Chapter 2
BLAZE
Shit.
I didn’t expect Pandora to go back to the frat house.
Between moving to the off-campus house, dealing with the aftermath of the fire, getting rid of Zayden’s head, and suddenly being in charge of the fraternity—oh, and also having my own classes to think about—I haven’t had time to do a thorough clean up.
I didn’t think anyone would find the secret room, not before reconstruction began.
I glance down at my bare chest, bandaged up to cover the cut Pandora had given me. It itches, but I know better than to touch the bandaging.
“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” River asks as he crosses the living room. He stops short of the kitchen to stare at me.
I flip him off and settle myself more firmly on the couch. “Because it’s itching. Shouldn’t you know all about that?”
His expression darkens. “Don’t be a dick,” he mutters before heading on to the kitchen.
“Same to you.” I flip through more streaming shows, still unable to decide what to watch.
I keep thinking about Pandora.
How much had she seen down there? I hadn’t noticed anything out of place, but that doesn’t mean anything. And with River and Asch there, I couldn’t go through the drawers to check the contents, either. Not that I’d had my key with me.
I don’t have the key at all anymore. It had been in my room during the fire.
Fucking hell.
I hear River and Asch talking in the kitchen, whispering in low voices. About me? About Pandora?
Maybe it’s about something stupid, like how we need to stock up the fridge. If they want more groceries, they can go out and buy stuff themselves instead of waiting for me to put in a delivery order.
Asch is first back in the living room, carrying some cheese and crackers that he must’ve fished out of the fridge and pantry. “Here,” he says, crossing the room to me. “Something to eat. You haven’t had anything all day.”
River follows on his heels, and his expression is more guarded.
“I had breakfast,” I point out, but I take the snacks Asch brought.
River looks at my plate, down at his own, then holds it out. “You want some salami, too?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m vegetarian.”
I see the surprise in his expression, but he only shrugs. “Suit yourself.” River heads for the armchair, sitting down in it. “So are you going to tell us what that room was for?”
My eyes flicker over to Asch.
He’s not supposed to know about any of it. Asch has darkness inside him, but he isn’t like me.
He isn’t even like River.
Asch wants to live in a nice, kind world.
“Just frat stuff,” I answer. “It’s where we held the accounting meetings and all that.” I groan. “Shit. If I’m taking over for Zayden, I need to find a new treasurer.”
“You never told me about secret accounting meetings in a hidden room in the basement,” Asch says flatly. He sits down, too, but on the edge of the couch like he’s about to get back up if I say the wrong thing. “Which sounds ridiculous, by the way.”
I shrug. “We had other stuff in there. All the background checks we did on pledges. Years of accounting data. We were protecting everyone’s privacy.”
Like all the blackmail material we’d collected on everyone over the years. Decades worth of shameful family secrets, skeletons in closets, secret fetishes that nobody could ever find out about.
And it was where we’d interviewed the girls who would make enticing presents for Kappa Alpha alumni. If we needed to open doors, and we knew of somebody’s interests…
Asch and River don’t need to know any of that.
Asch’s expression is closed-off, difficult to read in a way it usually isn’t. “Right,” he says. “So all Pandora found down there are some background checks and accounting ledgers. On paper. Instead of digital.”
“If she found anything at all,” I say. “It’s not a big deal.”
Unless it is.
I eat some of the cheese and crackers to distract myself. River looks like he wants to say something else, so I quickly add, “It’s Franklin’s memorial service tomorrow, by the way.”
“And?” River’s voice is sharp, defensive. “It’s not like I can go.”
Asch eyes him. “Why can’t you? Blaze and I were planning on it.”
River stares back at him. “You really think they want us there?” he asks with a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure that’d go over really well.”
“You were his friend,” I point out. “I mean, if Brock or Tate attempted to show up, I’d rip out their teeth, but Franklin liked you. He looked up to you.”
“That doesn’t mean I deserve to be there,” River mutters. “That any of us do. If I were his parents, I’d tell anyone associated with the frat to fuck off.”
I grab my phone from the coffee table. “His father asked if I’d be there,” I say, tabbing over to the text convo. I hold it up for River to see. “He was in Kappa Alpha. He knows how important brotherhood was to Franklin.”
“Even though his brothers were the ones who did this to him,” River says.
“It was an accident,” Asch says. “And we took care of Brock and Tate. Nothing like that will happen again.”
River runs a hand through his hair, tousling it, and he slumps back in the chair. “Yeah. I guess not. Not here, at least.”
“So come with us,” I tell River. “I’ll drive us. If anyone gives you trouble, just point them my way.”
Out of anyone, River deserves to be there. He’s the one most affected by Franklin’s death.
Staring down at the food he’d brought from the kitchen, River sets it down on the coffee table. “I don’t know if I can face them, man.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Asch says. “Stop beating yourself up. It’s not going to help anything.”
“Asch is right. And you don’t have to talk to his parents. They’ll have enough other people there to comfort them,” I point out.
I’m going to have to talk to Franklin’s father, though. Mr. Delgado is influential, and my father wants me to ensure Mr. Delgado has no reason to turn his back on Kappa Alpha.
I wish I had the files detailing what his secrets are.
Add all this to my pile of shit to do.
My phone starts buzzing. I glance down, then curse when I see it’s a call from my dad. “I have to take this.” I toss the remote at Asch. “Find something good for us to watch.”
I head up to my bedroom and close the door before I answer the call.
“Hi, Dad,” I say cautiously. “What’s up?”
