Chapter 15
Xavier
“Shit,” I growl, and I immediately get up from the bed, still clutching the damn pillow to keep him from staring at my schlong.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
I pick up some underwear and a pair of pants from the stack of clean clothes. “What does it look like?”
I turn my ass to him and swiftly put on my clothes, but I can feel his eyes scorching my back.
“I know we’re both vying for the same girl, but I do have to say … nice ass, Caruso.”
I throw him an enraged glance over my shoulder. “Don’t need compliments, didn’t ask.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t dish them out.” He winks.
“Does she know?” I ask.
“What, that I’m handsome?”
I roll my eyes. “About the police.”
“Not that I know of.”
I fish my phone from my desk and immediately text her.
Me: Police are here. Outside SRU.
I retype the message several times to make it seem like a genuine surprise to a student, rather than obvious proof that could be used in court if they find out.
“So what’s the plan? It’s not like we can stop them from sniffing around,” Orion mutters as I tuck away my phone.
“No, but I want to know exactly what they know, and I want to hear it from their mouths.” I put on a blue shirt and waltz past him, shoving him out of the way with my shoulder.
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” he says, following me.
“Go bother someone else,” I growl back.
“Be grateful I came to tell you,” he says, pushing past me so he can be the first to take the staircase, but I won’t fucking let him.
We’re shoving each other down the stairs, neither of us granting each other the privilege of getting downstairs first. I don’t need that whimsical drunk getting in my way, especially not when it comes to her.
It’s already bad enough as it is that she chose to seduce him first so that she could find me.
“Get out of my way,” I say, shoving him with both hands when we’re both on the ground floor. “And don’t get near her.”
“Or what?”
My nostrils flare, and I shove my hand into my pocket, waiting for his eyes to follow.
“Are you trying to threaten me? At least bring out the knife you want to poke me with. Or are you all talk and no action?” His chest brushes up against mine, eyes full of disdain.
“Fuck you,” I grit, and I march out the door.
“Hey, I wasn’t done talking to you,” he barks as he follows me across campus.
“I am,” I retort, trying to get to my car.
“You think driving will work now?” he scoffs, snorting. “They’ve blocked off the roads. There’s no way you’re gonna pass.”
I stop and spin. “What do you want from me? Why do you keep following me?”
His lips part, and it takes him a while to respond. “Because we both have a stake in this.”
I shove my finger into his chest. “You. Don’t. Own. Her.”
He grips my hand, staring me down. “Neither do you.”
I seethe for a moment, wondering if it’s worth it to mess up his pretty face and deal with the aftermath. Tartarus House doesn’t appreciate fighting, but he sure deserves to be pummeled for the audacity of sticking his tongue up her pussy.
“You’re jealous,” he adds.
“You’re latching onto something that wasn’t yours to take,” I retort.
“I am merely a vessel for her pleasure,” he responds. “Just like you were when you decided to play fetch for one of her victims, and she captured you.”
My eyes widen. “Wait, what? How do you know I helped her?”
He tilts his head, a lopsided grin slowly adding to his disgustingly beautiful face. “You didn’t think you were the only one who knows how to stalk, did you?”
A chill runs up and down my spine. “You saw us.”
He claps his hands. “And what a magical performance it was. Couldn’t hear a thing, but my, my, what a show you put on.”
I slam my hand in front of his mouth. “If you tell anyone, I will cut your throat.”
He frowns.
“Blink if you understand, fucker.”
He blinks. Twice.
My hand slips from his mouth, and he immediately wipes his lips on his sleeve.
“So when are you going to do it?” he asks.
I frown. “What?”
“Cut my throat. I’m waiting.” He taps his foot. “Please, any time now.”
My face contorts, and I’m struck for a moment by how abhorrently his brain malfunctions on a daily basis. “What is wrong with you?”
He shrugs. “If you think threats are going to stop me from doing what I want, you’re dead wrong, Xavier.”
I roll my eyes and walk off. “I’m done here. Do whatever the fuck you want. I don’t care.”
“Yeah, you do. You don’t want anyone to find out about Sunny and you,” he says, trailing me. “But why? If I were you, I’d shout off the rooftops that she chose me.”
“It’s complicated, okay?”
“Only because you make it complicated. It doesn’t have to be,” he says.
Goddammit, why can’t he stop following me?
“I’m not talking to you about that,” I reply.
“No, you want to hide behind jealousy and cowardice,” he quips.
“I’m not a fucking coward,” I growl over my shoulder.
“No? Then why didn’t you just kill me?”
