Chapter 14
Violet
Julian pulled into a parking spot near my dorm building and killed the engine. The sudden silence in the car felt deafening after the low hum of the drive; five minutes where neither of us had spoken, the air thick with unasked questions.
He got out, walking around to open my door before I could reach for the handle myself. I took his offered hand and let him pull me out, but I dropped it as soon as I was upright.
We didn't speak as we crossed the parking lot and headed down the dimly lit walkway outside the Athena building. My pulse drummed loudly in my ears; a restless, traitorous rhythm.
What was I doing? Why was I letting Julian Valcourt walk me back to my room?
Because he saved you, a voice whispered in my head. Because he stopped Kane. And because, despite everything you think you know about him, you're not afraid of him right now.
Except… I knew better. Julian Valcourt wasn’t a safe person. He was one of them; the secretive brotherhood that was involved in my sister’s death. He might’ve even participated in the coverup. Might still be helping out with it, in fact, if my earlier suspicions were correct.
We finally stopped at my door, and I forced a small, polite smile. “Thanks for helping me,” I said softly.
“Can I come in for a minute?” he asked.
I blinked. “Why?”
He gestured to my upper body. “I want to take a look at your back so I can figure out if you’ll need to go to a doctor. But it’s too dark out here to see properly.”
My breath caught in my throat. “It's fine. Really, it only hurts a little—”
“Violet.” He cut me off, the intensity in his gaze pinning me in place. “Let me see it. If it's just bruised, fine. But if you need medical attention, I'm taking you to the med center.”
I swallowed hard. There was something strange in his voice. Concern, yes, but something darker too. Something possessive. Like the thought of me being hurt and not telling him about it was simply unacceptable.
Every instinct screamed for me to say no to him, but the idea of doing that suddenly felt a lot harder than it should’ve. He’d helped me out tonight, and now he was offering even more help, so if I just said, ‘No thanks, bye’, it would come across like a metaphorical slap in the face to him.
Then again, that was how so many women got in trouble, wasn’t it? We were conditioned from an early age to do absolutely anything to avoid being seen as rude, and sometimes we ended up in awful situations with men as a result.
Julian must’ve sensed my hesitation, because his face softened, and he lifted a palm. “Look, I just want to make sure you’re okay. That’s all. I’m not like that asshole Kane.”
Finally, I nodded. If he actually wanted to hurt me, he'd already had plenty of opportunities tonight. In the parking lot. In my car. But he hadn’t. All he’d done was help. And that told me I could trust him… for now.
I unlocked my door, and we stepped inside my dorm. It was exactly as I'd left it this morning. Textbooks scattered across my desk, bed half-made, the faint scent of my coconut body lotion still lingering in the air. No evidence of a stalker having invaded my privacy again.
Julian’s eyes swept the room with the kind of thoroughness that made my skin prickle. Then his gaze landed on the wall opposite my bed—the one where the message had been written in blood last Friday night.
Once again, I wondered… was he the one who wrote it? Even if he didn’t, did he know the person who did? Did he condone their behavior as long as it kept my mouth shut?
“It’s cozy in here,” he finally said, returning his gaze to me.
“Is that a polite way of saying small?” I asked, forcing a weak laugh.
I’d actually thought this dorm was huge when I first saw it, especially given that it was a single with a private bathroom. But somehow, it felt smaller with Julian standing in it. The air felt heavier too; charged with something electric and dangerous.
He cocked his head, one brow lifting. “Do I look like a polite guy?”
“Um…”
I didn’t really know how to respond to that. Technically, he’d been very polite tonight, aside from the part where he knocked out a guy in a parking lot. Polite to me, I should say.
But to answer his exact question, he certainly didn’t look polite in the stereotypical sense.
Not with all those tattoos trailing up his forearm and neck, or the perpetual slight smirk on his lips.
Or that unforgettably handsome face that could probably ruin a woman’s life just by looking in her direction.
“I said it’s cozy because it’s cozy,” he said. “It suits you.”
I still wasn’t quite sure if he was complimenting me or not. I ducked my head, heat crawling up my neck, and gestured to the bathroom. “Sorry, just give me one second.”
I didn’t actually need to use the bathroom. I just wanted to splash my face with cold water so I could tamp down the rush of heat that was affecting me after spending more than five seconds standing close to Julian.
