CHAPTER 53
Betrayal doesn’t come from strangers. It’s a close-range shot, fired by someone who knows just where your heart is—and pulls the trigger anyway.
—FRANK, A BARTENDER
I don’t want to lie to Charlotte. I already lied about where I was the day I saw Edmund’s mother attack him, and doing it again feels like drilling secret holes in the walls of our friendship.
But this is what I signed up for. Charlotte is only the first of many people I’ll have to deceive before Jerome’s job is over.
The problem is that she already knows someone sabotaged my civil credits.
She heard me accuse Rosamund, so the lie has to carry a sliver of truth.
I tell her someone tried to kill me with a Section Twenty-Seven, but I managed to stop it.
I tell her I went to the campus Copper Headquarters, reported the attack, and that the Coppers shut it down.
“The Coppers said they have no way to track who did it,” I add. Then I ask about Edmund, even though I don’t truly believe he’s capable of trying to kill me. I need to hear how impossible it sounds when I say the words aloud.
The suggestion completely sets Charlotte off.
“No damn chance, Lore,” she snaps, pacing my salon like she’s trying to grind a hole through the marble.
The scratches on her face from Rosamund’s monkey are sealed under rejuvenation cream, but the green wounds beneath are still visible.
“Edmund’s a payback junkie, sure. He doesn’t forgive.
But tanking your civil credits is too far, even for him.
It’s like you said—he hated Charles, couldn’t even look at the jerk without wanting to swing.
The only reason any of it blew up is because Charles was Irene’s old fiancé.
But how does that make it your fault? I get that Edmund wants revenge, fine, but killing you? No. Fucking. Way.”
I nod and let her vent, comforted by how unthinkable it is to her.
Yet the thought still needles at me: if she knew about what I saw that day on Edmund’s balcony—if she’d seen his mother’s nails dig so deep into his face that muscle showed through the blood—if she knew what he keeps buried beneath all that calm, would she still be so sure?
Charlotte sinks into a chair, her shoulders drooping, her chin tucked into her collar. She stares at the floor, and the thoughts crawling behind her eyes are like spiders.
“I wish you hadn’t done it, Lore,” she whispers, her mouth twisting around the words. “I gave in to Rosamund enough times to know that for her, winning is about humiliating you.”
“I’m not humiliated, Char,” I say. “Believe it or not, I’d do it again. I’d swallow worse if it meant you were safe.”
She lifts her head, her eyes glassy as they meet mine. “I don’t deserve you.”
I move in and crouch in front of her, close enough to see the tears she’s fighting to hold back. “I think the same about you. And maybe that’s why we work.”
Charlotte lets out a soft, watery laugh and reaches for me, her arms wrapping around my shoulders. I hold her firmly, so grateful to still have her that, for a moment, nothing Rosamund or Edmund did matters at all.
“Why don’t we do something together before the Mensur?” I say as I pull away. “Just the two of us.”
Charlotte’s face brightens, ready to agree, when a bell chimes through the suite.
My Pinkie opens the door, and Jack and Dickie step inside.
Dickie wears a burnt-orange suit, wide-eyed and fidgeting like a cornered fox, while Jack is in his Fraternity uniform, even though tonight’s Mensur is still hours away.
“What are you two doing here?” I ask, watching them warily. Do Jack and Dickie know Edmund tried to make me take Bliss? If so, did they agree with his revenge? It’s hard to believe, especially after how close I’ve gotten to Dickie, but trust isn’t something I can afford to give away easily anymore.
I’m about to confront them when Jack cuts in, his face stretched with worry. “We came to check on you. Charlotte wouldn’t pick up.”
The moment Charlotte hears Jack’s voice, her body stiffens. She turns away from us in her chair and stares out the window. Jack rubs his jaw and frowns, as if confused by why she won’t look at him.
“Char,” he says softly, stepping behind her. “What’s going on, darling? Why’d you send Ed the drop request? Why do you want out?”
“What?” The word rips out of me before I can swallow it. She never told me she’s trying to leave Edmund’s entourage.
Charlotte stays perfectly still, as if she can wish Jack away if she holds her ground long enough. Then, finally, she turns, her eyes dull and flat with exhaustion. When Jack and Dickie spot the cuts on her face, both curse under their breath.
“Char.” Jack lifts a shaky hand toward her cheek. “What the hell happened?”
She pulls away, her voice eerily calm. “It doesn’t matter.
And do you know why? Because I’m done, Jack.
I don’t want to see you tomorrow. I don’t want to see you next month.
