Chapter 15 Blaze
BLAZE
Asch still hasn’t returned.
It’s not like I expected him to. He’s been skulking around, avoiding the house and barely staying here. I know he still sleeps here, because it’s not like he can afford to stay at a hotel and he doesn’t have other friends whose couch he can crash on.
At least, I don’t think he has other friends.
“Hey, Bouchard!” Ezio says, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I tense and force myself to pay attention.
Ezio, River, and I are all gathered around the dining room table. Ezio has his laptop out, while I have my tablet with me. I’ve got it displaying the frat finances spreadsheet.
At least that was stored on the cloud and not on one of the drives Pandora stole.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “You were saying?”
“We ended up raising about two thousand dollars from the party,” Ezio says. “Which is peanuts.”
“But good PR,” I point out. “And what were we going to do, tell the Nyxies we didn’t want their help?”
Maybe that would have been better.
There wouldn’t have been a party for Pandora to sabotage.
“Yeah, it ended up being great PR,” River mutters.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever. It’ll blow over fast. Maybe one of the Anarchists or Hellions will start a gang war on campus and distract everybody.”
Ezio snorts in amusement. “Do they still do that? They used to have constant fights back when I was a student. You couldn’t go a week without somebody having a pointless pissing contest.”
River is watching Ezio, his expression surly. “Yeah? And how long has that been?”
“About ten years?” Ezio silently counts. “Yeah. They renovated the gym after I left, but it’s not so different. Shame about the frat house though. I made some good memories there.”
Guilt stabs through my chest, again.
Fuck. I need to get over it. That wasn’t my fault. That was Pandora, and she’s been well and truly punished for it.
“We’ll build a nicer house,” I say. “Insurance will cover some of the cost, and Dad’s already committed a hundred thousand to the rebuilding effort.
We’ve got a few other donors lined up. And I think we’ve got a few alums in the construction business.
We might be able to tap them for the build at reduced cost.”
“It’ll just be a matter of reaching out to them.” Ezio types on his laptop. “Fundraising letters and shmoozing. The best part of the job.”
I grin at him. “Of course. Why else would you join a frat if not to network like this?” I glance at River. “Do you know anyone who might be able to donate? Maybe your parents?”
“No.”
I wait for him to continue, then realize he has no intention of elaborating.
I know from his background information that he really did work for the Pavone family and that his father still does. I don’t know what position he holds in that organization or how much money he makes.
Not enough to donate to the rebuilding effort, apparently.
“Okay. So we’ve got the Bouchards, the Kingsfords, the Prestons...” Ezio taps on his keyboard some more. “What about the Delgado family? I think Mr. Delgado is a tech guru. He can donate.”
I freeze at the name. Franklin’s parents. They’d have the assets to help cover the reconstruction, but…
“They’re not going to help,” River snaps. “Not when this frat is responsible for their son’s death.”
For once, I don’t disagree with River.
“Yeah. It’s a bad idea to approach them. Especially right now.” I grimace and glance down at my spreadsheet. “We should probably remove them from all the donor lists.”
“Nah.” Ezio shakes his head. “Don’t remove them until they request it. You never know. Mr. Delgado might still hold Kappa Alpha in high regard. Don’t forget that it’s our connections that helped build his empire. He wouldn’t have gotten any of the funding he needed for his startup without us.”
“They’re not going to want to have anything to do with Kappa Alpha,” River insists. “Don’t torture them by even asking.”
“We don’t need to ask them right now,” Ezio says. “I just mean, he gets the same Christmas alum mailer as all the other brothers. Until he asks to be removed, we should assume he’s still a warm customer.”
River looks at me. “Can you talk some sense into him?” he growls. “Their son died. You want to ask them for money? Now or ever? You’re lucky they aren’t suing the frat into the ground.”
I sigh loudly. “Ezio, come on. We’ve got enough people to tap. The Delgados—”
“Owe a lot to us,” Ezio finishes sharply. He glares at me. “Weren’t you just complaining about how much work all this is? Let me handle it, since you clearly don’t know how business works.”
Anger flares up inside me, and I glare back. “You don’t get to talk to me like that.”
Ezio laughs condescendingly. “Sure thing, Bouchard. But I’m the new frat manager. Your dad was clear on that. Seems he’s got a few trust issues when it comes to you.”
I clench my fists, and I hate how that comment gets under my skin. “It’s not about trust. He simply knows I need to focus on my studies.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Ezio goes back to typing. “Rivera—”
“What?” River’s voice is harsh.
