Chapter 24 #2
Shit. Talon asked me a question, and I’m staring into space. Oh, right, my degree. “Oh, I’m undecided. I’m taking all the mandatory classes right now. Figured I’d get them out of the way.”
“That’s a good idea,” Rook says. “How’re your classes going?”
“They’re going well. It’s a lot more work than I expected, but I’m keeping up.”
The guys keep firing innocuous questions at me while we eat. I do my best to answer them. The food is delicious. I can’t begin to eat all of it, but I swallow as much as I can.
Something feels off, though. Silver is acting strangely. He mostly stares at me while he eats, as if he’s trying to read me. It’s unnerving. The rest of the guys are doing all the talking, though I think Rook is also staring at me, brooding.
On top of the stress of this entire dinner party, the damn butterfly keeps tormenting me. Every five minutes or so, it vibrates against my clit, and each time it’s hard for me to keep from squirming. I clench my thighs together, but I’m sure I flinch. I can’t eat until it stops again.
It seems like Rook knows something is up. Silver, too, but my brother already had his suspicions. I don’t know Rook well enough. It’s probably because he’s seated directly across from me that he’s more likely to notice my odd behavior.
I want to stab my stalker. He’s causing me an enormous amount of stress. I know he can’t see me, so he doesn’t specifically know that I’m at the table trying to swallow, but I came here for dinner, so he has to assume I’m eating. And yet, he’s weaponized this little butterfly against me.
When everyone is done eating, Silver sits forward in his seat and grips the edge of the table. He growls and runs a hand down his face. He looks like he’s about to start punching someone, and I have no idea why. What’s up with him?
“Dude?” Dante asks. “Are you okay?”
“Not even close,” Silver grinds out.
“What the fuck, man?” Lucien says.
Silver turns his attention to me, stares at me hard for long seconds. The rest of the room is silent. Finally, he shifts his attention to everyone else, starting with Lucien at my side and moving around the table.
“I can’t figure it out. I thought if I had Bri over for dinner and forced all of you to sit down with us, I would suss it out. But it hasn’t happened, and now I’m fucking pissed.”
“Suss what out?” Talon asks.
The blood drains from my face. I don’t have a clue what Silver is talking about, but my gut tells me something very ugly is about to happen. Oddly enough, my stalker does not activate the fucking butterfly, for which I’m eternally grateful.
There’s an eerie silence. Silver’s face is bright red. I don’t know him well enough to identify his moods. We’ve spent very little time together in the years since he found me. Most of our communication was by phone for the past four years.
But he’s about to explode.
My stomach is in knots. I don’t know why. Intuition or something. A bomb is about to go off. I can feel it building, as though someone lit the wick, and now we’re all sitting here waiting for the explosion. We’re tethered to the chairs by my brother’s eerie stare.
I want to get up and leave. Run from the house before my world flips upside down, but I can’t. I’m restrained with invisible ropes, the same as everyone else.
Silver stands and slams his palms on the table. “I just want to know which one of you did it. That’s all. I want to fucking know.”
I think I might faint. Did what? I’m confused, but at the same time I’m not. Part of me knows exactly what he’s referring to. He didn’t believe me when I insisted I was not a victim of the freshman prank. Not only did he not believe me, but he thinks one of his friends is my stalker.
I gasp, that realization hitting me hard. I jerk upright and fist my hands in my lap. Is it true? Is my Daddy one of these four men? Why the fuck did this not occur to me? How is it that I’m not able to identify him? He knows every inch of my body, and I know nothing about him.
Silver is seething. “It’s not your fault,” he tells the room.
“You didn’t know she was my sister. But one of you fucked with her.
I know it’s not Rook because he fucking met her a few weeks ago.
He would have recognized her then. That leaves Dante, Talon, or Lucien.
I want to fucking know which one of you pranked my sister. ”
I’m drained. There’s no life in me. I might slide to the floor as I look from Silver to Rook to each of the other guys. Do any of them stand out?
Silver shoves off the table so hard that his chair falls backward. He runs his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends. His face is beet red. “I’ve been watching all of you all evening, assuming I would figure it out. One of you is a master at schooling your fucking face.”
He’s breathing heavily.
I’m not breathing at all. I want to run out of the room. The house. But my legs aren’t working.
He continues, still growling, “Just fucking tell me. Apologize to Bri so we can move on.”
Silver jerks his attention back to me. “Do you know, Bri? Do you know which one of these assholes pranked you?”
I want to deny, deny, deny. I should tell him it didn’t happen. Lie through my teeth. But he’s perceptive. He’s not asking me if I was pranked. He’s figured it out. He knows.
He’s ruining everything. Ten thousand thoughts go through my head. Am I in a relationship with one of these men? How the fuck do I not know? This is madness.
Silver thinks one of his friends grabbed me at the beginning of the school year and terrorized me. And he’s not wrong. Someone did. Denying it would be futile, but why is he so sure it was one of his friends?
