Chapter Eight
Brynn
Once he’s in the bathroom, I strip the towels off his bed. Blood got on a few of them, so I’m careful bundling them up and dropping the pile on the hardwood floor.
I feel like I should wash them, but I don’t want to snoop around and I’m not sure if he has a washing machine in his apartment. I’m sure he does. With an apartment this size, it would certainly fit, and who wants to go to the laundromat?
Without him around to distract me, I’m alone for the first time since everything went down. I pace around his bedroom, trying not to think about it.
That proves impossible, so when I hear the shower turn on, I change my mind about snooping. The laundry needs to be done, so I’ll just take a peek and see if I can find his laundry room.
I find a gorgeous laundry room in a service nook just past the kitchen. This apartment is seriously high end, and I feel like the help as I lug the pile of dirty towels through an area clearly meant for servants.
The laundry room has a built-in shelf for linens, and I see more towels neatly folded and put away on the middle shelf. The washer and dryer are installed beneath a marble countertop, with a cabinet between them and a sink above it. There’s a leafy green houseplant on the counter, and I don’t really see this guy caring for plants in his free time.
Does he have a maid or a devoted girlfriend?
He certainly hasn’t given the “somebody’s boyfriend” vibe, but he could just be a bad one. As gorgeous as he is and given the financial status this apartment implies, I’m gonna go ahead and say he’s sought after.
I feel more at home in his laundry room than the rest of the apartment, so I make use of the stain remover, then toss the towels in the washing machine.
Once I get the wash started, I turn around and look at the clothes hung up on the rod in the built-in compartment. I told myself I wouldn’t snoop, so I don’t open the built-in cabinets, but I admire how nice they are. His laundry room is nicer than any place I’ve ever lived.
The whole place is immaculately kept. Further evidence of a maid because if his girlfriend is doing all this, I would expect her to live here, too, and I haven’t seen any evidence of a woman in my non-snooping session.
My heart drops guiltily into my stomach when I walk into his bedroom and see him standing there with just a white towel wrapped around his hips. My mouth goes dry at the sight of him, his dark hair still dripping wet as he pushes it out of his face.
It feels too intimate to see him like this.
He seems unbothered by it, though. He glances at me on his way to his walk-in closet as if girls watch him walk around his bedroom nearly naked all the time.
It’s totally unfamiliar to me, so I turn to leave the room and give him a little privacy.
“You can stay,” he says, amusement clear in his tone. “I’m not shy.”
Yeah, definitely no one’s boyfriend.
I still feel awkward about it, but I turn back around. “I put the towels in the—um, they’re being washed. I didn’t want them to stain, so…”
“Thank you.”
I nod, then start to chew on my bottom lip. “Now that you’re all clean, I should probably do the glue and bandage you up so I can get out of your hair.”
He steps out of the closet with clean clothes and meets my gaze. “Like I said, you’re not going home tonight.”
“And like I said, that’s not really your call. If you’re right and Kyle figured out where I live, I don’t live alone. That could mean my roommate is in danger, and I can’t text her or call her without my phone to warn her to be cautious. What if he goes there looking for me and she opens the door?”
“She doesn’t know anything, so she’s not a threat. He didn’t go into tonight looking to just kill someone, right? He went after you for a pretty specific reason. Unless you think he’ll amend the plan and take your roomie as a virgin sacrifice instead?”
“No, she definitely… does not meet the requirements.”
He cracks a smile. “Then I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t care about her, but I do.”
He glances back at me. “I can send someone to your building to make sure none of the Rho Kappas show up. Give me the address and I’ll text it to my friend.”
I shake my head. “I’d rather handle things the official way. Without a record of what happened tonight, I’ll have no protection if something happens again. The law is not set up to protect women. I need to go down to the police station and file a report about what they tried to do tonight. That way, if they come for me again, I’ll have something that forces the police to take me seriously and protect me from them.”
“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but every one of the trust fund brats in that basement tonight has a daddy who could make sure that report got lost. Don’t rely on corruptible institutions to keep you safe from people who possess more power than you do. My friends and I will handle this.”
“I don’t know you or your friends. Why would I trust you to keep me safe?”
My heart sinks when his cool gaze meets mine. He didn’t like that at all, but his tone is even when he says, “Because I’m not giving you a choice.”
I swallow. “You can’t just keep me here against my will.”
“Wanna bet?”
I blink at him. He sounds serious.
And no, I do not want to bet.
“Is this a secret society thing?” I ask, my heart in my throat as the words make their way out of my mouth. “I’ve heard rumors about them. I know people talk about the Blue Bloods and the…”
“If they’re talking about it, that means they don’t know anything,” he states. “If there are secret societies, they wouldn’t stay secret for very long with members running their fucking mouths to anyone who would listen, now would they?”
“You just seem to know a lot about this. You say you weren’t involved, but you know more about why I was in Kyle’s basement tonight than I do. Is he—are they in a secret society?”
He scoffs, apparently offended by the question. “No, that fucking dipshit isn’t in a secret society. None of them are. They didn’t make the cut.”
So he is in a secret society.
“There are two, right? Maybe they didn’t make the cut in one, but they made it in the other.”
“They didn’t. The other is made up of overgrown little boys whose idea of wild depravity is a drunken threesome, not a gangbang in the woods followed by murder. There’s only one society on campus that does shit that dark, and none of the Rho Kappas are in it.”
So he’s in that one.
Considering his description of the club, I’m not sure I find that comforting.
I’ve heard rumors about the secret societies on campus, but it didn’t feel like a real thing to me. Sure, it was fun to think about something like that possibly existing at my school, but its very nature is cloak and dagger shit that I never expected to encounter personally.
“If they’re not in one, then why were they doing a ritual like that tonight?” I ask.
“Because they’re copycats who couldn’t stand being left out of something exclusive. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Kyle’s not well acquainted with the word no.”
I shrug a bit self-consciously. “This was the first time I ever really hung out with him. I don’t know him that well. I thought it being a public place would be safer than a one-on-one date, I never imagined…”
I never imagined he had such evil intentions.
To my surprise, he just shakes his head and says, “Don’t beat yourself up. You couldn’t have known. I am curious, though… Obviously the guy knew you were a virgin…”
My face warms with embarrassment. “He may have… jokingly—I thought—asked about my body count.”
He stares at me. “Your body count.”
His dry reiteration embarrasses me even more. “I know it soundsdouchey…”
“Because it is absolutely fucking douchey.”
“But he didn’t seem… I don’t know, it sounds stupid now.”
He shakes his head. “If a man ever asks you that question, he better be asking how many people you’ve killed. Only a fucking loser would ask that otherwise.”
“Well, I’m never dating again, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
He smirks, dropping his towel.
I gasp, spinning around as fast as I can.
My heart hammers in my chest as I hear him stepping into his sweats. “Do you have a body count?” I ask, my voice a tad unsteady.
His tone light, he answers, “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He knows that’s not what I’m asking, but I guess I wouldn’t share something like that with a total stranger, either.
“You can turn back around.”
I do, but I have to work to keep my eyes on his face because while he put sweats on, he’s still shirtless, and his finely chiseled body beckons my eyes to behave rudely.
“Hypothetically, if I were to accept your invitation to stay here tonight—”
“Not an invitation,” he interrupts idly.
“—Do you have, like, a guest room I could stay in?”
“I have a nice big bed,” he states, his gaze locked on mine.
My stomach bottoms out at the mere idea of lying there next to him all night. As if I would ever be able to fall asleep.
“And a nice comfy couch that you would nobly sleep on to make me more comfortable?” I ask hopefully.
He smirks. “No. Now, you gonna finish patching me up or what?”