Chapter 3 #2
“About twenty minutes ago. I went to check something in the security office, and they were sitting at the desk yapping away with the door open.” He huffs out a derisive grunt.
“How did we end up in a timeline where the people in charge of keeping us safe from threats can’t even remember to close the damn door before they start spilling their secrets to each other? ”
“Nepotism and corruption,” I deadpan. “Just not the good kind.”
He snickers. “It’s funny you mention corruption because that’s exactly what’s going on with the elections.”
“What do you mean?”
“I overheard Rhys say that they closed the nominations this morning.”
I tilt my head in confusion. “I thought they closed them last week?”
“They were supposed to.” He crosses his arms over his broad chest. “But they kept them open for an extra five days and didn’t tell anyone.”
“Did they say why?”
The rules for the house elections are strict and are all laid out in the charter, and the consequences for breaking the rules range from fines and punishment to losing your membership. They’d have to have a damn good reason to break protocol, considering what could happen if they got caught.
He grins conspiratorially. “Yup, and this is where it gets really interesting. Apparently they’ve spent the last five days going to different guys in the house and asking if they want to accept their nominations.”
I wait for him to tell me the interesting part. Confirming that someone actually wants to run if they’re nominated is a normal part of the process. All four of us were asked if we accepted ours a week ago when the nominations were supposed to have closed.
“I know that look.” He tosses me one of his trademark smirks.
“But don’t you fret, I saved the good stuff for last. Here’s the part that will really bend your noodle.
” He pauses for what I assume is dramatic effect.
“None of the guys they talked to were actually nominated. They were legit going to fake the results if they managed to get those guys to say yes to their bogus nominations, but no one would take the bait, so they had to close the nominations and continue the process.”
“Seriously?”
Fabricating nominations and tampering with election results is an insane thing to do, and it’s way more serious than changing the nomination timeline.
That kind of shit will get you excommunicated, and depending on your motives or how much damage you’ve done to the frat, your entire family line could be joining you.
Someone would have to be either desperate or stupid to even attempt something like that.
With our leadership, it’s definitely the second one.
Our four current leaders went into their positions with the mentality that it’s them versus the rest of us, so nearly everything they do and all the decisions and changes they’ve made are for their benefit, and no one else’s.
This isn’t exactly surprising considering they’ve been doing shady shit for years, but because of the power and influence their fathers have with the alumni, they’ve never had to deal with any pushback or consequences for their many screwups and scandals.
The four of us have always been involved with frat business, and we’ve all worked with the leadership teams in some capacity since we were freshmen, but this year we made sure to get top-level positions so we can monitor things from the inside.
At least we’re not the only ones who see their incompetence, and I know we’re not the only ones in the house who don’t trust them.
There’s a reason Liam tells me about whatever he finds before he hands the information over to the leadership.
“Yup,” Hazen says. “I heard it loud and clear.”
“Why would they try to add people to the race?” I ask, trying to piece all this new information together. “Were they trying to get specific guys in place for strategic reasons?”
“Doubtful. It sounded like they were going to the guys they felt would be the most likely to say yes. Guys whose fathers or brothers were leaders, keeners, and other tryhards. “
“But why?” I ask. “Why do any of this?”
He grins. “Because there were only four nominations, and as per the rules, they now have to call off the elections and name us the winners.”
I laugh and settle back against the couch cushions. I wasn’t expecting that answer.
There are usually at least a few people running for each of the four leadership chairs. Some put their own names forward, and others get nominated by someone in the house, but there’s always multiple candidates for each position.
As far as I know, this would be the first time in the house’s history there haven’t been enough nominees for an election.
Being in the house leadership is a lot of work and responsibility, but it also comes with a ton of perks, like direct access to all the house and Keepers' secrets and a lifetime position of power within the alumni.
Those are the kinds of opportunities that guys will spend their entire lives trying to get, and the fact that no one even bothered to run against us says something.
