Chapter 22 Mara
TWENTY-TWO
MARA
My father stands behind Milo’s desk in the PTO house, his back to me, gazing out the tall glass window that looks over the grounds behind the house.
Milo lounges against a bookshelf with his arms crossed.
I can tell he’s pissed at me by the muscle ticking in his jaw.
He’s furious, though whether it’s truly at me or at how this reflects on him is anyone’s guess.
“Care to explain what the hell you were doing at the party the other night?” my father asks, his anger controlled. He still hasn’t turned to face me.
Not even a hello as I sit with the straightest pose in a chair that is far too big for me, legs crossed at the ankle, hands clasped in my lap, just like a well-trained doll.
My throat is tight, but I keep my chin high.
I’m running on three hours of sleep, my mind racing ever since Milo texted me that Dad wanted to come by and talk to the both of us.
He’s going to take me away.
He’s going to lock me away in their ivory tower.
I swallow, summoning every ounce of nicety left inside of me. “There was a party on Saturday. The entire campus was there.”
He lets out a soft, derisive snort. “Don’t play coy with me, Mara. You were seen with Omega Chi.”
My heart does a little flip, but I force a mild expression. “So?” I say lightly.
Across the room, Milo makes a disgusted sound.
“So? Are you serious?” he snaps, pushing off from the door.
He steps into the light, and I can see just how tightly he’s wound, his cheeks mottled red with barely-restrained anger.
“You were on Talon Reed’s lap, Mara. In public.
After, mind you, Dredyn Steele forced you to chug beers. ”
“I am twenty-one, just like you. I can drink. Plus, it was just a dare, nothing more.”
My father’s lip curls in disgust. “Those boys are dangerous,” he hisses. “You think I don’t know who Dredyn’s father is? Terrifyingly efficient man at what he does for the Syndicate. One wrong move and Dredyn Steele would use you as a pawn for his own benefit.”
There are three factions in AGU, each with their own roles to play.
Omega Chi is just typically the muscle of everything.
Dredyn Steele’s father pretends to be a financial advisor for Hughes Enterprises.
But he is, in fact, the guy who comes after you when dues aren’t paid. A hitman, some would say.
“The Syndicate made this university a stronghold for our future. We don’t fuck it up with teenage rebellion.”
I flinch internally at that. Stronghold. Yes, that’s what AGU is to him—a breeding ground for the next generation of power brokers under the Syndicate’s thumb. A safe haven for our kind.
Milo’s eyes flash at Father’s words. He’s always been eager to prove his loyalty to the cause. “Do you know how this makes me look?” Milo growls at me. “You think PTO is going to respect me when my twin sister is fucking around with the Omega Chi trash?”
Ah, there it is, Milo’s real concern. Not my well-being, not why I might have been with Omega Chi, but how it reflects on him. On his precious standing in PTO and the Syndicate. I swallow the bitter taste in my mouth.
“I told you,” I say quietly. “It was nothing.”
Milo isn’t entirely wrong. The sight of me on an Omega Chi lap is salacious gossip. It will undermine him, maybe even my father. That was the whole fucking point. So why is guilt pricking at me for hurting my brother’s feelings?
“I don’t believe you,” my father snaps.
A prickle of panic stirs in my chest. If he doesn’t believe me, there will be consequences.
They might pull me out of school, lock me away—who knows?
My mind scrambles. If he even suspected this thing with Talon was anything more…
But it wasn’t. It truly wasn’t. My humiliation, that flicker of illicit excitement at Dredyn’s eyes on me—none of it was supposed to happen. It was a dumb game.
I was so fucking stupid.
“You’re going to pull me out of school over a party?”
“Mara,” Milo warns. I ignore him.
I meet my father’s icy stare head-on. “You’d really rip me out of AGU and throw away an entire semester of carefully-staged headlines and curated photo ops? We both know I’m more useful here, at school, under Milo’s thumb, than locked away at home.”
He takes a single step forward, his presence looming. I have to force myself not to shrink back into the giant leather chair. “You are not indispensable, Mara. Don’t confuse your proximity to power with power itself.”
Of course. I’m a pawn. I’ve always known it, but hearing him say it so plainly still slices through me.
All my life I’ve been dressed up, paraded around, and used as the perfect political daughter when convenient—shaking hands, smiling for donors, playing the role of the bright, virtuous young woman who reflects well on her father.
I’m useful to him, but never essential. Never with real power of my own.
