28. Kaylor
28
KAYLOR
I can’t believe Maddox thought I would sleep with him.
It was the same thought I’d had a dozen times during classes. The absurdity of it still clung to me like static, crackling in the back of my mind as I sat through class after class, unable to focus. Every time I glanced at the whiteboard, the words blurred, morphing into shit I didn’t want to dwell on.
When had I ever given him the impression that I was interested? I could barely tolerate any of them. Yet, despite my best efforts, Kreed had carved a space in my mind I couldn’t seem to reclaim. The bastard had forced his way in, and I hated myself for letting him.
I wanted to resent him.
I needed to, but it was getting harder.
The Raven Crew had taken up so much space in my life this semester that I felt like I was drowning. My parents’ deaths were already heartbreaking enough, and now them? Kreed, with his maddeningly cryptic stares and touches that lingered too long. Maddox with his possessiveness. Mason with his sharp-edged amusement. They weren’t just in my head. They were creeping into my very existence, and it was wrecking me.
I wasn’t just losing focus on school. I was losing myself.
When was the last time I even talked to Carson or Kenny? When had my priorities shifted from wanting to see my friends to just…forgetting about them entirely?
I opened my locker, shoving my books inside, and grabbed my bag when I heard my name whispered so quietly I almost thought I imagined it.
“Kaylor.”
The voice barely registered, a hushed breath beneath the chaos of students moving past. I stiffened, scanning the hall and looking for a familiar face. Other than Poppy, I hadn’t made many friends at Public. What was the point? I graduated in three months. The Raven Crew didn’t count. They weren’t friends. More like annoying stepbrothers I’d never asked for and barely liked. Kreed excluded.
Nothing about him or the way I felt about him was brotherly.
I slammed my locker shut, the metallic clang cutting through the noise of the hallway.
“Psst, Kaylor,” someone called again. “Over here.”
This time, my ears tracked the source, and my eyes fell on a girl with dark hair streaked with pink highlights. Her chocolate eyes were on me as she waved her hand, indicating that I should come over to the bathroom, where her head poked out from the slightly ajar door.
I had to be seeing shit. It couldn’t be. Yet my eyes weren’t mistaken. “Josie? Is that you?” What the hell was my cousin’s girlfriend doing in the girls’ bathroom at Elmwood Public?
It had been months since I last saw her with my cousin. They were away at college, which made it even stranger that she was here at school. She had zero reason to be here.
Before I could ask, she reached out and grabbed my wrist, yanking me into the bathroom and shutting the door behind us. “Quick. Get in here.” She blew out a breath, her eyes darting toward the door as if she expected someone to barge in at any second. “I don’t think anyone saw you.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, confusion tightening in my chest. “Did something happen? Is Brock?—”
“I’m fine,” a deep voice cut in. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
I froze, turning so fast I nearly lost my balance, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight before me.
“Brock?” My throat closed.
My cousin leaned against the sink, arms crossed over his chest, his usually easygoing demeanor absent. His jaw was tight. Tense. And when his dark eyes landed on mine, something inside me cracked.
I launched myself at him. “Oh my god.” My arms wrapped around his solid frame, my breath hitching at the sheer familiarity of him. “You’re here. It’s really you.”
For months, I’d been surrounded by the Corvos. By strangers who acted like they knew me, by people who looked at me like I was a chess piece in some game I didn’t understand. But Brock?
His grip was firm when he hugged me back. “Who else were you expecting?”
I let out a shaky breath, stepping back. “Pretty much anyone but you.” Brock was a few years older than me, but his reputation at the academy still circulated the halls. Everyone knew the Elite, and others had tried to step into his shoes since he graduated, but my cousin and his friends were irreplaceable. No one had the skill set or reach the Elite did. My confusion only deepened. “How did you find me?”
His eyes darkened. “It wasn’t easy. But I have my ways.”
“Of course, you do.”
His lips pressed together. “You have quite the security detail, cuz.”
I scoffed. “Tell me about it. My godfather took his role as guardian literally.”
Brock flinched. “Are you okay?”
I hesitated. No. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
His stare was unwavering. “Kaylor.”
I exhaled sharply, looking away. “Other than threatening messages in my locker and nearly being kidnapped by some creep? Just peachy.”
Josie and Brock exchanged a look.
I caught it.
An ache bloomed beneath my ribs. “What?”
Brock pushed off the sink, his expression hard. “We don’t have much time.”
I dropped my bag on the floor, trying to read my cousin, which was an impossible task. “For what?”
“To warn you.”
A pause. A slow, sinking, suffocating pause.
I swallowed. “Warn me about what?” Not that I wasn’t happy to see him, but the girls’ bathroom was an unusual place to meet, and Brock never did anything without purpose.
Josie shifted beside me, worry etched in the furrow of her brows. “About Kreed, Maddox, and Mason.”
My heartbeat stumbled. “What about them?”
Brock’s jaw clenched. “Do you know who they are?”
“I’m assuming you mean the Raven Crew. I know they run Public. And I know they have a bad habit of making my life really fucking difficult.”
Josie’s eyes flicked up as she moved to Brock’s side. “It’s more than that.”
I fumbled with the gold chain dangling from my neck. “Then tell me.”
“They’re dangerous, Kaylor,” Brock said bluntly.
A sharp, humorless laugh escaped me. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Brock stepped closer. “I’m serious. You think you know them, but you don’t. You can’t trust them.”
I lifted my chin. “And how would you know that?”
Josie shifted. “Because I remember their older brother, Raine. He went to Public before I transferred to Elmwood.”
