Chapter 37
A SPECIAL brAND OF PUNISHMENT
KILLIAN
The manila envelope taunted me from the bed as I paced my room at the Sigma Delta house, my boots wearing a trail in the polished hardwoods. Stan knew the blackmail information I stole was bad enough to kill for. Why else wasn’t he surprised when I told him one of Banks’ men hunted me down?
Since I’d entered this world of secrets and corruption, I’d been in plenty of dangerous situations, but no one on the outside had gotten caught in the crossfire until now. And it almost killed Lexi.
I jammed my fingers through my hair and halted at the edge of the bed. I gave her my word that I’d investigate Stan. She was certain I’d discover her accusations were true all along. And I was certain I’d prove her wrong.
At least, I had been.
Now, I wasn’t as confident. Looking back on my life as a Davenport, I focused on the small details I initially ignored for the sake of my mom’s happiness.
Money and power had also clouded my judgment.
When you came from nothing and suddenly had the world at your fingertips, you’d pay nearly any price to keep that.
Had I paid a higher price than I’d thought?
My lips thinned, and I had to fight the urge to punch a dozen holes in the walls.
This was all Lexi’s fault. Everything was fine until she came to Stonewall University.
Sure, I was living a lie every day, keeping this mask of perfection in place to hide all my darkness and demons, but at least my life had a clear path.
With a sigh, I dropped onto my bed, my shoulders slumping. I couldn’t blame Lexi for this. I was the one who insisted on fucking with her, and I was the one who refused to let her go. She pleaded with me to back off, which only made me want her more.
She was mine. All mine. And I’d slaughter anyone who tried to take her from me.
After we returned to Copper Cove, I reluctantly dropped her off at her dorm and instructed a pledge to stand guard outside her building. He was to call me if my brother visited, or got anywhere near Davenport Dormitory.
Bass could still be suspicious that Lexi was the girl who overheard us discussing his incident at the masquerade party. He could also simply want to screw with her to piss me off.
I snatched the envelope off the bed as my heart crashed against my ribs. This could hold information that might shed some light on Stan. Or maybe I just wanted to know what was so important that he might have manipulated me into staying at Casa de Campo, so close to Gregory Banks’ private villa.
Fuck it.
My fingers trembled as I flicked the metal prongs up and lifted the flap.
I dumped the flash drive onto the covers and then pulled out the documents, my pulse hammering a frantic beat.
The first page listed several large money transfers from one of Stan’s accounts to someone named Margaritte Douglass, dating back three years.
My blood iced over at the next page: a picture of Stan with a beautiful young woman outside his vacation home in the Hamptons. She couldn’t have been much older than eighteen, and his hand grazed her ass as he escorted her through the back door.
This hadn’t been a favor for just any powerful Ascended. It was for Stan himself. When was this taken? Had he cheated on my mom with some teenager?
That son of a bitch.
The following page was a newspaper article with a headshot of the same girl and the headline College freshman at Penn State goes missing. Her name was Jocelyn Douglass, daughter of Margaritte Douglass.
All the warmth drained from my body, a ringing filling my ears as the pieces of a horrifying puzzle slowly fit itself together. My stepfather had a relationship with this woman—this girl—who was probably dead now.
Did she go Fatal Attraction and develop an obsession for him, one so intense he had no choice but to eliminate her? Were these payouts to her family compensation for her death?
Or had something even worse happened?
Maybe Bass was more like his father than I knew. Did he inherit his appetite for women and his uncontrollable sexual urges from Stanford?
Sickness crashed through my stomach, shooting acid up my esophagus. If Stan was capable of sleeping with a barely legal teenager and killing her...
No. It couldn’t be.
He wasn’t really capable of sexually assaulting Lexi, was he?
The dark voices in my head screamed that my best friend had been telling the truth, and that I’d turned my back on her for a monster. I’d traded our friendship and love for money, power, and my mother’s happiness.
Was my mother totally clueless, or was she only pretending to be happy?
I dropped the papers before I crushed them as my hands curled into tight fists.
I couldn’t jump to conclusions and ruin my entire life without being a hundred percent sure.
The flash drive had to contain more information, probably the linchpin in this conspiracy.
Arcane was known to be thorough in their blackmail assignments.
