Chapter 29
Gio
"Gio, wait," Adrian says, reaching for me again. I dodge him, shoving past Cole. The crowd parts, a sea of terrified faces parting for the monster. Behind me, I hear Adrian shouting, the scramble of footsteps as they try to follow, but I don't care.
My gaze locks with Zoe. She stands there, anchored in the chaos.
I'm going to drag her into the dark with me, and I don't care if it burns us both alive.
I shove past a junior, knocking his drink out of his hand.
The red cup hits the floor, splashing beer over my boots, but I don't stop. I have eyes only for the landing.
Zoe sees me coming. She straightens her spine, a subtle adjustment that prepares for impact rather than retreat. Clara steps in front of her, a human shield. "Gio, don't."
I shoulder Clara aside, not hard enough to hurt her, but hard enough to move her. She gasps, stumbling back into Talia. I reach Zoe and clamp my hand around her wrist. Her skin is hot, her pulse hammering against my thumb. "Come with me."
"No," she says, planting her feet, and locking her knees. She looks at me like I'm a problem she hasn't calculated for yet.
"I don't have time for your shit right now," I snarl, tightening my grip. "Get your hands off me," she says, her voice low and lethal. "Or I will scream."
"Scream all you want." I yank her forward. She stumbles, falling into step beside me because the alternative is hitting the floor. I drag her through the cluster of girls—Maya, Genny, Talia—ignoring their shocked gasps and the collective intake of breath that follows us like a wake.
"Gio!" Adrian shouts from behind me. "Stop!"
"Let him go," I hear Dante say to someone, likely a freshman trying to play hero. "He's not in his right fucking mind."
I haul Zoe toward the staircase, the wood slippery under my boots. She's fighting me now, digging her heels in, trying to wrench her arm from my grip. She's strong, but I'm desperate. Desperation is a kind of strength that doesn't give a fuck about leverage.
"You are making a scene," she hisses, clutching the banister as we hit the first step.
"Good." I pull her up the stairs, two at a time.
The music from the DJ booth is a dull throb in my chest, drowning out the whispers. "Murderer." "Psycho." I hear the words, but they're just noise. The only thing that matters is the woman in my hand.
We hit the landing. I scan the hallway. Closed doors. Muffled sounds behind them. I kick open the first door I see. An empty guest room. A bed. A desk. I shove Zoe inside and follow her in, kicking the door shut with my heel. The lock clicks into place, loud and final in the sudden quiet.
Zoe spins around, backing up until her spine hits the wall. She's breathing hard, her chest rising and falling under that silky top. Her eyes are wide with fury. "If you touch me," she says, her voice shaking, "I will end you."
I lean back against the door, sliding the deadbolt home. "I'm not going to touch you."
"Then why are we here?" She gestures around the small room. "Why did you drag me away like a—"
"Because they think I did it," I interrupt, the words tearing out of my throat. "Adrian. Declan. All of them. They looked at that report and they saw a killer."
Zoe goes still. The anger in her eyes sharpens into assessment. "Do you blame them?" she asks quietly.
"It doesn't matter what I blame," I say, sliding down the door until I hit the floor. I bury my face in my hands. "It matters what they see."
"And what do you see?" she asks.
I look up at her. "I see a way out," I say. "Or I see the end."
"Then start talking," she says. She stands there like a judge waiting for the testimony, arms crossed over her chest.
"I wasn't driving," I say. The words scrape my throat. The silence in the room stretches, thin and brittle. Zoe just watches me, her gaze dissecting my face for cracks. "The report says you were," she says. "It says your blood alcohol was—"
"The report is a fucking fabrication," I snap. "It's a fairy tale written by my father."
I push myself up, just enough to dig into my pocket.
My hand shakes as I pull out my phone. My screen is cracked, a spiderweb of glass over the Briarcliff Whisper headline.
With clumsy fingers, I unlock it, navigating to the gallery.
The scan comes up. That's the real one. It's the one that's supposed to be buried.
Then I toss the phone onto the rug. It slides across the floor, stopping at her feet. "Pick it up," I say.
Zoe crouches, her movements fluid and controlled. With careful fingers, she picks up the phone, squinting at the screen. Zoe reads, her brow furrowing. "It's... blurry. I can't make out the first name, but the last name is Vance."
"Rylan Vance," I say. "My cousin. He was driving. He was drunk. It was his third strike, and he was seventeen."
