Chapter 5 - Kieren
KIEREN
Eight Months Prior to Present Day,
Early January, Junior Year,
Sigma
“Look at your girl, Jacey, posting more thirst traps,” I taunt, never failing to use my favorite nickname for my friend. I know he hates it, but that’s his problem.
“Fuck off, Kieren.”
I chuckle, because it’s so fucking fun getting under Jace’s skin, not to mention, it’s so simple.
Damn it feels good to be back. Only those in my inner circle knew I was returning, specifically Barrett, Harrison, Jace and Sigma’s outgoing doormat of a president.
Good fucking riddance with that one. He was worse than Knox.
The mere thought of Knox Sterling, who was the president of Sigma when I pledged my freshman year, is infuriating.
That motherfucker went out of his way to make my life miserable.
It’s a good thing he was only around for one semester.
Golden boy Knox graduated in three years and now is in law school at Stanford.
Of course, I know his family. Everyone knows of the Sterlings.
Now prominent politicians, the Sterlings are decedents of Scottish nobility, complete with a crest of arms, which the asshole has tattooed on his back so he can rub his superiority in everyone’s face.
The number of times I caught that prick staring at Monroe when she would come to Sigma for parties would rile even the most tolerant, but he knew better than to make a move, especially after what happened at the Sigma alumni homecoming event my freshman year.
I don’t give a fuck if I was a lowly underclassman he thought he could squash under his feet.
If he touched Monroe, so much as brushed her arm in a chance passing, I would drain the fucking life from his eyes with a smile on my face.
Pushing my memories of Knox asshole Sterling aside, I scroll through the last handful of social media posts from Jace’s ex-girlfriend, Gabi.
He won’t admit this, but I know he’s never fully gotten over their breakup.
He pined for that girl our entire sophomore year like a sad puppy dog, yet all he could do was watch her have the time of her life from the sidelines.
I’ll give her credit. She never missed an opportunity to parade her desirability in his face by flirting with any junior or senior Sigma brother who would give her the time of day.
Which was all of them, I laugh to myself.
She’s not my type, but the first time I laid eyes on Gabi, I thought she was objectively one of the most beautiful women I’d seen.
Poor Jacey. Every party, every social post, every run-in he had with her on campus just made him angrier and angrier.
Just as I had hoped. I think he fucking loathes the girl now, and I’m happy to stoke his ongoing hatred with any silage I can find. I need Jace focused on the big picture.
“Did you read her caption? ‘It’s true what they say about Spanish men,’ followed by an eggplant emoji!” I quote, feigning judgement at her lewd comment.
“Seriously, Kieren, shut the fuck up,” Jace shouts as he stuffs workout clothes into a gym bag.
For someone who has been in my circle of friends for years, he should know by now that I love to push buttons, yet he continues to wear his emotions on his sleeve around me like a child.
I wonder if he’ll ever learn that his volatility makes him easy to manipulate? Well, not my problem.
I raise my palms in supplication. “Easy killer. I forget how sensitive you get over some undeserving bitch who broke your heart. How long has it been? A year-and-a-half? I figured you’d be over her by now.”
“I am over her,” Jace snaps, which we both know is a lie.
“When was the last time you got some?” I ask.
“Some girl on New Year’s Eve.”
“What was her name?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Don’t remember.”
“Sounds like she made a lasting impression,” I tease.
I lounge on a couch in the generously sized common area that adjoins my presidential bedroom suite at Sigma.
The president’s quarters are palatial as fuck and best of all, semi-private.
My rooms, yes, plural, are at the end of a long hallway, and the common room sits between my bedroom and Barrett’s room, creating a natural sound barrier of sorts.
The south wall of my bedroom faces the parking lot behind Sigma house, the east wall faces a patch of woods, which border the nearby gorge.
It’s quite serene really. A hallway separates my quarters from Jace’s room.
Harrison is in the room one door down from Jace.
The most exciting part of this room configuration is that all of us have en suite bathrooms, a privilege only awarded to the seniors who hold executive positions in the fraternity.
It’s blissful, really, because I plan to fuck Monroe into the next dimension at all hours of the day and night, and I’d prefer not to have sophomore and junior grunts jerking off to her screams.
Jace stuffs another piece of gym apparel into his bag.
“Not all of us have someone like Monroe wrapped around our pinky finger.”
I make a show of looking down at my grandfather’s Sigma ring, thinking about how sweet Monroe is going to taste tonight. “She is quite the compliant trophy, isn’t she? Well, don’t worry, Jacey. Once you fuck some freshman pussy, you’ll feel better.”
He snorts, which I take as a sign of agreement.
“Speaking of freshman pussy, what’s the plan with the Sigma Sinners tradition?”
“I think you mean Sigma Little Sisters. I’m rebranding the name to make it more palatable. I don’t think being called a Sinner has quite the lure and wholesome appeal as being called a Little Sister,” I explain. Jace huffs a clipped laugh at my ingenuity.
“Anyway,” I continue, “the executive team, which, don’t forget, includes you, is meeting tomorrow to discuss the rollout to the rest of Sigma.
We’ll need everyone’s buy-in, especially the new pledges as they’ll be the ones responsible for recruitment.
That said, I’ve already had side conversations with most of the existing brotherhood.
Everyone seems feral and horny, so I’d classify their reactions as excited.
The first Full Moon Ceremony will happen next month, and I’m hopeful by then we can initiate a few dozen.
Some of the guys have already begun composing their lists. ”
“Next month, as in February?” Jace questions. “Then why did my brother text me that he’s coming for the first Ceremony in March?”
Fucking Reid Carver. I should have known.
“And how is your dear older brother?” I ask, deflecting. “Divorce still beating the shit out of him?”