But if Stanford Davenport turned out to be the evil son of a bitch Lexi always claimed, what could I do? He was probably the most powerful man in our organization. He was the Grand Domnus for shit’s sake. The man could have me killed with the snap of his fingers.
He would definitely have me punished for reading this damning evidence. Of course, Stan didn’t think I would disobey a direct order from him. I was probably the last person who would. That was why I’d been the perfect person to retrieve this damning information.
He didn’t bet on Lexi Vega getting to me, though.
A knock at the door had my heart leaping into my throat, and I shoved the documents behind me just as Slate poked his head into my room.
“Bass called an emergency meeting,” he said. “I was told to grab you.”
My brow arched. “For Sigma Delta?”
“Nope.” He flashed the serpent and dagger tattoo on his forearm. “The other thing.”
Only high-ranking Lords—seniors and some legacies like us—were invited to the emergency meeting in the catacombs beneath the frat house. I shifted from foot to foot as I stood next to my friends, eager to return to my room to search through that blackmail information.
“Do you know what this is about?” I asked Gage who stood beside me with his arms crossed and a bored expression on his face.
He gave a lazy shrug. “No fucking idea, but I was in the middle of studying for a psych test.”
“These bastards pulled me out of football practice.” Axel tore into a protein bar like a savage beast. “This had better be good.”
Slate grinned and flicked ebony locks out of his face. “I wasn’t doing anything, so this was a happy surprise.”
“You need a hobby.” He opened his mouth, but I interrupted him. “One that doesn’t involve sex and practical jokes.”
“Quiet, everyone,” Bass barked, his nostrils flaring and blonde hair unusually ruffled. “We have an issue, and I want everyone to shut the fuck up and listen.”
Gage arched a pierced eyebrow at Bass’s stressed state. My stepbrother agitated was never a good thing.
“A Neophyte failed to complete his initiation task and has gone missing.”
Shocked murmurs rippled through the brothers. An initiate into Serpents & Daggers had never vanished—unless they failed their task and we disposed of them. This wouldn’t look good to the Inner Circle, and it would fall on my stepbrother’s shoulders.
His jaw clenched, those blue eyes like icy daggers. “I want Micah Preston located. Search the campus and the whole damn town. If you see or hear anything, come to me with the information immediately.”
Of course, I’d expected this reaction from Bass once he realized Micah was gone. He’d try his hardest to locate the Neophyte before having to alert the Grand Domnus. Micah had better stay far away from Copper Cove.
If they ever found him, he could run his mouth about why he failed his task, and the whole organization would be gunning for Lexi and me.
“You’re all dismissed, except for Killian.” He jerked his chin for me to follow him to the corner of the room.
My expression remained neutral as I slowly made my way to Bass, the gas lanterns highlighting the beads of sweat forming across his forehead. “What do you want?”
“Doesn’t it seem a little odd that the Neophyte I tasked with eliminating that girl suddenly disappeared?” He dragged his fingers through his hair, his eyes bloodshot and glassy, scotch scenting his breath. “The same girl you refused to find.”
“I didn’t refuse shit. You passed the assignment to someone else when I didn’t move fast enough.” I shrugged. “Clearly, Preston wasn’t cut out for this world if he couldn’t handle one girl.”
My stepbrother gripped my shirt and shoved me against the rough-hewn wall.
“Your stench is all over this, Killian. You just happen to leave school for a few days while he mysteriously vanishes?” His fists dug into my chest, the fury around him palpable.
“Did you sneak Micah out of town? Did you help him escape?”
I forced Bass off, sending him stumbling into the altar with Fratres Super Omnia carved above. “Stan knows exactly where I was. He asked me to take care of something for him.”
Technically, the truth. I just omitted the part about bringing Lexi.
“Bullshit!”
“Call him.” I smoothed the wrinkles in my shirt. “It’s not my fault you picked a dud to invite into the Serpents & Daggers. This is all on you, and eventually, you’ll have to tell your father.”
Bass wiped the sweat from his forehead with his arm, the tiny muscles in his jaw jumping.
“You better hope I don’t find out you had anything to do with this, Kill.
The only reason you’d risk your position here is to protect Lexi, no matter how much you claim to hate her.
” A grin curved his mouth, sending ice down my spine.
“If she turns out to be the one I’m looking for, I won't just kill her. I’ll personally serve her a special brand of punishment. ”