Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Eve
I’m panicking. The space beneath the desk is cramped as hell, and sweat is already beading on my forehead. I’m breathing hard and shallow, the sound amplified in my own ears.
The door clicks shut, and I press myself deeper into the hidey hole, just praying I can’t be seen. One corner of the leather book digs into my ribs, reminding me exactly how fucked I am if I’m caught with it—because everyone is already suspicious of me. There’s no explaining it away. No innocent reason why I’d be hiding under a desk, holding what has to be the Sacred Sons’ most guarded secret.
“You said this is where she was headed?” a voice says, Christian’s familiar baritone trickling down my spine.
I gasp, the sound escaping before I can stop it. Shit. Squeezing my eyes shut, I slap my hand over my mouth, breath held.
He wasn’t shot. That’s my first thought, and relief floods me, which is instantly chased by shame. He doesn’t deserve my concern, especially after everything I just found out. The fucking psycho. But I can’t help it—I’m happy he’s not dead. There it is.
“Yeah, she should be here,” a female says, her voice shaky, and I recognize that voice, too. It’s Skye . Un-fucking-believable. “Oh, God, do you think something happened to her on the way over?”
“No,” he says. “Campus security is crawling all over campus, looking for those Shadow and Ash cunts. They would have alerted me if they’d seen anything.”
I feel nauseous. The gunshots from the beach are still ringing inside my head. Who was shot? Is my brother okay? My mind is spinning with all the horrible possibilities.
And then there’s Skye—my supposed friend. The same “friend” who’s been spying on me and reporting everything back to Christian. I can’t make excuses for it now. Can’t pretend there’s some explanation that would make this okay. There isn’t. She betrayed me, plain and simple, and I’ve never felt more alone than I do right now, curled up under this desk, holding my breath, praying they don’t find me.
“Should we wait around?” Skye says, sniffling like she’s been crying. “I don’t want to go back to Rush House. Not with those fucking lunatics out there.”
Footsteps get closer, each dull thud vibrating through my body, kicking my heart rate up another billion notches. I curl more tightly into myself, breath still held.
“Whoever’s left of Shadow and Ash scattered like cockroaches when the police showed up.” Then he says something, his voice dropping so low I barely catch it. Sounds like either “You go” or “Let’s go.” It’s hard to hear with my heartbeat pulsing in my ears.
There’s a long pause, and I swear my heart is going to bust right out of my chest. Then, finally— thank God —the footsteps start moving away, crossing to the other side of the room. The light cuts off, and I hear the door creak open, followed by the sound of it clicking shut.
I tilt my head back against the desk and finally allow myself to breathe.
They’re gone.
For now, at least.
Just to be safe, I wait a couple of minutes before scrambling out from my hidey hole and returning to my search, this time with a little more urgency. I’m still shaken, my body trembling, but I force myself to focus.
It’s pitch black in here—but I’m too afraid to turn the light back on. Especially with police and security crawling around campus. If they see a random window lit up, they might get curious and investigate.
I just need to get out of here. I have everything I need anyway.
I’m moving around the desk, headed for the door, when I freeze. There’s a heaviness in the room, a presence that sends goosebumps sweeping across my skin.
You’re being paranoid, my mind supplies.
My eyes strain against the murkiness in the room. Shapeless silhouettes melt into deeper pockets of darkness, but there’s no movement. Still, that heaviness lingers in the air, and for some reason, I can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched…
“Is someone there?” My voice shakes, but when no one answers, I relax a little.
Then a voice cuts sharply through the silence. “Where’d you get the key to this office?”
My stomach drops, and I clutch the leather book tighter to my chest, using it like a shield.
“Christian,” I say. “I thought you left.”
No response.
“I heard gunshots,” I say, my voice faltering. “Is my brother okay?”
“He wasn’t shot,” he says.
My shoulders relax, and I pull in a deep breath—the first real breath I’ve taken since I heard those shots.
“Now—where did you get the keys?” he repeats.
“I found them in a drawer while I was cleaning,” I lie.
More silence, and maybe I’m imagining it, but I can feel his anger pressing down on me, suffocating me. I swallow nervously.
“You’re lying,” he says, his deep voice coming from the direction of the couch. “Only four people have the key to this office. Four. Not even facilities are allowed access.”
Anger bubbles up in my chest. “Lying,” I repeat, calm fury lacing every syllable. “You want to talk about lying?” I lean forward and peer into the darkness, eyes narrowed. “You had my best friend spying on me, reporting on every small detail of my fucking life ,” I say, yelling that last part.