Suddenly, I know. It hits me.
Holy shit.
Silver and his friends are the pranksters. They are the ones who do this every year. It has to be one of them.
I start panting because I’m deprived of oxygen. Heavy gasps. I might hyperventilate. I jerk my gaze around the room, starting with Lucien and moving across from him to Dante, Talon, and finally, my attention shifts to Rook.
He’s staring at me, teeth gritted. His eyes narrow at the same moment the butterfly begins to vibrate against my clit. My mouth falls open as I clench. One of his hands is in his pocket.
It’s him.
Rook.
It’s fucking him.
I know this with incredible clarity, but I can’t process it. Confusion swarms around me.
He doesn’t blink.
I can’t get enough air.
Somehow, I manage to push back from the table. The vibrations increase. If I stand, I’m going to collapse.
He knows.
He fucking knows.
Rook finally speaks for the first time since this madness started. “Don’t you dare move, Briana. Stay right where you are.”
I gasp. His voice. It’s the one he uses when he comes to me. It’s his disguise, deeper than the one I’ve heard Rook use this evening or the first time I met him. I remember now. That voice.
“Rook?” Silver shouts. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Rook continues to hold me with his intense stare while he speaks to my brother. “I didn’t know who she was, Silver.”
“But you knew when she came for coffee that morning. You had to have recognized her then. Why didn’t you fucking say anything?”
A vein pops out on Rook’s forehead. “Say what, Silver? Announce to you and my girl on a weekday morning right before classes that I’m the stranger she’s devoted to?”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Silver asks. “Devoted to you how? Are you suggesting you’ve seen her more than once?”
“What the hell?” Dante interrupts. “You pranked Bri more than one time? That’s against the rules.”
I shift my gaze to Dante, “Rules!?” I shout. “The five of you fucking terrorize women, and you have fucking rules?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Rook informs me.
Somehow, I find the will to jump to my feet. The butterfly is still vibrating.
“Sit down, Briana!” Rook yells as he rises across from me. “Now, princess. Sit down.” He points toward my chair.
I don’t have to listen to him. I’ve never had to do anything he said. I got caught up in the madness and let him control me. A stranger. My stalker. My Daddy.
The room is spinning. I can’t process all of this. It’s overwhelming. I seriously think I might faint. I can’t focus on any one aspect of this fucked-up situation.
Rook?
Rook is my stalker?
I’ve known him for a month. I met him.
He… He, he, he…
No.
I start shaking my head. I can’t stop.
It’s too much.
I back up. Because I sure as fuck didn’t sit down when Daddy told me to. Not this time. Not tonight.
“Briana,” he barks in his deeper, demanding voice.
I keep shaking my head.
Silver steps close to me, and I shift my attention to him. “You…” He’s part of this. All of these guys. My brother grabs women, freshmen, and scares the fuck out of them for what? Fun?
Silver. He’s been so kind to me since I met him, but how much do I really know about him? Not a lot. I know he was raised in foster care like me. I know he spent the last few years of his childhood in a boys’ home. That’s where he met his roommates.
It seems like everyone is talking at once. Shouting. Silver is screaming at Rook. Rook isn’t paying attention to him because he’s yelling at me. The other three are in shock and arguing about who knew what and breaking rules.
Rules? Fuck their rules.
A burst of adrenaline consumes me, and I spin around and run for the front of the house.
From outside the room, I can hear Rook over the others. He’s focused on me, yelling my name. But he doesn’t follow me. I’m pretty sure I know why, because the sound of furniture breaking joins the noise of the argument.
I suspect my brother has picked up his chair and used it to break my stalker’s face. Good.
I’m surprised when I’m able to make it to the front door and yank it open, but I manage to get out.
And then I’m running.
I’m not even sure which direction I’m going. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is putting distance between me and…crazy.
I run until I can’t breathe any longer. I’m in a dress, but I’m wearing sneakers. And that fucking butterfly is still attached to me. It’s no longer buzzing, so at some point, either Rook turned it off or maybe I got too far away from the remote. Is that a thing?
I slow down and look around. I have no idea where I am. I don’t even care. There’s no one around me. It’s getting dark, but it’s not really late. It’s probably seven-thirty. I really don’t care.
I’m in a neighborhood. There are homes around me. It’s easy to slow to a reasonable pace and pretend I’m just out for a walk. I don’t want anyone to talk to me. I don’t want to arouse any suspicion.
When I come across a park, I enter it. It has swings and slides and other equipment for children, but the part that catches my attention is the elaborate piece for climbing. At the top is a fort.
That’s where I head. Awkwardly, I climb up the faux rock wall meant for a five-year-old and crawl into the covered structure.
Exhausted, I drop onto my bottom, pull my legs up, hug them, and lower my forehead to my knees.
I wish my mind would stop racing. I don’t want to think. Peace is what I need.
When did I last feel any peace?