Chapter 6
six
The knock on my door has me scrambling to find my full balaclava. When it’s over my head, I unlock the three deadbolts on my door and throw it open.
A tall, buff guy with black hair gives me a deadpan look behind his russet-colored eyes.
“It’s just me, you freak,” Apollo says, strolling in like he owns the house.
“Being president doesn’t allow you to just waltz inside,” I say, shutting the door behind him, re-checking the locks, then yanking off my mask.
“No, but being your only friend does.” His lumbering body takes up space on my gaming chair, and I wave my hand at him to move. With a roll of his eyes, he shifts to the club chair in the corner, tossing his arms over the sides.
I minimize the screens I’d been scanning, starting with the president’s house. Then, Omega… I’ve been watching too long—her, mostly. Every blink, every breath. Before my best friend can get a peek at anything, I bring up some classwork and Call of Duty on the main monitor.
There was a time I was good at headshots. Fast. Focused. Strategic.
Now? I’ve upgraded my internals.
She’s the only game that matters.
“Are you coming to the meeting tonight?” he asks, picking some lint off his gray slacks.
“Do I have to?”
“It’s the Terror Tuesday one, so yeah. You have to participate.”
My neck muscles tighten. I never wanted to become part of this, but as West Tech’s heir, joining a Greek House at Northview University was expected. I decided to make the most of it… Play a game of espionage, subterfuge, and revenge.
“I do enough for the family,” I tell him with an arched eyebrow.
He’s quiet for a moment, letting it sink in. The way we got him to where he is. The hacking I do to keep the Deltas safe.
Finally, we catch eyes. “Yeah, I know you do.”
Placing his elbows on his knees, he leans forward, while I pretend to focus on the paper due tomorrow. Not that I’m writing it. The code runs, scrapes, and stitches together citations while I track camera feeds.
He clears his throat. “The chop went smoothly. Lynx didn’t kill anyone we didn’t plan for. That’s a win. Thanks for keeping him in line. Your brother’s interested in joining them next time.”
I snap my gaze to his. “The fuck? Nerd doesn’t know how to drive, let alone how to shoot. Nah, leave him out of that shit. He’s got clean hands. Let’s keep it that way.”
Another knock, and I jolt. Apollo chuckles low and long.
“What?” I grit out, grabbing my mask, but his hand snags it before I can.
“You. Fucking paranoid. Never smoke weed, my friend.”
Oz yells, “It’s just me!”
With a sigh, I unlock the door and wave him in, then lock it once more.
“Fuck, this is the most people you’ve had in your room,” Oz says, tongue toying with the piercings on his lip.
“Yes. Yes, it is.” My tone is a loaded gun. They ignore it. Oz flops back dramatically on my bed like it’s his.
“Are you going to join Vander, Valor, and me in the Call of Duty tourney coming up, or skip out again?” Oz arches an eyebrow at me, but already knows the answer.
I used to lose hours in those lobbies with Oz and my brothers. Tension in my fingers, headset tight, the rest of the world tuned out. But now, I don’t need simulations. I’ve got a live target.
“I’m busy—”
“Busy…” he interrupts. “You haven’t been playing much. Not since the start of the semester. Does a certain hobby have anything to do with it?” He scans my monitors, and I flinch, then make sure my camera feeds are still minimized.
Apollo shoots me a glance, unreadable but sharp. He knows. They both probably do. But neither of them will say it out loud unless I crack first.
The truth? I’ve been obsessed. Spending too many nights tracing her movements, gathering intel, confirming theories.
Maybe I snapped too early with Hunter—but after years of watching her from afar, I couldn’t wait any longer.
Not with her on the verge of being handed off like a prize to someone like him.
That tiny sorority bedroom. Her scent. The heat of her skin so close… It all broke something in me. Shattered the last restraint I had.
So now? The plan is to move forward. No more simulations.
Schooling my face, I grunt. “Classwork.”
Oz releases a chuckle, like he finds my lie amusing. “So, if you’re not coming to the meeting, can I borrow your mask and pretend to be you?”
“Sure,” I say flatly, clicking away at my screen. “Just learn four dialects, memorize five backdoor server routes, and look like a sex-deprived cryptid.”
Apollo chokes on a laugh.
Oz flips me off without looking. “Please. I’d be a charismatic cryptid. A folk legend. They’d write books about me.”
“They write books about you already,” Apollo mutters, stretching his long legs. “They’re just in the mental health section.”
“Jealousy is an ugly color on you.” Oz wiggles his tongue ring at him.
Ignoring him, Apollo looks at me. “Do you ever leave this room? Like, have you touched grass recently?”