I don’t want to see you when you’ve drunk yourself so stupid that you come crawling to my suite, thinking I still love you. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
Dickie’s mouth drops open. I shake my head at Charlotte, advising her to wait until her anger cools, but she’s locked in a stare-down with Jack, who’s gone rigid with confusion.
“What are you talking about? What did I do?”
“It’s what you didn’t do. It’s what you’ve never done.” Charlotte lifts her chin, showing him the cut on her neck from Rosamund’s saber. “Do you know Rosamund threatened to kill me yesterday if Lore didn’t eat her monkey’s shit? And do you know that to save me, Lore did it?”
Dickie whirls on me, his mouth wide. “What the devil? Why?”
Jack staggers back a step, then another. Charlotte rises and stalks after him, relentless, as if blind to his horror, to the raw grooves of shock carved into his face.
“And what about my hair, Jack? Did you know Rosamund was the one who shaved it? Did you know she’s the reason I endured months of humiliation?”
Jack opens his mouth, his throat working, then chokes out, “What? How do you know—”
“Because she carved an R into my skin with her saber. Right on the back of my head.” Charlotte closes the distance, her hands trembling at her sides, every word shaking with fury. “Well? Don’t you have anything to say?”
Jack freezes mid-step. Gradually, color returns to his face, his shock giving way to a steely edge. He straightens up, jaw clenched. “Yeah, darling. Why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“I told you I hated Rosamund more times than I can count.”
“Yeah, but not that she attacked you. What the fuck, Charlotte?”
“Did I really have to spell it out for you? It was all there, Jack. It always was. The only way you couldn’t have seen it was if you were trying not to.”
“I wasn’t trying not to see it. I was more drunk than sober, Charlotte. I was so shit-faced I was seeing double.”
“Then you should’ve seen it twice as clearly.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Jack drags a hand down his face. “You really expect me to read your mind? To see injuries you went out of your way to hide and know who gave them to you? Is that really what you’re saying?”
Charlotte falters. “No, but…”
“But what?” Jack’s voice rises, gruff with frustration. “You should’ve told me.”
Charlotte’s throat bobs, as if she knows he’s right. Still, her voice climbs to meet his. “You knew I was sad, Jack. You knew I was hurting. And if you really loved me, you would’ve seen it. You would’ve been there for me.”
He flinches, hurt breaking through his expression. “Really, Charlotte? You think I didn’t love you?”
She hesitates, wavering, then snaps back, loudly enough to make Dickie jerk upright. “Yes. If you loved me, you would’ve seen it. But you didn’t because you were too busy picking everyone else over me. You ruined it, Jack. Not Rosamund. Not me. You.”
That does it. It rips the old wound wide open. Jack’s eyes darken, and when he speaks, his voice drops to a low, resentful growl.
“Pick you?” He laughs, hollow. “All right. Let’s pick.
Let’s pick the Royce Club. You told me you loved me—right there, drunk off my neck—and then you turned around and tried to crawl into Ed’s bed the same night.
My best friend. And then you ran away when it all blew up.
Didn’t say a word. Not until you came sniffing around on that train, crying for help like none of it ever happened. ”
The floor tilts beneath me. I’m so stunned I barely register Dickie’s gasp or Charlotte going limp.
Jack’s chest heaves, his face appearing bloodless, but his eyes burn as if his resentment is finally clawing its way out.
“So yeah. Maybe I was nice to Rosamund, but only because I didn’t know how she was treating you.
Unlike you, darling, I don’t run. And you don’t get to spit my loyalty back at me when you killed it first.”
He looks at Charlotte a moment longer, with no rage left, only the wound laid bare between them, too deep and ugly for either to pretend anymore. In that stare, all Charlotte’s fire dies. The fight drains from her body, leaving nothing but a husk, even emptier than she was on Harrison’s jet.
Jack’s shoulders fold inward, as if the fight has drained from him, too. Whatever they were is gone now, and I think it cuts him deeper than her betrayal ever did.
When he turns to me and places a hand on my arm, his fingers tremor. “Sorry, Loredana. This wasn’t the place. Or the time.”
He heads for the door, scrubbing his palm across his neck as if he’s trying to sand off the last of this from his skin.
Dickie stays frozen, his eyes wet and wide in a way that makes my throat tighten.
Like me, he didn’t know what had happened between Edmund, Jack, and Charlotte until now.
The way he’s staring at Charlotte, as if seeing her for the first time, makes her shrink where she stands, as if one more word would be enough to blow her away.