Chapter 5
FORD
It’s amazing how quickly things can unravel when you pull at a single thread.
Last week, everything was business as usual– Kings at the top, our Doll tightly leashed, everyone else keeping a healthy distance and knowing their fucking place.
This week, shit’s gone so downhill that it feels like the entire campus hierarchy is on the brink of collapse.
Who knew one pretty little Doll could destabilize an entire regime?
I suppose Raf did. He was always against bringing a Doll into the fold– said it’d fuck with the balance of things– and maybe he was right.
Since Ava left, everything’s been off-kilter.
Moods have been shitty; tempers have been short.
I haven’t even felt like jacking off, and Monty’s pissed about it.
He keeps getting hard at the most inopportune times, but I don’t want to come on my hand, I wanna come on Ava’s tits, or in her mouth, or between her thighs.
Without her here, our apartment’s been lethally quiet, like the calm before a storm.
The rumor mill hasn’t stopped churning. The prevailing theories are that we’ve either got Ava tied up in a basement somewhere or that we offed her, both of which are funny as hell and honestly preferable to people knowing the truth.
If they knew she’d managed to quietly slip from our grip, it’d cast doubt upon how much control we really have here.
And if they knew we’ve made no move to reclaim what’s ours…
well, we’d look weak as fuck. Something I keep pointing out to Raf that he clearly doesn’t want to hear.
He keeps trying to pretend he doesn’t care; that he’s immune to the way his stepsister’s ghost haunts every inch of this apartment. But I catch him sometimes, his eyes drifting to the hallway like he expects Ava to emerge from her room at any minute. He feels it. We all do.
Aside from the aesthetics of our Doll up and vanishing overnight, not having her around to play with has made the daily grind even more dull.
Case in point: it’s Saturday night, and the three of us are crammed onto the leather couch in the living room without a single bottle in sight, playing video games like we’re fucking twelve.
Wes is at the far end, thumb mashing the controller like it owes him money, while Raf sits dead center, doom scrolling on his phone, eyes half-lidded and empty.
I’m sprawled sideways on the other end, taking up as much space as possible, like it’ll somehow fill the void we’re all feeling.
Wes’ player meets his demise with a particularly gruesome headshot, and he lets out an exasperated groan as his side of the screen goes dark, tossing his controller onto the coffee table.
“I swear this game is rigged,” he grumbles, rolling his neck on his shoulders. “I’m always respawning next to some asshole with a rocket launcher.”
“Maybe you should try not sucking,” I suggest helpfully, eyes still fixed on the screen.
“Fuck off.”
I chuckle under my breath as I mow down a cluster of enemy soldiers with a wild spray of gunfire. “Raf, you want in?” I ask, muscle memory guiding my fingers over the buttons on my controller as I cast him a sideways glance. “I’m almost to the bunker and I need someone to cover me.”
He just grunts, not even looking up from his phone.
“I’ve got it,” Wes sighs, reaching out to swipe the controller off the coffee table. He respawns his player, moving in to cover me, but he’s too late. I’m taken out in a gory spray of blood that’s so realistic it’s almost as satisfying as the real thing.
Wes curses under his breath as he drops his controller and glances over, probably expecting me to go off on him. I just take a lazy drag off the vape pen I stole off some stoner in my Anatomy class, holding the smoke in my lungs as I kick my feet up on the coffee table.
“What, no shit talking?” Wes asks, frowning.
I shrug a shoulder. “I’m trying out a more zen approach to life.”
“Since when?” he snorts.
“Since shit around here has gotten so damn boring,” I mutter, tipping my head back and exhaling the smoke in a thick cloud. “You fuckers keep moping around like you’re at a funeral. It’s depressing as fuck.”
Raf’s jaw flexes, but he doesn’t bite. Though anger is his baseline, this quiet brooding he’s been doing since Ava bailed is different. More dangerous. When he finally erupts, it’s sure to be nuclear– all buildup and no warning siren.
Kinda wanna see it, which is why I keep poking the bear.
Wes rolls his eyes at my comment and restarts the game. I join in, but it’s a half-assed effort. Just another way to waste time while we all avoid talking about how the fuck we’re gonna move on from this Ava thing.
Raf puts his phone down and starts watching, which Wes apparently takes as an invitation to address the elephant in the room.
“I still don’t understand why the fuck we’re not dragging her back here,” he grumbles, mashing the buttons of his controller with more force than necessary. “At the very least, we should teach her a lesson for running.”
Raf stiffens beside me. We’ve been tiptoeing around the subject all week, but I suppose now’s as good a time as any to hash it out.
“Don’t even need to bring her back here to do that,” I casually add in. “We could take a little field trip, kidnap her outta bed for old times’ sake…”
“Not happening,” Raf growls, folding his arms and glaring up at the TV screen like it personally offended him.
The tension in the room’s suddenly sharp enough to draw blood, and I can’t help but smile, welcoming chaos like an old friend.
Wes lets it go far too easily. “Just an idea,” he sighs, feigning indifference.
Pussy.
“We need to do something,” I announce, unwilling to just slide back into monotonous silence.
“I can’t sit around here all weekend bored out of my fucking skull.
