Chapter 10
JACE
Jace: where the fuck are you?
I wait to see if Xave answers my text, but my screen goes dark.
“We need to put a tracker on him,” I say under my breath and slip my phone back into my pocket.
“Xave MIA again?” Jax asks as he pulls a hoodie out of his drawer.
“Yup.” I lean back in my desk chair. “Do you think this is because of a girl, or is he just being a dumbass?”
“Two things can be true,” Jax says as he pulls on his sweater.
“Are you going to Myles’s?”
“Yup.” He glances at me as he roots around in his nightstand for something. “What are you planning to get up to tonight?”
“Well, now that our cousin has disappeared on me again, I’ll probably spend my night catching up on some homework and getting ahead on my assignments.”
He closes the drawer and turns to face me, his expression as unimpressed as I expect it to be. “Really?”
“Yup.” I pick up a packet of gum and thumb out a piece. “I might even do some tidying up if I don’t run out of steam.”
“Tidying up, huh?” He smirks.
“That’s the plan.” I pop the piece of gum in my mouth.
“Whatever you do, don’t be an idiot,” he says pointedly. “Because I’m always the one who has to clean things up when you’re an idiot.”
“No promises.” I beam a big smile at him.
He rolls his eyes and slips his ID and phone into his pockets. “I’ll be back later.”
“Not spending the night?”
He shakes his head.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I tell him.
“Who said I’m babysitting you?” He gives me an innocent look. “I just said I’m coming home tonight.”
“Right,” I say dryly. “This is the first time in weeks that you’re not spending the night at Myles’s, and I’m supposed to believe that it has nothing to do with you thinking you need to keep an eye on me?”
“You can believe whatever you want.” He pulls his hood up. “And maybe you wouldn’t be so quick to think that me coming home for the night means I’m babysitting you if you didn’t keep acting like you need a babysitter.”
I flip him off. “Babysit this.”
He shakes his head. “And somehow you still think you’re the older one.”
“Because age is just a number, and being young at heart is the secret to a long and full life.”
“Sure, that’s definitely it.” He walks toward the door. “Later.”
I wait until it closes behind him and spin my chair around so I can fish a flash drive out of my desk drawer and start shutting my computer down.
Might as well pay Shane a visit and fill him in on the blackmail files. It’s not like I have anything else to do now that Xave has gotten distracted by something shiny and bailed on me.
The halls are empty as I head down to the second floor and knock on Shane’s door.
The music filtering out from his room tells me he’s home, and a moment later, the door swings open.
“What?” he asks, giving me a flat look.
“Is that any way to greet the person who came to fill in some blanks for you?”
His brow furrows. “Huh?”
“The blanks from the meeting earlier.”
There might not be anyone around, but I have to watch what I say until we’re behind closed doors.
An understanding look crosses his features, and he glances down the hall in both directions. “Now?”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s Friday night?”
“So? I’m free now.”
“And what if I’m not free?”
I make a show of looking over his shoulder and into his empty room. “Yeah, you definitely look super busy right now.”
He rolls his eyes and motions for me to come inside.
“You really couldn’t think of a better time to have this conversation?” He crosses his arms and gives me a hard look.
“I could have, but like I said, I’m free now.”
I didn’t purposely choose to tell him now so I could mess up his Friday night plans. It really was as simple as me having free time I needed to fill so I don’t get bored and get into trouble.
But he doesn’t need to know that.
“Okay,” he says when I don’t continue. “Are you going to fill in these blanks and tell me what the fuck is going on?”
I lift my hands in mock surrender. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m here to tell you what the fuck is going on, remember?”
“It’s easy for you to make jokes when you’re not the one who’s been kept in the dark about everything.” His eyes flash with anger, and some of the restlessness that’s been growing inside me settles.
For some reason, Shane’s anger calms mine, and there’s something that’s just so damn satisfying about working him up and getting a rise out of him.
“Who’s making jokes?” I ask innocently and drop my hands. “I’m just telling you I can’t fill you in on what’s going on if you don’t stop trying to pick a fight with me every time I open my mouth.”
His cheeks and neck flush red, and he balls his hands into tight fists at his sides. “You don’t think I have a reason to be pissed?”