Zoe's head snaps up. Her eyes widen. The composure slips. "Your cousin?" she repeats. "Rylan Vance is your cousin?"
"Nobody knew," I say, watching the realization hit her like a physical blow. "That was the point. My father's sister married a Vance. We don't advertise the connection. Keeps the bloodlines clean and the scandals separate."
She stares at me, processing the geometry of it. "You've been going to school with him," she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. "For three years. You watched him walk around like he owned the place while you wore the scarlet letter."
"He does own the place," I say bitterly. "I just rent the space underneath it."
She looks back down at the phone, her thumb hovering over the blurry image. "Rylan Vance," she says again, testing the weight of it. "Jesus, Gio."
"He wrapped the car around a tree," I say, pushing past the shock. "Passenger died. Rylan walked away with a concussion and a DUI charge that would have sent him to juvie until he was twenty-one."
I look at her. "So your father," she says, her voice flat. "He decided to fix it."
"He decided to protect the family name," I correct her. "Rylan is the heir apparent. The golden boy. You don't let a future CEO rot in juvie for vehicular manslaughter. When you have a spare son."
I laugh, but it's just an exhale of air. "They came to me the night after the accident," I say. "My father. My uncle. Rylan's mother. They sat me down in the study and told me what I was going to do."
The memory still carries the smell of cigar smoke.
I can still feel the heavy weight of my father's hand on my shoulder.
A phantom pressure that feels real enough to make me rub my shoulder, trying to erase it.
"I was seventeen," I say. "I wasn't even in the car.
But I was the good kid. The one with the spotless record.
Straight A's, no detentions, the fucking golden child of the varsity team.
That's why they chose me. Rylan was already a liability.
He had a jacket thick with DUIs and possession charges.
If he took the fall for this, he was going away until he was thirty.
But me? I was clean. A blank slate. They told me it was my duty to take the fall because I could survive it. "
I look down at my hands, the knuckles scarred from fights I started years later.
"They used my virtue as a weapon," I say.
"After that, I decided to make sure they never could again.
I started acting out. Made sure my record wasn't so spotless and that they couldn't use me as their sacrificial lamb ever again. "
Zoe looks up. Her eyes are dark, unreadable. "And you said yes."
"I didn't have a choice," I say. "They promised it would be sealed. My father looked me in the eye and swore it would never see the light of day. He said he'd use his connections to get me into the NHL. That was the deal. I take the hit, I keep my mouth shut, and I get my dream."
I laugh, a hollow, broken sound. "But he made sure I knew the alternative. If I didn't do it, he'd crush me. He'd pull every string, shut every door. No hockey. No college. No future. He'd leave me with nothing but a record and a one-way ticket to nowhere."
I wrap my arms around my knees, pulling them tight against my chest. I feel small again.
Powerless. "They paid off the sheriff," I say.
"They had the report scrubbed. They replaced it with a new one, saying I was driving.
Saying I took the keys without asking. They forged the witness statements.
They made me a killer to save a murderer. "
Zoe stares at me. I see a flicker of something behind her eyes. A cold, sharp realization. "They blackmailed you," she says.
"They managed me," I say. "Just like Adrian tried to manage me downstairs. Just like the school manages me. Everyone has a plan for Gio. Nobody asks Gio what the fuck Gio wants."
I look at the phone in her hand. "That picture," I say, nodding toward the screen. "It's a ghost. But it's the only thing I have."
I suck in a breath. "It wasn't just a conversation," I say, staring at the baseboard where the carpet meets the wall. "It was a negotiation." My voice drops, flattening out. "Who negotiated?"
"My aunt. Rylan's mother." I spit the words out like they taste like bile. "She was on her knees. Literally. Begging my father to fix it. She was weeping, snot running down her face, clutching his pants like he was a fucking saint."
I remember the sound of it. The wet, ugly sobbing of a woman who knew her son was garbage and was willing to burn someone else's house to keep him warm.
"She told him Rylan was sick," I say. "That he had a disease.
That he needed help, not prison. She said the family couldn't survive the scandal.
With the IPO coming up. With the board watching. "
I look up at Zoe. She's still standing, arms loose at her sides, watching me with that terrifying, clinical focus. "And your father?" she asks. "He agreed?"
"He took charge," I say. "He manages disasters. He looked at me—his own son—and he saw a line item on a balance sheet."