” My fingers move over the controller buttons on autopilot as my mind churns.
“Has Trav made it back to campus yet? We still need to make that fucker bleed for what he did.”
The suggestion of violence never fails to get Raf’s attention. His head snaps in Wes’ direction, brow raised.
“Not yet,” Wes mutters. “According to administration, he’s out visiting his sick grandma.”
“Bullshit,” I snort.
“Obviously,” Wes huffs. “But security knows to alert us the minute he shows up at the gate, so we’ll just wait him out.”
I shift the controller to one hand, taking another drag off the vape. “If he doesn’t show in the next week, I’m going hunting.”
“We all will,” Raf growls, picking at a scab on his knuckle.
My phone buzzes on the coffee table, and I glance down to see my brother’s name lighting the screen.
“You gonna get that?” Wes murmurs.
I blow out a cloud of smoke, shaking my head. “Nah.”
My phone stops vibrating for a whole two seconds, then starts up again. Drew doesn’t call more than once unless it’s important, so I hit pause on the game and begrudgingly pick up my phone, swiping to answer as I raise it to my ear.
“This had better be good, you’re interrupting my killing spree.”
There’s a pause on the other end. “Can’t tell if you’re joking, but I don’t think I wanna know,” Drew replies dryly.
I flop back against the couch cushions with a sigh. “You’ve got two seconds to tell me why you’re calling.”
“Just wanted to let you know you’re a piece of shit.”
I frown, pinning my phone between my ear and shoulder. “What’s your damage, Drew?”
“Have you misplaced one of your little toys?” he sneers.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“I just saw Ava at the Dollhouse.”
I jolt upright so fast I get a headrush, lowering the phone from my ear and hitting the speaker button so the guys can hear. “Say that again.”
“Ava’s at the Dollhouse,” Drew repeats, prompting both Raf and Wes to sit up just as quickly, their attention locked in on my phone. I’m gripping it so tightly it’s a miracle the thing doesn’t shatter, my pulse roaring in my ears.
“I thought I might be hallucinating, but I never forget a face. So I pulled up her file to confirm,” my brother continues. “She’s the hottest thing on the auction block. I know you’re a bunch of ruthless assholes, but selling her to them? That’s fucked up, even for you.”
“We didn’t,” Wes snaps, cutting Raf an accusatory glare.
Raf shakes his head, looking just as bewildered by the news. And as the three of us exchange glances, it suddenly clicks.
“Gideon,” Raf snarls, his hands curling into fists atop his thighs.
“Wha…?” Wes starts to ask, trailing off as the pieces slot into place in his brain.
So that’s how Raf’s old man suddenly came up with the debt he owed– he sold Ava to the Dollhouse. The influx of funds he received was completely untraceable, which makes perfect sense since it came from a place that doesn’t exist on paper.
“Are you seriously telling me you didn’t know?” Drew questions dubiously.
“We didn’t,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
My brother heaves a sigh. “Well, if it wasn’t you guys, then you should be able to get her back easily enough. If she’s been initiated as your Doll, then–”
“She hasn’t,” I snap, glaring daggers at Raf.
This is his fault. He flat out refused Ava’s official initiation into the Invictus, and now we’ve got zero recourse for our Doll being stolen out from underneath us.
Drew curses under his breath, which pretty much sums up exactly how fucked this situation is.
“I’ll call you back,” I grumble before abruptly ending the call. I fight the urge to throw my phone across the fucking room as Raf pulls out his own, dialing his old man and placing the call on speaker.
It rings for almost a full minute before the asshole finally picks up with a gruff, “Son.”
“Gideon,” Raf greets with all due disrespect, his voice eerily calm. “Why am I hearing that Ava’s at the Dollhouse?”
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line, the silence speaking volumes. Then, “Who told you that?”
Raf’s nostrils flare, but his tone stays flat. “Doesn’t matter. Is it true?”
“Yes.”
That single word sucks all the oxygen out of the room. The three of us exchange looks, at a loss for words.
Well, I have a few choice ones, but none that’ll make a difference. Better to play this smart, not be reactionary.
“And you didn’t think to mention that this was the plan?” Raf bites out.
“There was no need,” Gideon sighs, annoyed. “You wanted her gone, I had a debt to pay. Our interests seemed to align.”
Raf clenches his jaw, the muscle in it ticking. “Does your whore know you sold her daughter?”
“Of course,” Gideon replies easily. “Daphne gave her blessing. She wants her daughter to have financial security, and what better way to ensure that than through a marriage auction to the highest bidder? Now, I’m in the middle of something, so unless you have an issue of actual importance to discuss–”
Raf ends the call with a vicious stab of his thumb, cutting his father off mid-sentence. Silence slams down on the room, heavy and final.
Wes surges to his feet, stabbing his fingers through his hair as he starts pacing, muttering under his breath. “That piece of shit. We should’ve known he’d find a way out of the hole we put him in. He actually fucking sold her…”
Raf slowly turns to face me, his eyes gone so dark they’re almost black. “Call your brother back,” he murmurs, voice edged with steel. “It’s time we reclaimed what’s ours.”