Chapter 12 Mara
TWELVE
MARA
“Mara.” Milo stands at the top of the stairs of the Psi Theta House, his sleeves rolled askew. His face hardens as he descends, Kade and Valen trailing behind. “You have some fucking nerve. After what you pulled—”
“What I pulled?” I laugh. “You mean the part where I got kidnapped in front of an audience?”
His jaw clenches as he meets me at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer. “You humiliated this family.”
I shake my head. “No. I’m going to expose it.”
Milo grabs my wrist and pulls me toward the office down the hallway.
The four of us enter the room, and Valen closes the door behind all of us before leaning on the edge of a bookshelf.
Kade perches to my left on a leather armchair, while Milo falls into the chair behind the desk. Sitting there, as if it’s his throne.
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
“I came to drop something off,” I say, holding the small white box with a red bow in my hands. Slowly, I set the box on the desk and sit in an armchair across from Milo.
Milo peels the paper off and lifts the lid. Inside is a jar, with a single severed finger floating in its brine. My stomach clenches at the site, but outwardly, I’m calm.
Milo’s voice is strangled. “Is that... ?”
I nod. “Chase’s finger.”
His knuckles whiten on the desk. “Chase is missing. We haven’t heard from him in days. Where is he, Mara!?”
“Oh, he’s being dismembered and spread across the entire state of Indiana. He killed Jasper’s sister. He would have killed me if the Syndicate asked for it.”
Milo’s nostrils flare. “You don’t know anything.”
A ragged laugh escapes me as I throw the words at him.
“We both know that you’re not that naive.
People disappear every day at the hand of the Syndicate.
Levi Thompson’s mother, Xana Thompson? She was murdered because she didn’t fit the narrative the Syndicate wanted for Levi’s dad. There’s more stories like that, too.”
“We each have a role to play, Mara.”
“So, my role is to, what? Be the mentally ill wife? The one so strung out on medicine that my husband feeds me so I’m kept docile? Allow Chase to use our name like a fucking stepladder in the Syndicate? Hope I end up overdosing by the time I’m forty just to end my fucking misery?”
Kade’s mouth drops open and Valen tilts his head. Milo sinks into his chair, jaw working.
“You think I’d thank you for keeping me locked up?
For playing bride in this twisted game? Our father sold me to the highest bidder because they wanted him to.
The issue is that the Syndicate can’t handle people like me, people like Evie.
People like Xana. They make women like me disappear.
Women who can see past a man’s bullshit. ”
Milo springs up, slamming his palms on the desk. It’s too late to stop it; I’ve already started this avalanche. “Stop it!” he yells.
I stand too. “Stop what? Telling the truth?”
He takes a breath. “Mara, no. We did what we had to. Dad did it for you, for us.”
“For us?!” I laugh. “Us? Don’t insult me. This is not protection. If our father’s empire falls because I opened my mouth, it’ll be on his hands, not mine. I’m done being his pawn.”
Valen clears his throat behind me. “You don’t know what you’re doing; this is bigger than you.”
I look back to face him. “Then teach me, because right now, I’m free.”
Milo hurls the jar down. The finger slams against the lid and sloshes back down to the bottom. “Protect you?” he hisses. “Do you honestly think I would let anything happen to you?”
I fold my arms, jaw tight. “You let everything happen to me. You stood there while our father gift-wrapped me for the man who murdered his last girlfriend.”
Milo flinches. “You don’t know that.”
“I do, and so do you. What if the Syndicate gives an order to kill me, just like they did for Evie. Do you think Chase wouldn’t think twice? Don’t be so fucking dim. Chase couldn’t give two shits about me. He’d slit my throat and go play fucking golf later.”
Kade stands, anger flickering in his eyes. “Mara... please—”
“Stay out of this, Kade.” Milo cuts him off and pivots back to me. “What do you think, that you’d be allowed to date anyone from Omega Chi? Do you get how insane that is? Our blood doesn’t mix, Mara. Those men cut off your fiancé’s finger, and you’re defending the lunatics?”
I bare my teeth. “At least they never lied to me. You’ve hurt me my entire life. You try to call it love, say it’s for the family. You all dressed me up like a fucking doll and expected me to thank you for the leash. Well, news flash, brother, this bitch is done.”
“Not yet—Mara, do you hear me right now? Get your head on straight. They’re monsters.”
“And you’re a coward. You watched me get handed over like currency and stayed quiet. You let our father treat me like leverage. You smiled while I was dying inside my entire fucking life,” I snap.
“You’re being delusional.”
“Am I?” I retort, standing up and walking toward Milo until the desk hits my thighs. “I’d rather be delusional and alive than murdered for not matching an agenda.” I tilt my chin up at him.
Valen moves behind me and steps closer to me.
“You think you’re the first girl to slut themselves out for Omega Chi?
They’re not your salvation, they’re men.
And men like them will crown you queen one minute, and sell your corpse the moment they find dollar signs more lucrative than your pussy.
Let us help you find another way to say ‘fuck you’ to your dad. ”
My spine straightens, but I don’t turn to face him.
I don’t give him the dignity of seeing my reaction.