“The boxing matches. Maybe you can fundraise there. Or at least raise more awareness about us as a fraternity. I know some of the other boxers are Hellions, but that doesn’t mean we can’t draw more support for Kappa Alpha.”
“Everyone thinks of Kappa Alpha as a bunch of entitled, rich assholes,” River says. “They’re not going to want to donate to help rebuild when they know we have a bunch of alums who are more than capable of doing it.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “We’re the entitled ones? Anyone who attends Dyschord is making bank, River.” I shake my head. “Nah, the problem is that Fenrir’s poisoned the entire team against us by now. I know he wanted to recruit you, too.”
“Who cares about the team?” Ezio snaps. “I’m talking about the audience, the trainers, the managers—hell, get some of the bookies involved if need be.”
“Yeah, okay,” River replies. “I’ll do what I can.”
I eye him. He gave in too easily after how much of a fight he put up against the idea at first.
“I can see about arranging a fundraiser match.” Ezio taps his jaw. “That would go over better than the Nyxie party, anyway, since it’ll be more than just college students in attendance.”
Back to the fucking party.
My tablet tells me it’s close to six p.m. I’ve got a new message, and I idly click over to see yet another message from Tate bitching about how I need to do damage control on the whole incident.
What the fuck am I supposed to do? I’m not the one who admitted to everybody that I enjoyed drinking piss.
His confession had made me want to gag when I’d heard it the first time, during our hazing. Asch and I had laughed about it in private later, when we’d survived the whole ordeal.
Then I’d kind of forgotten, because that entire night was something I wanted to forget.
What I do need to do is get the files back from Pandora. Whatever she has, it’s too dangerous in her hands.
Shit.
She’s got my secret in there too.
Asch’s secret.
The secret I’d been tempted to watch, so many times, and I only held myself back because I didn’t want to betray Asch’s trust.
“Let’s hope nobody hijacks the speakers this time,” River mutters darkly.
“What?” I turn my attention to him. “Who would… Who would hijack…”
“Oh, come off it, Bouchard,” River says. “We all know someone hijacked the speakers to spill Tate’s secret. What about the rest of us? I didn’t even know we were being recorded.” His eyes bore into mine. “Wonder whose little secret gets broadcast next.”
“It won’t be yours,” I snap. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
I’m confident about that. Whatever Pandora does, she wouldn’t humiliate River in that way. She cares about him too much.
“Don’t I, though?” he asks.
Ezio claps his hands. “Oh, are we talking about this now? I thought we were going to keep pretending your girlfriend didn’t steal one of the most valuable assets the frat has.”
“She’s not—” I start.
“The frat shouldn’t have had that shit to begin with,” River says. “Why the fuck do you have recordings of pledge week?”
“Because it means nobody can spill any secrets without their own getting exposed,” Ezio answers. “If the security had been better… or maybe, if Blaze had actually informed anyone that the drives were missing…”
“I thought Zayden had taken them!” I shout back. “He fucked off to nowhere right after the fire. He’s the one with keys; he knew where the drives were. Nobody else made sense.”
My heart is pounding ridiculously fast in my chest.
I can’t let Ezio know that I knew.
I can’t let him turn his sights on Pandora.
I definitely can’t let him inform my father that I failed.
River shakes his head. “This is all bullshit,” he mutters.
“I agree,” Ezio says. “But I thought Blaze was the only one bullshitting me.” He turns his gaze to River. “You’re hiding something too. What do you know about Pandora Pavone?”
River’s expression is blank. “That she’s a whore,” he says, shrugging. “She’ll sleep with anyone with a cock.”
That she burned down the frat house, that she tried to cut me open.
I reach up to my chest, the sensation of her knife against my bare skin still fresh.
“Pandora isn’t a problem,” I snap. “She’s one fucking woman. Let’s focus on the fundraisers and getting our own shit sorted. And we still don’t know for sure she’s the one who went after Tate.”
Neither River nor Ezio look impressed by that statement.
“Fine. I’ll deal with her, okay?” I growl. “I’ll get the drives back. It’s not like they’ve got anything important on them.”
“Nothing important?” River repeats. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Fine, she has the hazing videos, and some financial crap.” I run my hand through my hair. “But there’s nothing she can use.”
Ezio laughs and glances at River. “He’s not very convincing, is he?”
“Don’t bring me into this,” River snaps at him. “I’m not your friend, Ezio. We aren’t pals. Let Blaze deal with it.”