I swivel slowly in my chair. “I touch servers, Apollo.”
“Bro.”
“I’ve been out,” I deadpan. “But going outside is overrated. So are people. Present company included.”
Oz grins. “Don’t lie; you like us.”
“I tolerate you.”
“You did that whole fake relationship thing for me last year,” Oz points out, folding his arms behind his head. “That’s love.”
“That was strategic. Your stalker was posting about carving your initials into his skin.”
“Yeah, but he was hot.”
Apollo groans.
I toss a stress ball at Oz. He catches it with one hand and starts juggling it with his vape. “Anyway, Valen…if you’re not planning a murder, or seducing someone through digital blackmail, what are you doing tonight?”
“Working. Watching.”
“Watching who?” Oz lifts an eyebrow.
“Don’t,” I warn him with a glare.
Apollo takes the hint and, after picking at a hangnail like he’s performing surgery, changes the subject. “You’ve got, like, twenty-five monitors in here, and somehow, none of them stream sports. Tragic.”
“I stream the end of dynasties,” I mutter.
Oz whistles low. “God, that’s such a Valen thing to say. Like, you could just say, ‘I like dismantling frat houses,’ but no, you gotta be poetic about it.”
Part of me wishes to depart from the truth…that I want to take down more than just the houses. I want to destroy the entire thing. But I let it go.
With a quick flip, I shove a protein bar across the desk toward Apollo until it falls off the edge. He catches it mid-air without looking. “You’re a weird little caretaker, you know that?”
“Better than you passing out from not eating again.”
“One time,” he grumbles as he peels it open like it personally offended him. “And we were just freshmen then.”
My grimace drags up the memory anyway—our first-year dorm, hot as hell, the fan broken for a week, both of us half-dead and trying to act invincible. Three years later, I guess not much has changed. We’re just better at pretending.
Oz has moved on to stealing sips from my energy drink on the nightstand like he pays rent. “If you die before me, I’m auctioning off this room. Gonna call it the Cult Cradle.”
“Touch anything in here, and I’ll replace your blood with coolant,” I say, tapping away at the keys.
He grins like that’s a compliment. “Freakin’ love when you talk nerdy.”
Apollo lifts an eyebrow at me. “Get to the meeting and out of this cave. Stretch your legs. Haunt someone in person for once.”
To anyone else, a command from the Delta president would stick. But because of who my father is, that role was supposed to be mine. No way in hell did I want the responsibility. Let alone showing my face… talking to people…
In classes, yes—I’m unmasked. But I never speak. Never stay long. Everywhere else? It’s mask time.
Teachers, staff, the higher-ups, they all know who I am by name. But I keep to myself. Sit in corners. No one notices. Even eradicated my own student ID pictures from the servers. Never to be found again.
I’m a ghost. Just the way I like it. And Apollo understands why.
We both know what we did to get him the presidency so that I could avoid it. He doesn’t have money or a bloodline. It wasn’t pretty. But after our little task, we were bonded for life. Now I do whatever the fuck I want, and my best friend—my only friend—lets it slide.
“I’m busy,” I tell him.
“Busy watching Olivia sleep?”
My hand stills on the keyboard as my tongue finds its way into my cheek.
Oz spins once more. “See? Twitchy. Told you.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “You guys are the worst.”
Apollo shrugs. “She’s Theta-adjacent. Cardell’s sister. You know that’s useful.”
“I’m not using her.”
“I didn’t say you had to feel good about it.”
Oz stretches, shirt riding up just enough to show the carved V-line he absolutely knows he has. Typical sophomore—cocky, irreverent, and testing every boundary Apollo sets. “I still think she’s cute. The wholesome ones usually have the freakiest porn searches.”
“I’m ignoring that,” I say as I delete a string of code with extra aggression.
Apollo leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees again. “Just think about what we could do if we brought Theta down. You’d be saving her. And cracking the whole fucking hierarchy.”
“You think she’s a Trojan horse.”
“I think she’s already inside the gates. And you’re the only one paying attention.”
I don’t say it out loud, but the idea of Olivia alone in a room with Cardell’s kind makes my stomach twist. If I’m watching, at least I’ll know she’s safe. Or know who to kill. A long beat passes. I don’t look at them. But I grab my mask and slide it on.
“I’ll go.”
Oz whistles again. “Damn. He’s putting on the mask. Shit’s about to get ceremonial.”
Apollo smirks, finishing his protein bar. “Terror Tuesday just got interesting.”
Delta Pi Alpha’s secluded meeting room smells of cedar and smoke—like old money trying to hide its rot. I adjust the mask, my eyes sweeping across the faces already in place. New initiates. Old families. Power shifting hands with every glance.