My father lets out an annoyed sound. “I just had a call from Damien Rossi, Giulio Pavone’s second-in-command. Do you know what that might be about?”
The blood freezes in my veins, and the cut across my chest itches. “Um. Something about Pandora?”
Had she snitched to her family about what we’d done to her? But that doesn’t make sense. She already killed Zayden, and she said she’ll take it out on us. She wants to do that herself, not outsource it to her family.
Besides, if she had, they already would’ve acted.
Right?
“Something about Pandora,” my father repeats. “I told him I had no idea what the children were doing. That I trusted my son to sort out his own problems.”
Children.
Like this is all schoolhouse shit, and we’re little kids throwing sand in each other’s faces.
We’d done so much worse to Pandora.
She’d delivered a man’s head to us.
“I am sorting things,” I answer as steadily as I can. “But I can’t exactly kill her. That would bring the full Pavone wrath down on us.”
My father stays silent, and I wrack my brain for more to say, some other defense that explains why things are spiraling.
“It would,” my father agrees. “You need leverage against the family.”
I wait, but my father doesn’t offer any suggestions on that front. Finally, when the silence drags on for too long, I say, “What do you want me to do?”
I try not to sound like I’m sulking, but I don’t think I succeed. I’m trying so hard to keep control of the situation, but everything is tilting, falling apart around me.
My father scoffs. “Get Zayden to help you. He must know people who have ties to the Pavones.”
My heart stops in my chest. “Zayden?”
“Yes. He has access to more of the information. And he was more proactive after the fire, too. You could learn a few things from him.”
I grit my teeth. I can see what my father is doing. He’s trying to pit me against Zayden to make me work harder. Never mind that Zayden complained that my father barely gave him the time of day, and I could tell he was starving for scraps of approval.
“Zayden can’t help,” I say carefully. “Although if he was working on something, I’d like to hear what it was. Is.”
“Can’t help?” my father repeats. “Why can’t he help?”
Fuck. I was hoping to keep this from him a bit longer. Even if my father didn’t give two shits about Zayden, he’s going to be mad about this. Zayden’s father is one of my dad’s underlings, and this is going to have some severe blowback.
“Zayden… disappeared,” I say. “I haven’t seen him since last week.”
If I fudge the dates—except, no, Zayden had talked to my father on the day of the fire. Had he been in contact after that too? Shit.
“If he disappeared, then find him,” my father hisses. “That should have been the first thing you did. And why is this the first time I’m hearing of this?”
“I don’t know!” I shout. “Zayden’s an ass, okay? He was— He’s always trying to undermine me, and go against what I tell him to do. I didn’t really think it mattered if he went on a bender or something. It’s not any of my business.”
“Don’t yell,” my father snaps. “And of course it’s your business. Assets cannot be allowed to simply disappear.” He mutters something under his breath. “I’m going to send somebody up there to help you. Clearly, you can’t do this on your own.”
Well, fuck. I shake my head, even though he can’t see it. “I can, Dad. I just need time, okay?”
“No. I’ve got just the person in mind. He’ll help you with your Pavone problem too. You can expect him in a few days.”
My father hangs up on me, and I want to throw the phone against the wall. I manage to contain my rage, but only barely.
My Pavone problem? This wouldn’t even be a problem if Zayden hadn’t gotten all the guys riled up against Pandora. Or if my father hadn’t insisted on taking care of her somehow.
Christ.
I open my text conversations and find the thread with Pandora.
Blaze
Did you involve your fucking parents in all this?
It only takes a few seconds to get a response.
Pandora
In what?
Blaze
Your silly revenge plot
Pandora
Oh. No.
And you won’t think it’s silly when I’m carving up your chest. The first one looked good on you
My hand goes up to my chest automatically, and of course thinking about it makes it itch again.
Pandora had been pretty hot in that basement, the circumstances notwithstanding. And I really hadn’t expected to get cut like this.
Blaze
It’ll look better on you.
But raincheck on everything until after Franklin’s memorial. River’s sulking
I don’t know why I tell her that. She doesn’t have to know about Franklin’s memorial service. She didn’t know him or care about him.
But I have a feeling she’ll care about River, despite what she said about vengeance and whatever.
Pandora
Oh. Sorry about what happened to him.
I swear I didn’t tell my parents anything. I don’t hate you all that much.
Just thiiiis much. And I want to see you suffer with my own eyes. None of that getting a finger delivered to me as a consolation present thing.
I stare at that text, wondering what the hell she’s talking about. River’s finger?
Blaze
You don’t really need more fingers anyway.
Pandora
True. Maybe an eyeball? Get it preserved to make an earring out of it.
I laugh despite myself, then I feel guilty. I look at my closed door, hoping Asch and River aren’t somehow spying on me. They’d get pissed if they saw this conversation.
But what do I care what they think, anyway? If I want to flirt with Pandora, that’s my fucking business. I’m supposed to get leverage on her family anyway. That means getting close to her.
It probably doesn’t mean fucking her, or getting cut up by her, but it’s not like I can convince Pandora of anything without appealing to her inner crazy.
I lie down on the bed and tap away at my phone.
Blaze
Eyeballs don’t preserve well. You could try teeth.
Pandora
Too easy. How about a rib? Make it extra biblical.
I laugh again, despite the ache on my chest, despite how I don’t think she’s joking. She really would take a rib if she could get away with it.
I keep chatting with her, and we send more and more outrageous suggestions to each other.
I’m supposed to hate her.
I’m supposed to destroy her.
But all I want to do is have fun with her.