Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Kade
After two hours of playing pool Alek joins us, bringing a harem of girls. Two for each of us.
Being in the elite and star players on the football team is collateral to getting whatever you want, including any amount of girls you desire.
Everyone wants what we can give them.
Guys want to be friends with us. Women want us because of our wealth, status and prestige. More importantly, they want us because of the life they think they’ll have if they’re with us.
Dimitri’s and my family own two NFL teams, Logan’s family heads a global renowned hedge fund company, and Alek’s family owns a weapons and technology company.
Aside from the wealth, we’ll lead the Knights one day. Marriage to any one of us would set you and your family up for life.
Lana DaCosta saunters over to me once I take my last shot and runs her fingers over my back.
She flashes me a dazzling smile when I straighten and look at her, then she pushes out her fake tits and catches the hem of her way-too-short dress. The thing is so short I’m not sure it can be called a dress.
“I think we should hang out in your room.” She places perfectly manicured fingers on my chest and traces the hard outline of my left pec. “Last time, we had so much fun. We could have that again.”
I give her a stiff smile. Last time was just before the Christmas break. She was fun. And that’s all it was. I hooked up with her a few times last semester but I have other things on my mind now, and other people.
“Not tonight.” It’s time to go. Time to see what the little doll is up to.
“Aww, you’re no fun tonight, Kade Gurkovsky.” Lana pretends to pout but her sea-green eyes speak of desire. “I couldn’t wait to see you and now you’re shooting me down. You haven’t even been around much.”
That’s because I’ve been playing stalker with the shy wallflower. “I’m busy.”
With a sinful cunning look she stands on the tips of her toes, just about reaching my ear in her heels, then she whispers, “I’ll let you fuck me in the hot tub without a condom.”
If I were interested, it might be a tempting offer. But I don’t want her.
I turn to face her, catching the spark of excitement in her eyes. She thinks I’m going to agree.
“No.” The simple answer bursts the excitement glittering in her eyes.
“No?”
“No.”
Shock steals the color from her cheeks and she opens her mouth to say something more but I step around her, dismissing the conversation, and her.
There are more important things I have to think about and I’m in no mood to get another blowjob I have no interest in, or another boring fuck from a girl who’s available to half the football team.
Either Dmitri or Logan can have her tonight. I’m sure they won’t say no.
I nod at the guys, letting them know I’m leaving. They acknowledge me, but I don’t miss that narrowed look of suspicion Alek throws my way as I walk past him. Ignoring him, I head back outside.
I glance at my watch. It’s ten. Perfect timing. The little doll should be at the Verge—the campus club—with her friends. The Thetas are having a party there tonight.
I make my way there, absorbing the hauntingly peaceful atmosphere of the campus grounds. While the Gothic-inspired buildings, Viking statues and stormy clouds hanging in the sky create that feeling of walking around an old graveyard, the air is charged with life and possibilities.
There’s not a single person I know who doesn’t love the architecture of Raventhorn’s campus.
I was ten years old when I first saw it. My father had just been called to the council as a judge, so we came here on business. He and Mom were so excited to show me where they went to college.
This was where they met.
I push the memories of their smiles from my mind when I see the club ahead and steel my thoughts like I always do when I think of them.
I enter the club and blend into the sea of students dancing the night away. They have a live rock band on stage tonight, so everyone is mostly gathered there.
I head up to the third floor so I can look down and find the object of my obsession. I spot her within seconds.
Isabelle is standing by the long French windows with Mackenzie, Annika and Eilish. Thorne, Caspian and Willow—Caspian’s wife—are across from them at the bar, ordering drinks. It figures that Thorne and Caspian would be here instead of at Erebus, because of their women.
I also know that Thorne is particularly protective of Isabelle, which could be a problem if he were to figure me out. I won’t let that happen. I’ll proceed with caution.
I focus on Isabelle, who looks as uncomfortable as a lamb in a den of vipers.
Tonight she looks different. Prettier. Sexier.
Her long black hair is pulled back into a ponytail, accentuating high exotic cheekbones, and instead of her little Lolita dresses, she’s wearing a knitted dress that stops above her knees.
Tonight’s dress molds to her body, showing off her large, round tits, curvy hips, and other assets that are normally hidden or tamed by her usual dresses.
Lana DaCosta in that skimpy-as-fuck getup and her offer of a hot tub fuck didn’t even stir my cock. But the mere sight of sweet little Isabelle has my cock hardening up like steel.
It’s not the first time I’ve felt like that.
On seeing Isabelle’s discomfort, Mackenzie takes her hands and tries to get her to dance, but all Isabelle does is smile.
Seconds later, to my absolute annoyance, Michael Petrov walks up to Isabelle and hands her a drink. Then he says something that makes her laugh and she seems to loosen up.
Mackenzie and Eilish leave them to talk and I watch Isabelle’s face light up as Micheal engages her in conversation.
She likes him. I can tell by the way she’s looking at him. All doe eyes and flirty. I can’t blame her. Michael is a junior, the captain of the basketball team and he’s from a high-ranking, wealthy Knight family.