Jace shakes his head. His relationship with Reid has always been strained. Reid, ever the darling child, and Jace, the unplanned pregnancy that came six years later.
“Fuck if I know,” Jace comments as he zips his gym bag. “I hardly talk to the guy.”
“Pity,” I offer, my insincerity obvious.
No one is supposed to know names. Anonymity affords plausible deniability and must be strictly enforced. If I knew which email address was associated with Reid, I would fire off a scathing note immediately telling him to shut the fuck up if he knew what was good for him.
Clearly, that motherfucker doesn’t. Didn’t seem to know what was good for him when he married his college girlfriend, either.
“You know, he’s not supposed to tell you he’s coming here. You’re not supposed to know.”
“I know,” Jace states. “He said as much, albeit in an aloof, ambiguous sort of way. Very Reid-like of him. He texted, ‘If you see me at the Sigma Full Moon Ceremony in March, no you didn’t.’”
I huff a mocking laugh. “I don’t think you’d recognize him, which I assumed he would know, but whatever,” I say.
From the renderings I’ve seen sketched in the lost chapters of the Sigma Charter Book kept in the hidden room, elders present at the Ceremony wear a black, horned mask in honor of our fallen God that covers their entire face.
It also seems like black robes are common as well, but judging by the fact that Jace never misses an opportunity to go shirtless, my guess is Reid’s the same.
The apple never falls far from the tree.
“What’s the deal with all this shit anyway and why the fuck are alumni coming?” Jace asks.
“Because it’s our fucking tradition, Jace.
Our rite of passage as Sigma. We are owed this opportunity.
We would have had it if recent pledge classes didn’t fuck everything up, get us kicked off campus, and then turn into pussies.
Sigma is hanging on by a thread, Jace. By a fucking thread.
Don’t you remember freshman year when Colin Coates basically threatened to cut off all funding to Sigma if we didn’t bring back Sigma Sinners during my presidency?
These are not rational people, Jace. They are some of the most powerful people on the planet, people who deal almost exclusively in the currencies of blood and pussy.
People who are the sole reason why the two of us grew up living in mansions, even though our fathers barely lifted a finger.
And I don’t know about you, but I’m sure as fuck not going to jeopardize my future over some faceless cunts who are already begging to get fucked by Sigma dick anyway.
If we don’t resurrect these traditions that are ingrained in the heritage of our brotherhood, the entire thing collapses. ”
“I don’t know how I feel about ‘these traditions’,” Jace responds.
“It’s one thing to bring back Sigma Sinners, or Sigma Little Sisters, whatever you want to call it.
Plenty of fraternities have Little Sister programs that they claim are a way to create mentorship bonds between sororities and fraternities.
We all know it’s just a sex thing, though.
But this other tradition my father told me about…
I don’t know, Kieren, if I have the stomach for this medieval times shit.
My father was practically giddy, which is not a good thing. ”
Fury boils under my skin at his cowardice, and I point an accusatory finger. “I need you to get your fucking head right, Jace,” I shout, “because I’m sure as fuck not losing access to my trust fund because you decide to suddenly have a moral compass.”
“I do have my fucking head right!” he shouts back. “You think you’re the only one with a psychopath father? You think my dad didn’t dangle my trust fund over my head if I didn’t fall in line?” he yells, pointing to himself. “You know how badly I want to get away from that man.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Would you kill for it? For your freedom?”
“Yes,” he seethes, quieter now. “I’ll do what I have to do, but that doesn’t mean I have to approve. These elders, as you call them, are sick fucks.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to the world we live in, Jacey. You know, Barrett and Harrison don’t seem to have a problem. On the contrary, they seem quite eager.”
“Barrett and Harrison are animals,” Jace says with a shake of his head. “Are you going to tell the rest of the fraternity?”
“Fuck no, are you crazy? The Ritual of Sacrifice is on a need-to-know basis only.”
“You don’t think people will ask questions?” he asks.
“I think they’ll be too preoccupied by the thought of being balls deep in a fifty-person orgy to notice or care. But, if anyone becomes a problem, I’ll deal with them.”
I reach behind my back, and I can’t help but smile at Jace’s stunned and terrified face.
“Kieren, what the actual fuck?” he stammers. “A gun? Really?”
“I don’t expect you to understand the pressure I’m under, Jace, or what I stand to lose if the Ritual of Sacrifice doesn’t return, but believe me when I say if anyone gets in my way, I’ll toss their lifeless carcass off a fucking bridge without a second thought.”
“Who’s pressuring you? Your dad?” Jace presses.
I like Jace, most of the time, but right now he’s getting on my last fucking nerve.
Jace and I are friends solely because of our time together at Andover.
He latched on to me because of my known wealth and social status, and I brought him into my fold simply due to the pull he has with the opposite sex.
It was a mutually beneficial relationship, but if we hadn’t attended the same private high school, I wouldn’t give him the time of day.
Sure, he’d be in Sigma at Dornell and we’d cross paths, but my right-hand man? Absolutely not.
His father is a Managing Director at Citigroup, rumored to be next in line as CFO, but I’ll believe it when it happens, if it happens.
Notable, but not impressive. A Managing Director’s compensation package is around one to two million annually, something any Wall Street lackey can obtain if you stick it out long enough.
Come talk to me when you’re earning over thirty-million a year and then you’ll understand what real pressure feels like; how catastrophic the fall can be when you’re flying this close to the sun.
“Drop it, Jace. Now fall in line like a good soldier and shut the fuck up.”
“Whatever. I was headed to the gym anyway.”
Jace pushes past me, storming away like a little bitch.
People claim they want success, they want power, but most are too weak to make the required sacrifice.
Jace falls in this category. But you know what?
Let him be a coward. Let him continue to live his mediocre life, with his mediocre family, yearning to get ahead but forever lacking the balls.