Raine.
The name landed like a blow to my stomach. I thought about the note in my locker. The man who tried to take me at the club. Maddox pinning me against the lockers, kissing me like he had every right to. Kreed pulling me into his bed, making me forget everything except him.
I swallowed hard. “You don’t understand,” I murmured. “It’s not that simple.” I didn’t think telling Brock I’d slept with Kreed was the right move. Who knew what he would do, and with the thought of Brock getting involved, I couldn’t decide if I was more worried about Kreed or my cousin.
Brock’s gaze burned into me. “It is that simple. Stay away from them.”
The thought of the two of them meeting sent ribbons of panic knotting inside me. They were from two different worlds that shouldn’t collide. My pulse pounded in my ears. “I don’t think I can.”
His eyes darkened. “Then you’re making a mistake.”
Silence.
Thick, suffocating silence.
“I want you out of that house,” Brock finally said. “Stay with me. My parents are overseas. No one will bother you.”
My chest squeezed. For months, I’d wanted nothing more than to get out of the Corvo mansion. To go home, and now Brock was offering me a way out. A ticket back to safety.
So why did it feel…wrong?
Why did the thought of leaving feel like ripping myself away from something I wasn’t ready to lose?
I wet my lips. “As much as I would love that, I can’t.”
Brock’s expression hardened. “Why?”
I hesitated. “Donovan is my legal guardian. If I disappear, he’ll send the cops after me. And you. I won’t put you in that position.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Well, I do.” Stubbornness ran in our blood.
His fists clenched. “I can take care of it. You’re family, Kay. You shouldn’t be living in that house.”
I forced myself to breathe. “It’s only four more months. I’ll be eighteen soon.”
“A lot can happen in four months.”
I knew that.
And that terrified me more than anything.
“Do you know anything about my parents?” I asked steadily, but inside, I was anything but. A taut ache unfurled in my chest as I met Brock’s gaze, searching for something—truth, reassurance, maybe even a lie I could cling to.
Our mothers were sisters. They had been close. They had talked. Surely, if there had been anything seedy going on, my mom would have told her. Or so I wanted to believe. I needed Brock to tell me that everything I’d heard about my father was just another twisted fabrication.
Brock’s expression hardened. “Like what?”
I swallowed, pulse hammering. “I don’t know. About my dad? His business?”
A shadow passed over his face, and a flicker of something I couldn’t quite place passed through his aqua eyes—hesitation, maybe regret. “Who have you been talking to?” His voice had lost its usual easy edge.
Josie placed a hand on his shoulder, a silent offer of comfort.
“No one.” I shrugged, playing it off, even as my stomach churned. “It’s just something I heard.”
His jaw tightened. One brow arched, sharp and skeptical. “From them?” His meaning was clear. Them—the Corvos. “You can’t believe anything they tell you, Kay. They can’t be trusted.”
I studied him carefully. He still hadn’t answered my question. My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “So it’s true, then?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “It’s complicated.”
Anger burned through me, hot and fast. “Not really. He either was or wasn’t mixed up in illegal shit.” My voice came out sharper than I intended, but I was done with half answers.
Brock exhaled heavily, running a hand through his hair. His hesitation was answer enough.
“Shit,” I muttered, my throat tightening. “It’s true.”
His gaze softened, but there was an urgency behind it, a plea. “He didn’t want you involved in this, Kay. It was part of his life before he met your mother. He tried to get out, tried to end it, but things got…complicated.”
“Yeah,” I said bitterly, rubbing my fingers up and down my arms. “You said that already.”
Brock took a step closer, Josie’s hand falling away from his shoulder. He lowered his voice. “Listen to me. It might not seem like it, but he was trying to protect not just you and your mom but an entire community. He had people who depended on him. Financially. For security. For survival. Not everything is cut and dry out there, Kay.” He shook his head, his expression resolute. “I don’t care what anyone says. Your father was one of the good guys.”
I let out a hollow laugh, but it caught in my throat. “One of the good guys who got himself killed.”
Something flickered in Brock’s eyes—guilt, pain, anger. I didn’t know which. Maybe all of them. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said quietly with an intensity that sent a chill through me. “You’re not alone. I’m watching you.”
Great. More fucking eyes on me.
Brock meant well. I knew that. But this this felt dangerous. A risk. What if Donovan found out? Something told me he wouldn’t like my cousin’s interference, no matter how well-intentioned it was.
Brock squared his shoulders. “And I’m going to do some more digging into the Corvos.”
That had my pulse stalling. “Brock, no?—”
He cut me off with a sharp look. “I appreciate you looking out for me, I really do, but I’m okay. I’ll be fine. And besides, as your older cousin, I should be the one who takes care of you. Let me.”
I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince him or myself, but I had to believe it.
I had to.
“Brock,” I called after him as he turned to leave.
He glanced back, his fingers already twining with Josie’s, the two of them an unshakable team.
“When will I see you again?”
His expression softened just a fraction. “I’ll be around. I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone.” His voice dropped slightly, a warning laced beneath it. “And Kay—be careful. Watch what you do and say on your phone. Keep your head down. And try not to cause trouble.”
The lump in my throat was impossible to swallow. A huge part of me wanted to go with him. He was safe. He was family. He was home. But no matter how much I wished it, I couldn’t ignore the cold truth slithering through me.
Regardless of my budding feelings for Kreed.
Regardless of the warnings.
Regardless of my longing to escape.
I was already in too deep.
And I wasn’t sure if there was a way out.