I stop and turn around to shout in his face, “Because she would kill me. And unlike you, I don’t have a death wish.”
He raises his brow. “Why would she ever kill you?”
“Because we’re her playthings now. She’ll do whatever she wants, when she wants, and if I take away any of her fun, she’ll end it all,” I hiss, hoping no one else hears this awkward convo as we head toward the gates of Spine Ridge University.
“Nonsense.”
“Whatever you say, pretty boy,” I growl as I keep on walking.
“You’re just mad you’re that beauty’s boy toy now, and you wanna take it out on me.”
“Go write about it in your little book,” I retort.
“Ouch. No need to hurt the poet, Xavier.”
“You haven’t been hurt enough.”
“Don’t worry, boy toy, I’ll keep your filthy little secret … for her sake.”
I throw him a maddening look. “Stop calling me that.”
He smirks. “Why? It suits you just as well as pretty boy suits me.”
I snort. “You’re dumb as fuck if you think that was meant as a compliment.”
“I know, but I choose to ignore your blatant taunts and focus on the positive side. Keeps me from languishing.”
He’s insufferable. “Why are you still following me?”
He lifts his gaze high in a snooty manner. “I’m not. We just happen to be walking in the same direction.”
I roll my eyes at him. “I don’t know what she sees in you.”
“Likewise. Though I reckon things will be much easier for both of us if you’d just give in.”
I ignore him and storm out the gates to head down the long-winded road with a rock wall on one side and a sprawling forest on the other.
We’re not the only students walking down the mountain on foot as curiosity takes hold.
Everyone wants to know exactly what the police found, and the lower we get, the more the crowd begins to gather.
Police cars are blocking people from driving up and down the road, but they can’t stop students from approaching the area through the forest, so I sneak off the road and into the woods, with Orion tailing right behind me.
Near the clearing, a bunch of vans and equipment are setting up. People walk about with cameras, taking measurements and collecting evidence, while the body Sunny left in the chair remains clearly visible in the light of day.
I swallow away the lump in my throat as I peek beyond the trees. Orion approaches from behind.
“Shhh,” I hiss as his foot snaps a twig. “Stop making so much noise. They’re gonna spot us.”
“You really think they care about a bunch of snooping students while they have a body on their hands?”
I peer through the foliage and push some branches aside to get a better view, but another student accidentally trips on a rock, and the cops glare in our direction.
Shit.
Atreus
In the middle of an ongoing investigation, several of my men stop to stare at the woods beyond, and I follow their gaze, only to be thoroughly disappointed.
Of course, those devils at the Spine Ridge University would find a way to meddle in affairs they have no stake in just to see who got hurt. Bunch of vultures.
“Get out, show’s over,” one of my men yells.
I take a drag of my cigarette and watch about ten students stroll out of the woods with their hands up like they got caught stealing. Two of them seem awfully familiar to me, and I narrow my eyes to try to decipher whose spawn I’m looking at.
Blond, curly hair, chiseled face, Adonis-looking sculpture of a man with the brains of a pigeon that just flew into a car. And then we’ve got Mr. I’m-Not-Scared hiding his poor judgment behind his messy brown hair while pretending not to give a fuck about getting caught.
Amateurs.
“Anybody else?” I bark.
More students appear from behind trees, and I flick my fingers at my men to throw a blanket over the body before they get a closer look. Don’t need to traumatize more people with a butchered corpse than necessary, especially when they’re still young and … malleable.
“We just wanted to see what happened,” one of them mutters.
More students approach from the streets, blocked only by our perimeter tape and two officers guarding the line. I don’t want any of them sniffing around here, but news travels fast on that campus, and I want to nip any rumors in the bud.
“A murder,” I reply.
Some of them suck in a breath.
“And if you’re smart, you’ll go back to your apartments and stay there, because the killer could be one of your own.”
They all look at each other like I’m pointing fingers, but I know damn well the perp is on these grounds. I just have to smoke them out of their den.
It’s a shame the body had to be found by a student who was just going on her daily walk through the rough terrain for sport. The poor girl looked shaken and completely out of it by the time we found her after she’d called us.
Suddenly, the dean of Spine Ridge, Felix Rivera, barges through the crowd and shoves aside one of my men to gain access to the crime scene.
“What are you doing, Rivera?”
“I want to know what the hell is going on here,” he growls, but when his eyes find the bloodied blanket in the middle of the open grass, he swallows. “A body?”
“Now you see what your lack of rules have brought about,” I say.
He shakes his head. “This is outside Spine Ridge U grounds. This has nothing to do with—”