“I think we’ve established by now that Blaze isn’t particularly good at dealing with it,” Ezio answers.
My vision goes hazy. I get up and grab Ezio’s collar from across the table.
“Shut the fuck up, Ezio,” I hiss. “You don’t know anything about me, about what’s going on here. You show up out of the blue and act like you know everything—”
“Blaze,” River warns, and he slides his chair back so he can get up.
Before I can snarl a response at him, I hear the front door open and close. No footsteps come our way, though; it has to be Asch, but it’s clear that he’s still avoiding me.
I make a frustrated sound and storm out of the dining room. I take the stairs two at a time and make it to Asch’s bedroom right as he’s closing the door. I get my foot between the door and the frame to prevent him from shutting it on me.
He stares at me, and for a moment, I think I see something fragile in his expression. Then his expression hardens. “What the fuck do you want? I already loaded the dishwasher.”
“You don’t get to ignore me,” I hiss at him. My entire body is vibrating with suppressed anger. At Asch, at Pandora, at fucking Ezio for trying to undermine me.
“I get to do whatever I want,” Asch retorts. “I’m not your bitch anymore. Now move. Some of us actually need to study.”
“Why? It’s not like your scholarships are merit based,” I answer viciously.
He huffs out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, well. I’ll need good grades so I can transfer to New Valence U next year when those ‘scholarships’ run out.”
No.
No, Asch doesn’t get to leave me.
Not yet.
I was prepared to let him go after we graduated, when I was sure Asch’s future was assured.
“NVU?” I say with a laugh. “Go there and your prospects are working as some low ranking salesman for the rest of your life. Nobody goes to NVU.”
“And what’s my other option? Stay here?” His smile is nasty. “With you?”
Yes.
No.
Fuck, I have no idea what I even want.
I push the door open wider and take a step inside.
Asch scowls and gets in my way.
“We both know you’re the one who wants me,” I say. “That’s why Pandora even pulled that little stunt, right? How easily you folded for her.”
I should be more upset that they’d fucked me.
The only thing I’m mad about is that Pandora is fucking toying with Asch.
He narrows his eyes at me. “At least she doesn’t lie to me,” he retorts. “That’s more than I can say of you.” He rakes a hand through his already tousled hair. “Now get out of my face.”
There’s nothing else for me to say, no words I can think of that would make Asch back down.
Well, two words might change his mind, but there’s no fucking way I’d ever say them.
Bouchards don’t apologize.
I grip the edge of the door and glare at Asch.
Then I notice something else.
A scratch along his neck. Long and thin and fresh.
My jaw drops. “Did you fuck her?”
He lifts his head, staring steadily at me. “Yeah. Got a problem with that, too?”
“Yes,” I snap. “You sure changed your tune fast. After what she did to Tate, to us, you’re still willing to dip your cock in her?”
“Like I give a fuck what she did to Tate,” he retorts. “Yeah, she’s playing me, but I can play too. No matter what you might think, I’m not some helpless weakling.”
“I don’t think you’re weak!” I argue. “Christ, Asch. But you’re the one who acts like he’s better than me. You don’t want to be some violent, murderous…”
“Trafficker?” Asch supplies.
I don’t feel guilty about that.
I don’t.
It’s the way of the world. If not us, somebody else would be doing it. And most of those people are asking for it, anyway.
Dad’s always saying that.
So why the fuck does my stomach roil now?
“Looks like I was right,” I snarl. “You can’t handle the business.”
“Thanks for making that decision for me, Bouchard,” Asch replies. “Your family’s good about doing that, huh?”
“Only because you like taking orders.” I let go of the door and step back. Asch gives me a furious look before he slams the door in my face.
Fuck him.
How the hell can he be pissed off at me, after what he did to me, and still fuck Pandora?
I clench my fists and go back downstairs, trying to figure out what I’m going to say to Ezio.
Turns out, there’s no need for that. Ezio’s no longer in the dining room. Neither is River. I hadn’t heard him come upstairs, though. I go to the kitchen, but the only things there are dirty dishes in the sink.
So much for Asch having loaded the dishwasher.
“River?” I call out.
Another door slams, but this one’s down here. I go to the front door. River’s shoes and coat are missing.
Can nobody around here close a door quietly?
I pull out my phone to text River.
Blaze
You took a page out of Asch’s book, huh.
River
What’s that supposed to mean?
Blaze
The door slamming? What crawled up your ass?
River doesn’t answer.
I stuff my phone away and go to grab my tablet.
Fuck all of them. I don’t need them anyway.