All of our grandfathers and fathers were leaders, and now, as the first sons, it’s our turn.
And it seems the entire house is okay with that.
“Have you told the others?” I ask.
“Not yet. I’m pretty sure Rath is in the gym right now.
I’ll tell him when he stops ignoring his phone.
And I’ll text my dumbass brother to come see me when he gets back from whatever bridge he fell asleep under and fill him in then.
” He scrubs his hand through his hair again, messing it up even more.
“Thanks for being so boring and predictable that you were in the first place I looked so I didn’t have to waste my time tracking you down. ”
“Always glad to be of service,” I say dryly.
“Are you going to talk to your dad about any of this?” he asks, his expression shifting from amused to serious.
“I’m sure he’ll call with the news soon enough. He’ll know before they tell us.”
“Yeah, same with my old man.” He makes a face. “I hope to fuck he calls Connor first because I’m too hungover to deal with him right now.”
“What did you go to the security room for?” I ask, circling back to what he said when he first got to my room.
He stretches his arms above his head for a few beats.
“I was checking to see if we have access to any of the building blueprints the school has on file.” He drops his arms and leans back against the wall.
“I couldn’t find anything in the office, so I went to Liam’s room to see what he thinks about the video you took of Hawthorne breaking into that room at Baxter last night. ”
“Did you learn anything interesting?” I ask when he doesn’t continue.
Hazen and Connor’s minds both run at about a million miles a second and ping-pong around just as fast, but after a lifetime of friendship, I can usually sort through the info dumps and pick out what’s important in the moment, which is the only reason I can follow all the twists and turns this conversation has already taken.
“Depends what your definition of interesting is. He’s already hacked into the school’s primary system and downloaded the blueprints to Baxter House, and according to the plans he found, the room Xave broke into doesn’t exist.”
“How old are the plans?” I ask. “Like, how current are they?”
Most of the houses on campus go through some sort of renovation during the summer, so it’s possible this could just be a matter of the school having outdated blueprints on file.
“The stamp on them says they were filed in September.”
“Did the Baxter blueprints have anything to do with you wanting to look up our house blueprints?” I ask, trying to link those two pieces of conversation together.
“Sort of. I was thinking about the house lore and how they’ve never made a full map of all the shit behind the walls and how many ways there are to get around the place.
That made me curious about what records the school has on file and if that might be where the creeper in our walls got his info.
But thinking about that guy made me wonder what the fuck Hawthorne was up to last night, so I went to Liam to see if he could look up the Baxter plans to get us some answers, and of course, he was already all over that. ”
“Did he say if he was going to look into this mysterious room?” I ask, not at all surprised by how many side quests Hazen’s thought process took.
He nods. “He’ll text you about it later. He has a few things he wants to look into first. But no matter what he finds, this whole thing is already sus as hell.”
“It is,” I agree.
“Thank fuck we’ll be on vacation in a week. This shit is way above our pay grade.” He stifles a yawn. “I need to get away from this place before I lose my shit and make it everyone’s problem.”
“Yeah, thank fuck,” I echo. “Do you think you can keep your shit together the next five days?”
He grins. “I mean, I can try, but I make no promises.”
“You’re hopeless.”
“It’s pronounced awesome.” He flips me a peace sign and pulls open my door. “Imma go talk to Rath then pass out until I become a human again. Later.”
I wave as he leaves my room, my mind spinning as I process everything we just talked about.
We got some answers on the Xave thing, but those answers also brought up more questions.
We also just made house history by being the only group of leaders who don’t have to go through an election, we’re still dealing with our mystery trespasser, and now we have to worry about the leadership being shady and potentially sabotaging us and our shot at taking over next year.
Hazen is right, this shit really is above our pay grade.
Leaning closer to my computer, I switch camera feeds and watch the grainy black-and-white video on my screen. Almost a minute passes with no activity, and I switch to the next camera feed and scan for any signs of our intruder.