I mask the hurt with a cool, practiced expression. Blankness. I’m a porcelain doll, just like he likes me to be.
Milo shifts, clearing his throat. He looks between our father and me, sensing the silent battle of wills. “Chase is coming to the rally next week,” he announces, as if dropping a grenade between us. “He already heard rumors about… this. He’s pissed, Mara.”
A wave of revulsion and anxiety wash over me and I tighten my throat, fighting not to show it. I keep my eyes trained forward, on some indeterminate spot above my father’s shoulder. But I can feel Milo watching me. Being twins gives him an annoying window into my cracks.
Our father has resumed pacing behind the desk, hands clasped behind his back. His voice is deceptively calm now. “You’re promised to him.”
I picture Chase’s oily smile, the way his pale eyes slid over me the last time we met, as if undressing me in his mind. He’s handsome in that privileged, all-American way—tall, athletic, a former Ivy League golden boy—but none of that matters.
I force myself to respond. “Nothing happened.”
Father stops pacing. He fixes me with a long, hard look, as if trying to extract the truth from my soul by glare alone. “It better not have,” he says coldly.
Silence drapes over the room. My pulse thuds in my ears. I feel a bead of sweat trailing down my back beneath my crisp blouse. I stay perfectly still, a statue of obedience, waiting.
After an excruciating pause, Father adds, almost pleasantly, “Chase was promised a virgin.”
He did not just—
I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, anything to keep the hysterical laugh from escaping my lips.
A virgin. Right. They’ve promised to deliver me untouched, like some medieval treaty bride.
As if Chase’s entitlement to my body is the issue at hand, not the fact that he’s likely been screwing his way through half the women in his social circle while I’m paraded around as the virtuous prize.
It’s so absurd I could scream. But I do nothing of the sort. Instead, I lift my chin and look my father dead in the eye.
“Then he’ll get what he was promised,” I say softly. Each word tastes like poison, but I make myself swallow them down. Let him believe I’ve accepted my fate.
His gaze flicks to the door behind me. “Do I need to have your room checked? Arrange a medical test?”
“No.” My response is ice. I can’t keep all the bitterness out of my tone now.
“You raised me to be better than that.” Better than some silly, weak-willed girl who can’t control herself.
Better than the disappointment he’s implying I might be.
The hypocrisy burns. He raised me to be cold, calculating, chaste, and compliant.
A perfect little prop. And I’ve played the part well, haven’t I?
He straightens his jacket, smoothing an errant crease that isn’t there. “You want to stay at AGU?” he asks flatly.
“Yes.”
Father nods once. “Then clean up your image.”
Milo steps forward, looming at my side now. The disappointment rolling off him is palpable. His dark eyes—so like mine—are hard as stone. “And stay away from Omega Chi,” he spits. “I mean it, Mara. If I catch you anywhere near those OCK bastards, so help me—”
“I understand,” I cut him off quietly. I can’t bear to hear him finish that threat.
Milo, who used to be my closest confidant, now looks at me like I’m some stain on his honor.
Like I personally affronted him by stepping over an invisible line.
I keep my expression contrite, eyes downcast, even as anger simmers beneath my ribs.
Inside, something is writhing, coiling tighter with each order they bark, each humiliation they heap on me.
It’s not rage, not exactly. It’s not rebellion for its own sake. It’s something colder, more focused. Something dangerous.
Resolve.
Father studies me for a long moment, as if he can hear the defiant drum of my heart in the silence. I make sure my face betrays nothing. At last, he simply says, “You’re dismissed.”
Dismissed. Like a misbehaving child sent to her room. A fresh wave of humiliation washes over me, but I rise from the chair in one smooth motion. My legs are steady beneath me. I won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me stagger.
I give my father a shallow nod. My smile is demure, empty. “Of course, Father,” I say, my voice polished and polite.
Without another word, I turn and walk out of the office.
A pair of Milo’s frat brothers loiter near the corridor’s end, pretending not to watch. The second they spot me, they fall silent, gawking as I pass. I lift my chin and glare, enough to make them look away.
Outside, I suck in a breath of crisp air. The sky is cobalt blue, the sun slanting gold across ivy-wrapped columns.
I pause at the top of the steps, letting the October breeze cool my cheeks. My chest tightens, too full of anger, humiliation, and whatever else is clawing at my throat.
I want to scream.
Or cry.
Or throw something.
But I don’t. I just breathe.