He’s also one of the guys I haven’t gotten to yet.
I’ll allow him to have tonight with his jokes and her smiles. Then I’ll make sure he knows she’s mine.
Mine in whatever capacity I choose, whether Isabelle wants me or not. Or regardless of how much I hate her.
She’s mine. And I own her ass until I feel like she’s paid for her sins. As to when that will end is anyone’s guess, because I don’t know. I haven’t thought of that part yet.
All I know right now, at this moment, is that she has to pay for the part she played in my parents’ deaths.
The Malina killed them that night and blew up their home, but sweet little Isabelle Kolyav opened the door for them to walk through.
Three years ago she worked at an art gallery in Manhattan. My parents were there hosting the Christmas exhibition.
Thanks to Isabelle the Malina hacked my father’s computer, then his life.
I don’t know what her motives were in working with them. So far I haven’t found any solid plans.
She’s too sweet and innocent to have murderous intentions, so I can’t imagine her at fifteen years old wanting to murder my family. But I think she was used as a pawn.
Regardless, I don’t care. I don’t give two fucks about the whys or hows. All I care about is what she did.
Isabelle uploaded a sophisticated spy code into the gallery’s system that allowed my father’s enemies to track him.
They tracked him all the way to Greece, where they set a trap and killed him. Along with my mother.
My parents' deaths were a mystery. People assumed it was an inside job because no one could figure out how my father’s enemies got into the house the way they did. Or how they knew he’d be there.
Isabelle Kolyav was the missing link.
For years, I tried to review what happened. My family and I looked into everything my parents did right up until the incident and came up with nothing.
Then last semester blind luck led Dmitri to discover the code in the system. Once he did that I was able to trace who put it there.
I still can’t describe the shock that filled me when I learned it was her. And even that was covered up, too. Isabelle’s details were erased—no doubt by her father.
I thought he might have been involved, too, or maybe he might have put her up to it, but that didn’t make sense.
Her father wouldn’t have needed to do what she did to hack my father. With his tech skills he would have done it in a cleverer way. The records also showed he was called into the gallery to investigate a security breach. His subsequent actions didn’t seem like he knew anything more than what he did to cover up his daughter's guilt. But I’m sure she would have told him something.
Maybe not the truth.
Knowing the code allowed me to link everything to Nickoli and the Malina. It was like a trail of breadcrumbs that led me straight to him.
Nickoli is in a class on his own, but so is Isabelle. The girl I once compared to an angel and thought was too good for me.
In high school I stayed away from her because it was obvious that I should.
She was my complete opposite.
She was sweet and innocent. I was the bad rich boy from Orange County who, unknown to most, was kicked out of school and sent to juvie because he banged his drama teacher then exposed her, and set fire to the school gym. That was me acting out after my parents’ deaths.
I watched Isabelle watching me. Her in her cute little dresses and that body made for sin.
She thought I didn’t see her. But I did. I always did. And I knew if I touched her, even once, my poison would corrupt her.
I was out of control. No one could handle me. My uncle and aunt in New York took me from my aunt in the Orange County because they felt they could raise me to be a Knight.
I love them both, but being a Knight was the only reason I accepted their help. I hated living in the Orange County after losing my parents. Everything reminded me of them.
When we started college I knew what Isabelle had done at the gallery, but I didn’t know what the code was until I got the confirmation a few weeks ago.
Now it’s showtime.
Michael leans in to whisper something into her ear that has her blushing.
The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails blares through the speakers, playing loud at first to get the people up and dancing before it mellows out.
Michael takes Isabelle’s drink and sets it on the side then pulls her onto the dance floor. I grind my teeth when he manages to persuade her to dance with him.
I’m not the only guy watching her as she sways her body to the music, looking anything other than the sweet, sunny girl they’re used to seeing walking around campus. Isabelle looks like a goddess owning her sexuality.
The thing is, she always looks like that to me, even when she’s going for sweet in her little dresses.
I watch her and Michael dance for the entire song and my blood heats every time he touches her and gets close enough so you can’t tell where he begins and she ends.
Eventually the fucking song ends, and he has her laughing again. He takes her back to where they were and leans in again to whisper into her ear. Then he leaves, heading in the direction of the bar.
Isabelle stares at him for a few languid moments but when she looks away something makes her look up. Maybe it’s instinct telling her that I’m watching her, or that sixth sense people talk about and she can feel my eyes on her. Whatever it is makes her look right at me.
Our eyes lock just like last night, and her alabaster skin turns paler. Her beautiful brown eyes round with fear and I can see she’s desperately trying to hold herself together.
Her efforts bring a smile to my face. So few things in life interest me these days, but I’ll never grow tired of seeing her this way. Or freaking the shit out of her.
This little game of mine was designed to screw with her head. It’s working.
I want her to know that I'm watching her. That I see her.
And that she can’t escape me.
I want her to look at me and know that I have no limits.
I plan to break her piece by piece and strip her down layer by layer until there’s nothing left.
I want her to know that I’m her predator and she’s my prey.