Chapter 3
Three
LEO
The day after homecoming…
I don’t sleep.
Not for one second.
I just sit on the edge of my bed in the dark, replaying every moment from homecoming like someone keeps jamming a screwdriver into my skull and twisting.
I knew they didn’t like her.
I knew they whispered.
I knew they judged her for being the scholarship girl, the outsider, the one who didn’t belong in their glossy, curated world.
But I didn’t think—
I didn’t think they’d do that.
I should have.
Because I’ve been in this circle my whole damn life. I know how it works.
You cross the wrong girl?
You make the wrong choice?
You go against the script?
People pay for it.
And they made Jade pay.
For me.
I chose her.
I crowned her.
I told every single one of them she was mine, my queen, the girl I loved.
They didn’t touch me—because no one ever touches me.
I’m too golden. Too worshipped. Too untouchable.
So they destroyed her instead.
Because hurting her was how they could hurt me.
And I let it happen.
I’m the one who should have been covered in slime.
Not her. Never her.
My hands shake.
I stand up so fast my chair falls over behind me. The sun hasn’t even risen. I’m still in my clothes from the dance. My jacket smells like her perfume.
I want to tear my own skin off.
Around six in the morning, I storm downstairs. My mother is already up, wrapped in her silk robe, sipping her green juice at the marble counter like yesterday wasn’t a fucking disaster.
When she sees me, she lights up—fake bright, country club bright.
“Oh, Leo,” she says. “Thank goodness. Your aunt called me at midnight asking if those rumors were true—”
I don’t let her finish.
“You did this.”
Her brows pinch. “Excuse me?”
“You,” I spit. “YOU did this. You broke us up. You pushed me until I caved. And then you left her alone with THEM. You left her with the wolves, Mom.”
She blinks like I’m speaking a foreign language.
“Leo, what are you even talking—”
“They slimed her. At homecoming. In front of the entire school.”
A tiny gasp escapes her. The back of her hand flies to her chest.
“Oh my ,” she whispers. “Yes, I saw the posts… people were asking if you were still with that girl. I told them of course not, that you had higher standards, and that—”
“STOP TALKING.”
She does, finally.
My jaw clenches so hard I feel something pop.
“You’re disgusting,” I say quietly. “Sometimes I think I actually hate you.”
Her eyes widen.
She’s offended.
Not horrified. Not ashamed.
Just offended.
“Leo,” she snaps, “you’re being dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” My voice breaks on the word. “You are JUST as bad as the girls who slimed her.”
She scoffs, snatches her purse off the counter, straightens her robe like this is beneath her.
“Your emotions are ridiculous right now. I’m going to the club.”
And she walks out.
Just like that.
Like she didn’t just pour gasoline on everything I ever cared about.
Something in me snaps.
I grab the nearest crystal vase and hurl it at the wall. It shatters.
The sound feels good.
I knock over a lamp. Kick a chair. Rip a painting off the wall because I hate the smug little smile on my own face in the background of the family portrait.
My dad barrels down the stairs, trying to get a grip on me.
“Leo—stop. STOP.”
I shove away from him, chest heaving.
He grabs my shoulders harder, forcing me to meet his eyes.
“Son,” he says quietly, “you can’t help her if you fall apart.”
That slices through me.
Just a little.
I pull away.
I can’t breathe in this house.
I run.
I run out the door into the freezing morning air, barefoot, in sweats, no jacket. The cold hits me like a slap, but it doesn’t stop me.
If anything, it fuels me.
I run five miles through the biting wind, lungs burning, legs screaming, mind beating the same thought into me over and over:
I should have protected her.
I should have seen it coming.
I should have never listened to my mother.
I should have chosen her.
I should have chosen her.
When I reach Jade’s house, the windows are dark.
No lights.
No car.
No sign of life.
It looks… abandoned.
My chest caves in.
“Her security is shit,” I mutter under my breath. “Anyone could walk right in.”
I pace the driveway, running my hands through my hair, trying not to scream.
My fingers itch toward my phone.
I could call in favors.
I could track her.
I could find out exactly where she is within minutes.
But she’d hate me for it.
She’d never forgive me.
I stand there, panting in the cold, wind howling through the empty street like it’s echoing the sound in my chest.
I close my eyes.
“Where are you, baby?” I whisper into the wind.
It doesn’t answer.
“How the hell am I supposed to get you back?”
The only reply is the sharp bite of winter and the hollow ache of I can’t be in my house another second.
Not with the broken glass.
Not with the echoes of my mother’s bullshit ringing in the walls.
Not with the heavy silence that feels like punishment.
So I get in my car and just… drive.