“I didn’t say that,” I tell him. “I’m just saying that I’m not the one who’s kept you in the dark, so I’m not the one you should be pissed at.” I break out my trademark smirk-smile. “But you can if you want. I’m a big fan of how you deal with your anger when I’m around.”
His answering glare is withering. “Get to the point or get the fuck out.”
“So touchy tonight,” I say with a grin, but before he can get his panties in anymore of a bunch, I fill him in on what’s happened since Myles told us about the files.
I keep a few things to myself, like just how involved I was in hacking the Kings’ system and some of the more personal details about what Myles went through, but I tell him pretty much everything else.
His eyes are as wide as saucers when I finish, and he blinks at me for a few seconds, like he’s trying to absorb what I told him.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “Wait, have you seen the files?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen the ones that are about me?”
“I have.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s on them?” he asks, shooting me an annoyed look when I don’t elaborate.
I roll my shoulders in a shrug. I have every intention of telling him, but it’s more fun to mess with him a bit first.
“Really? You’re not going to tell me?” he asks angrily. “What do you want? Will you tell me if I blow you? Or are you going to hold this over my head like when you said you’d keep this”—he waves between us—“a secret and finally get my ass like you’ve been wanting?”
“Tempting.” I look him up and down. “But remember what I said before? I don’t have to trick you into getting on your knees for me or blackmail you into offering your ass.” I slowly drag my teeth over my bottom lip.
Shane’s eyes track the move, and I don’t miss the flare of heat in them as he swallows hard.
“You’ll be begging me for both soon enough.”
My words seem to shake him out of his daze, and he resumes glaring at me. “Not happening.”
“We’ll see.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s in the file?” he snaps. “Or are you going to get the fuck out before I make you?”
“Make me? Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
“Get the fuck out.” He points at his door.
“I thought you wanted to know what’s in your file?”
Shane crosses the distance between us and grabs the front of my sweater. I don’t fight him as he swings me around and shoves me toward the door.
My back hits the wall beside the door frame, and I huff out a laugh. “You missed.”
“Did I?” Leaning against me, he uses his weight to pin me to the wall.
“I think you did. You told me to get out, but the door is there.” I tick my chin to my right. “And I’m still very much inside your room, so yeah, you missed.”
“Tell me what’s in the file.” He puts his arm across my chest and uses his weight to slam me against the wall again. “Now.”
“Not a whole lot,” I say. “And nothing that’s especially scandalous for a college kid.”
“Like what?” he practically growls.
“Mostly pics but some video files of you partying and drinking, some of you doing drugs, and others are of you getting cozy with people you shouldn’t be fucking around with. There are a few audio files in there too, but they’re distorted and no one would know they’re you without being told first.”
His face goes pale as all the blood seems to drain out of it. “Who else has seen them?”
“Other than the people who made the file? No one except Carter and the leaders.”
“What about Jax or Killian?”
“Nope.”
“What about Myles?” he asks, like he isn’t still pinning me to the wall. “I still can’t wrap my head around Myles being a genius hacker. He’s so… quiet.”
“Believe it. The kid’s got skills, and in my experience, the quiet ones are the people who are usually the most surprising. But back to your question, no, he hasn’t.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Why would I lie about that?”
“You said he’s known about the file longer than anyone. And he had a copy of it long before he gave it to you guys. How is it even remotely possible that he hasn’t seen them?”
“Because he doesn’t give a shit about what’s on the file outside of how it affects Jax and the rest of us,” I tell him bluntly.
“And because there are terabytes worth of data in those files that go back almost ten years, so it’s not like your little section is any more interesting to him than the hundreds of others that are in there too. ”
His grip on me tightens, and I can practically see his anger levels rising the more I talk.
“I’m sorry to break it to you,” I continue.
“But you’re not the main character you seem to think you are.
No one but you gives a shit that there are snaps of you getting your freak on with professors and house staff or double-fisting shots or even doing a line off some coed.
They’ve all got their own shit to worry about. ”
“Do you have any idea what those pictures could do to me?” he demands. “To my family?”
“Yes, which is why we’re going to get the hard copy of them and destroy it. Same as we’re going to get the bonus files and destroy them.”
“How are you not more upset by this? You’re in the files too. Unless there’s not much on you, and that’s why you’re able to be so chill.”
“Let’s just say I don’t get rattled about stuff easily.”