“Sorry about that,” I said when I came out again, feeling a weird urge to explain myself. “I suddenly felt like I needed to wash my hands.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen after you spend more than thirty minutes in the company of a Sigma Chi,” Julian said in a sardonic tone. He cocked his head. “What were you doing out with Kane, anyway?”
“It wasn’t a date,” I blurted out before I could stop myself, suddenly needing him to know I was single.
Oh my god, Violet, I silently chided myself. What the hell is wrong with you?
Julian’s brow lifted, and an amused glimmer appeared in his eyes.
“I met up with him because he said he knew my sister. She used to be a student here,” I went on, dropping my head to avoid his gaze. “I wanted to get some old photos of her, or hear some funny stories. Stuff like that.”
Obviously, I knew that Julian was already aware of Calista—he had to be, given his brother’s connection to her—but I didn’t want him to know just how much I already knew about all of that.
If he found out, he’d realize that I was asking people the wrong sort of questions about my sister’s time here at BHU.
Questions that led right back to Roman and the Dionysus Club.
Questions that could lead to another bloody warning on my wall.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him outright, because something told me he could spot a liar from ten feet away. So I’d gone with the safest option: a half-truth wrapped in grief.
“I’m guessing it didn’t go well,” he said, brows furrowing.
“No.” I let out a derisive sniff. “Turns out he lied about knowing my sister. He was just trying to sleep with me. Then he got really pissed when I rejected him, and that’s pretty much the moment you arrived.”
Julian’s jaw tightened. “That guy’s always been a dick, but still, that’s a whole new low for him.”
“So you know him?” I asked, brows rising.
“We had a couple of classes together in freshman and sophomore year.”
“Oh, right.” My brows dipped in a frown. “Now that I’m thinking about it… are you sure it’s okay that we didn’t call 911? I mean, he was really out of it, and someone else might find him there. They could—”
Julian cut me off. “Violet, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it,” he said. “There’s no cameras outside Revs, so you’re not going to get in trouble over what happened. And you didn’t even do anything wrong.”
“But if someone else finds Kane and takes him to the hospital, he could tell them it was you,” I said, frowning. “Or… us.”
He smiled faintly. “Trust me, hardly anyone leaves that place before eleven, and it’s only eight-thirty now.
So I highly doubt anybody’s gonna stumble on him in a dark corner of the parking lot before I get back there,” he said.
“And believe me, he won’t say a single word about you to anyone else after I’ve had a chat with him.
Or me. So we’re in the clear. No need to get cops involved. ”
“All right,” I murmured.
He tilted his head and gestured to my cardigan. “Mind if I take a look now?”
“Oh. Right.” I swallowed hard. “Sure.”
I slipped out of the cardigan and tossed it on the bed while simultaneously trying to forget the bed was even there, mere inches away from where Julian and I were standing.
Then I turned slightly, presenting him with my back, and reached for the thin strap of my tank top.
My hands trembled as I pulled it down, letting the fabric fall away just enough to expose my left shoulder blade and upper back.
For a moment, Julian didn't move. Didn't speak. Then I felt the whisper-light touch of his fingers against my spine, precise and unbearably slow. Goosebumps flared across my skin, and I had to bite down on my bottom lip to stop myself from gasping.
“There's already a bit of bruising,” Julian muttered, his voice rougher than before. I knew his anger wasn’t directed at me, though.
“Here, and here.” His fingers traced the edges of the injury with a gentleness that seemed impossible from the same hands that had knocked Kane unconscious with one punch. “Does this hurt?”
He pressed carefully against the worst of it, and I winced. “Yeah, a bit.”
“And this?”
“Yes.”
His hand stilled, resting flat against my back now, warm through the thin barrier of my bra strap. “Can I move this so I can see the spot right under it?”
Every nerve in my body screamed no as every ounce of logic reminded me who he was yet again.
He was the brother of the man who might’ve killed my sister.
He was also the man who might’ve been following me, sending me threatening texts, and breaking into my dorm to stop me from looking into her death.
I knew I should pull away. Tug my top back up, say I was fine, and put some much-needed distance between us. But I didn't. I just stood there instead, feeling the tantalizing heat of his palm against my skin and wondering what the hell was wrong with me.
“Yes,” I finally said, voice barely working. “You can move it.”
This is fine, I told myself, sucking in a deep breath. Totally fine.