Cold air blasts through the cracked window. My fingers ache on the wheel. I don’t even know where I’m going until I pull into the diner’s parking lot. My body moves on autopilot—caffeine, sugar, anything to stop the shaking.
I’m halfway out of the car when I see it.
Her.
Aunt Susan’s beat-up silver sedan pulls into the traffic lane.
And in the passenger seat—
Jade.
Her hair is short.
Her face is turned toward the window.
She looks… wrecked.
Fragile.
Gone.
The breath leaves my body.
I don’t think. I just slam back into my car and pull out, nearly clipping a minivan. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like my ribs are cracking open.
“Susan,” I mutter. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.”
But she does.
She guns it.
That old sedan should NOT be able to move like that, but she takes a sharp right, then another, tearing down side streets like she’s been training for a drag race her whole damn life.
I press harder on the gas.
My sports car growls, but she’s faster than she has any right to be.
At one point, Jade turns in her seat.
Our eyes meet in the side mirror.
One half-second.
One impossible, breathtaking half-second.
She freezes.
I freeze.
Then Susan yanks the wheel again, and they disappear behind a row of shops.
“What—” I choke out. “No. No, no, no—”
I speed ahead, take the turn so hard the tires screech—
And she’s gone.
Just… gone.
Like she evaporated into the cold New England air.
I roll to a stop in the middle of an empty intersection, gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles go white.
Then, against all logic, a small, bitter laugh slips out of me.
A humorless smirk tugs at my lip.
“I just got dusted,” I whisper, “by a fifty-five-year-old woman in a car older than me.”
Any other day, I’d admire it.
Today it feels like another knife.
I sit there for a moment, breathing hard, chest heaving, trying to figure out how I lost her again—physically this time, not just emotionally.
The anger floods back fast.
I grab my phone and call the only person who won’t feed me bullshit.
Tristan answers on the first ring.
“What’s up?”
“Meet me downtown,” I say, voice low, vibrating with fury. “Now.”
“Leo—”
“I said NOW.”
I hang up before he can talk sense into me.
Because right now, I don’t want sense.
I want answers.
I want Jade.
I want the truth.
I want blood.
And I’m not stopping until I get at least one of them.
Downtown Newport is gray, windy, miserable, and somehow perfect for the mood I’m in. I’m pacing outside a coffee shop that isn’t even open yet. My breath fogs. My hands are shaking.
Tristan jogs over, shoves his hands into his hoodie pocket.
“Bro. You look like shit.”
I laugh. It’s hollow. “I feel worse.”
Before he can answer, X walks up—hood up, jaw tight, eyes scanning the street.
“Not here,” X mutters immediately. “Not in the open.”
“I can’t talk about this anywhere,” I snap. “I’m so fucked up, guys. This is so fucked up.”
Tristan leans against the wall. “Deep breaths, Shakespeare.”
“I’m serious,” I growl. “I’m in love with her. I’ve been in love with her. And I lost her over this stupid, elitist, golden-spoon, bloodline bullshit!”
A couple walking a dog glances over. X shoots them a warning look.
I press my palms to my eyes, my voice cracking.
“I ruined everything. I broke up with her for my mom’s sake. And what did I do? I left her to the wolves. And they tore into her.”
Tristan snorts. “Bro—if I were Jade, I wouldn’t take you back either. You look like you haven’t slept since the Revolutionary War, and you smell like regret.”
X elbows him. “Not helping.”
I rake my fingers through my hair, pacing again.
“How do I get her back?” I ask. “How the hell do I fix this?”
X sighs. “First? Accept that Royal Oaks is in full panic mode. The administration already made calls. They’re not taking sides. They can’t. If they expelled the girls behind this, they’d lose half their endowments.”
I swear under my breath. “Of course. Because money means more than a girl’s dignity.”
“Security footage?” Tristan asks.
“Cut,” X says. “Like, conveniently cut. Cameras go dark. No footage. No timestamps. No trace.”
I clench my teeth so hard it hurts. “So they’re going to get away with it.”
“Unless,” X says, “someone finds out who actually did it.”
I look between them.
“Maybe I won’t get her back,” I admit quietly. “But maybe I can get her justice.”
Tristan’s eyes flicker with something dark. “So what’s the play?”
I swallow.
“We infiltrate from the inside.”
X raises an eyebrow. “Meaning?”
“I fake-date,” I say slowly. “One of the girls. Or a few. The ones who run their mouths. They’ll talk. They always talk. When they think I care about them.”
Tristan lets out a humorless laugh. “I’m down, but it has to be you. None of them would spill anything to me. I’m not royalty.”
X nods. “They’ll trust you. They think you’re one of them.”
I feel sick.
Because I am one of them.
And I hate it.