But something in the way he says it, soft and almost pitying, curls hot and ugly in my chest. “Help me? Or hold me against my will in the name of protection? I know OCK, Valen. I choose OCK. They actually give me choices.”
“You think Jasper loves you? You think Dredyn wouldn’t slit your throat if his dad ordered it?” Valen presses.
“I—” My throat locks.
Kade steps in closer to my left, hands up like I’m some spooked animal. “Mara, you don’t have to do this. Just slow down; talk to us. You’re still family.”
I laugh. “Family? You mean the people who feed me pills to keep me numb and let Chase mark me like property?” I twist to face Kade. He doesn’t flinch, but there’s regret on his face and cowardice in his eyes.
“You don’t know what they’re planning,” Valen says, closing the last few inches between us. I can feel his breath at my nape. “You’re leverage to them too, Mara, just a prettier pawn. Different packaging, same game.”
I hate that part of me wants to believe him. That traitorous voice deep in my gut whispers, What if he’s right? What if the boys I trust are just carving me into a new form of useful?
But then Milo speaks. “Mara, just stay. You’re not thinking clearly.”
And that’s when it hits me.
They don’t want me safe.
Their concern has nothing to do with me, not really. It’s the same protection they offered Evie, and all the girls that died at the Syndicate’s hand. Stay pretty, stay quiet, stay useful. That’s all they’ve ever asked.
And I’m done.
I turn slowly to face Valen. “You think they’re using me? Maybe they are. But at least they aren’t afraid of my sharp edges.”
Milo tries to speak, but I steamroll through it.
“You three spent your whole life calling it love while cutting me down to size, and now that I’ve grown teeth, you’re scared I’ll bite.
You say they’ll kill me if they’re told to, but Milo dressed me up for slaughter.
Do you truly think they’re the monsters? ”
I tilt my head. “I know monsters, Valen.”
And I choose mine.
Valen steps closer, until the only thing between us is a single armchair. He lifts a pistol from behind him until it’s inches from me.
Kade freezes to my right. “Valen. Don’t.”
“Stay out of it, Kade,” Milo says, his voice low.
The muzzle stares at my chest and I inhale slowly, meeting Valen’s eyes like we’re kids again, sitting on the benches at Chapel Stone Preparatory Academy.
“You’re not going to shoot me. You kissed me when we were thirteen. Remember that? Behind the girls dormitory. You were shaking so hard, thinking you were going to fuck it up.”
His jaw tightens.
“You’ve been angry ever since,” I add, stepping toward the gun. Just one inch. Just enough. “Because they didn’t choose you for me.”
Valen’s face shutters as he cocks the gun.
Then he fires.
The blast rips past my ear, shattering the lamp beside the desk. I don’t flinch, but Kade curses, stumbling back. Milo’s chair scrapes along the floor as he moves away from the glass, but doesn’t step in.
Valen doesn’t move the gun, which is now pressed to my forehead.
“You think pointing a gun at me makes you noble? Makes you the better choice?”
“I think you’re confused,” Valen snarls, “and they’re using you—Dredyn, Talon, Jasper. You’re just a game to them.”
My heart thunders in my chest, but I stand my ground. “I’m not staying. I’m walking out that door, right now.” My declaration hangs in the air, heavier than I expected.
“You really want to die?”
The corner of my mouth tilts up in a cruel smile as I grip the hidden knife strapped to my thigh. “I decided that a while ago,” I whisper. And there’s a moment of absolute quiet in the room, broken only by my heartbeat.
Suddenly, the front door slams open, and I whip my head around.
Jasper stands tall, just inside the entryway. He’s in black from head to toe, eyes dark. My heart leaps at the sight of him.
“How the hell did you—” Milo’s mouth hangs open, words caught in his throat.
Jasper steps forward and I move to him on instinct. My hand finds the front of his coat, clutching tight.
Milo surges from behind the desk, fury rising, but Jasper doesn’t even blink. He lifts a hand, and Milo halts like a puppet with cut strings.
Then I kiss Jasper, devouring him. His mouth claims me back with a growl low in his throat, his hands anchoring at my waist. His lips taste like vengeance.
And then—
There’s the tell-tale sound of the click of a safety.
I rip away from the kiss, spinning, just as Valen lifts the gun again, this time pointed at Jasper.
Jasper pushes me to the side and I rush to the corner of the room as he grabs the pistol mid-aim and wrenches it from Valen’s hand with effortless force. “OCK property,” he says before tucking it in his waistband.
There’s a crunch of bones following a hiss from Valen who is now clutching his wrist before Jasper walks over to me and looks at the three officers of Psi Theta one last time.
“I should break the other hand,” Jasper signs quietly to me.
My gaze burns into all three of them. “Still think I need your protection?”
I look at my brother. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“We’re done. You’re not my family,” I say.
Jasper threads his fingers through mine as we exit the house, and the door swings shut behind us. The cold wind hits me first, then I notice the snow. Thin flakes drift down in spirals, catching in my hair.
Cold air rushes around me and Jasper hugs me from behind as we walk toward his McLaren. I draw in a shuddering breath. It’s invigorating and terrifying all at once.
As he opens the car door for me, it hits me, the truth settling in my mind like frost in my blood.
I am the Syndicate’s enemy now—my father’s enemy.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.