway? She was a self-absorbed girl, sure, but seemed harmless enough. And that ass Zane was a jerk, but that doesn’t mean he deserved to die.

As soon as Echo and Royal enter his room and shut the door behind them with a quiet click, I turn my attention to what’s going on downstairs.

“I don’t know how you want to handle this. The only people who know what happened are upstairs. We wanted to make sure no one else came up and stumbled upon the victims,” Beckham smoothly states.

There are some low-pitched voices that are too quiet to discern the speaker or what they’re saying, even though I’m listening hard.

Beckham’s voice, though, comes to me crystal clear. I believe he’s speaking rather loudly on purpose. He knows me. He’d know I’d be listening. “No, we haven’t told anyone else. We found them, turned right around so we didn’t disturb anything, and called for emergency help.”

He pauses to listen again, but I can’t make out exactly what’s being said. A disgruntled noise, almost a bellow, explodes from one of the officers, and Beckham gives a surprised laugh in response.

“Well, pardon us for not knowing what proper protocol is, Detective. Not sure how we keep people from leaving a party without creating a panic, sir.”

Fucking hell. Those jabs tell me that Beckham is facing off with Brian. Exactly what I don’t need right now is my brother-in-law breathing down my goddamn neck, asking me questions I don’t have the answers to. I chew on my lip, agitated, as I wait for more to be said.

“No. Um, speaking of protocol, should you be here with your wife’s brother upstairs?” There’s a brief pause. “Seems like a conflict of interest to me.” I know the standard-issue Beckham smirk that probably comes with that amused tone of voice. I can just bet it’s pissing Brian right off.

Finally, I’m able to hear another voice, and it’s a gruff one, like the man is older or a smoker. “He’s right. You gotta step back on this one unless there’s an emergency situation in here we can’t handle. We can’t afford to have the investigation compromised in any way.”

Brian doesn’t verbally respond. Little bitch probably stalked off since he didn’t get his way. He knows damn well I’m here, so he had to know he wouldn’t be allowed to stay. Nosy fucker.

The sounds of multiple people traipsing into the entryway meets my ears. One of them calls on a radio for additional backup, and it’s only two seconds later that the beginning of the chaos lets loose as the first of the partygoers realize something is going on.

“Holy shit! Cops!” some girl shrieks. The amount of flustered, drunken curses filling the air as people scramble for the patio door would be funny if I didn’t know what I know and hadn’t seen what I’ve seen. My stomach churns uncomfortably at the horrific reminder.

“Everyone, stay put!” one of the officers barks. “No one is in trouble. This is not about any quantity of alcohol or drugs you’ve consumed tonight. You’re not in trouble for ignoring the noise ordinance.” The officer pauses to clear his throat before raising his voice to be heard above the madhouse. “We have a situation, and we simply need everyone to stay in the living area with these three officers. Don’t leave until we’ve spoken to you, please. We’ll be getting everyone’s name and info and asking you a few questions before you’re permitted to leave. We need you to cooperate. Again, no one is in trouble, but if we find out you left without speaking to an officer first, that’s where we’ll have a problem.”

“What’s going on? This is dumb as fuck.”

I roll my eyes, recognizing Wyatt’s voice. Go figure one of our guys would act like a dipshit.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss anything about an ongoing case. Everyone stays right here in this area. Don’t go anywhere unless you’re told to.” His demand leaves no room for discussion, and I hear the collective groan of SIN brothers, TZE sisters, and our other guests. At the same time, footsteps approach the stairs.

I don’t want to be caught awkwardly listening, even though I’m doing nothing wrong. All I was attempting to find out in the first damn place was whether or not Brian was still here to cause trouble, and I don’t think that’s the case. Exhaling quietly, I turn on my heel, darting quickly to Royal’s room as I hear Beckham again.

“Come on up, I’ll show you. It’s, um. My room. My bed.” His voice is even-keeled, not a shake to it. I don’t have a fuckin’ clue how he’s managing it because I’m on the verge of losing it again. For those few minutes where I’d been caught up in the arrival of the police, I’d been able to set aside what’s behind the door at the end of the hall, but now that I’m looking in that direction, the knowledge of the tragedy slams into me all over again.

There are dead people in Beckham’s bed. A full shudder runs through me, and my insides turn inside out rather violently as I let myself into Royal’s room. I don’t even look up to see what Royal and Echo are doing, but I know they’re there, watching me. My ass meets the door, and I catch myself with my hands on my knees, bowing my head. Fuck. Get it together. This shouldn’t be affecting you by now. I heave out a breath. They’re wondering why you puked in there, why you couldn’t handle some blood and gore when you routinely cut open cadavers in your anatomy courses to study the workings of the human body.

“Wilder, man.” Royal’s hand meets my shoulder and squeezes lightly. “You okay?”

For several seconds, I don’t move and neither does he. I want to go back to the night we first kissed, back to when my emerging feelings for him were the most complex thing I’d deal with this week. I blink a few times, then push myself upright and straighten my spine, nodding as I finally meet his eyes. I hope he doesn’t see the horrible truth hiding there.

I’m not okay, but I can’t let anyone know. “Yeah. I’m good. They’re on their way up. Probably gonna check all the rooms before heading down to Beckham’s.” I glance toward the bed to see Echo curled into a ball with her eyes shut. “We need a pair of pants for her before the cops barge in.” She’s only wearing the T-shirt she’d changed into after getting a drink dumped on her downstairs. It seems like an eternity ago that Beckham’s drunk ass made that terrible joke equating the red stain on her dress to a murder scene. What are the fucking odds he’d say that and then?—

Dead eyes stare at me as sweat trickles down my back.

At another squeeze from Royal’s hand and a look of concern bleeding from his eyes, I give myself a firm shake. Fuck. You can be strong. You have to be. For her. For both Beckham and Royal. For all of us. Let the fighter out. No one ever needs to know.