“I never lied to you.”
I scoff. The cunt. “An omission is a lie.”
Silence.
“Why did you do it?” I ask. “ Why? ”
Even more infuriating silence, and I wish I could see his face. I wish I knew what was going through his fucked up head right now.
Finally, he releases a long sigh and switches on a small lamp on a side table, which splashes a warm glow across his face. He ditched his mask and robe at some point, and now he’s sitting on the couch, arm slung casually over the backrest.
“You want the truth? Okay,” he says. “I needed you. At first, it was just curiosity. That finger-fuck in the Psych building left me wanting more. I couldn’t let it go. So I did some digging and discovered you were attending ExU under a fake name…”
I knew that encounter in the hallway would come back to haunt me someday. It’s crazy how one brief moment of insanity can change the whole trajectory of someone’s life.
“When my Private Investigator uncovered your real name and your connection to Shadow and Ash,” he continues, “I knew I had to keep tabs on you, so I enlisted Skye to watch you.”
“ Spy on me,” I correct.
He doesn’t skip a beat. “A few weeks later, your brother showed up on our front lawn, and…” His throat bobs, head dropping for a moment. When he looks back up, his eyes are heavy with a mix of pain and something darker. “I knew I could use you to get to Sin. So I leveraged your relationship with Skye to plant the seed and set everything in motion.”
I’m confused by that last statement. “Set what in motion?”
There’s yet another long stretch of deafening silence as he watches me, not answering—almost like he’s afraid to say it. Which is wild, because Christian isn’t afraid of anything.
Then it slowly begins to dawn on me. I’m such an idiot. It was Skye’s idea that I show up at Rush House and offer myself to the Sacred Sons in exchange for my brother’s safety.
I knew I could use you to get to him.
My throat tightens, and tears sting the backs of my eyes. I blink rapidly to keep them from spilling over. No way am I letting him see my cry. I’m not giving him that.
“So, that’s all this was? Some fucked up plan to get your revenge?” I say, my voice shaking.
I reach up and press my hand against my breastbone because it feels like my chest is literally cracking open. I know it’s ridiculous—I’ve known Christian for, what, a few weeks? Knowing he used me shouldn’t hurt this much. But his confession feels like a fist reaching into my chest and crushing my heart like a glittery cornstarch brick…
Christian rakes a hand over his face and tilts his head back. “At first, yeah. It was. I’d planned to turn you against him somehow. Convince you that Shadow and Ash are corrupt, then send you back to him, and watch you tear it all down from the inside…”
My lungs feel empty, and I try to pull in a tiny bit of air, but I can’t seem to catch my breath. “Why would I do that, Christian? Because Shadow and Ash were born from the charred remains of a human trafficking ring?” I shake my head. “That was decades ago. My brother would never allow something like that to happen now. He helps people.”
He rises from the couch. “Your brother has been keeping something from you, Eve…”
Shaking my head, I lean back on my heels.
He walks over to the desk, opens the middle drawer, and pulls out a thick manila envelope. He tosses it onto the surface of the desk. “My Private Investigator delivered this a couple of days ago. I planned to put it somewhere I knew you’d find it, but…” He stares down at the envelope, then back at me. “I couldn’t do it, because I knew it would wreck you.”
There’s a note scribbled on the outside, Happy reading. C.V.
“What is this?”
He pushes it closer to me. “Open it.”
I swallow, staring down at the envelope like it’s about to jump up and latch onto my face. “If you know this will wreck me, why are you showing it to me now?”
“Because I’m done lying to you, Eve. And you deserve to know.” There’s pain etched on his face that I don’t know what to do with. “It kills me, but I realize now, I can’t shield you from the truth.”
With a trembling hand, I reach out and take the envelope, tucking it behind the leather book. The envelope feels heavy, like a bomb with a lit fuse, ready to tear up my life.
But who knows if the information in this envelope is even real? I can’t trust anything Christian says, and that’s a sickening feeling. What if this is just another one of his manipulations?
“I’m going to leave,” I say slowly, holding back the tears. Just barely, though. “And you’re not going to follow me.”
“Eve…” He steps forward. “I can’t let you take the book.” Then he reaches out and just plucks it from my arms, despite me holding onto it with everything I have. He tosses it on the chair behind him.
And just like that, everything I schemed and plotted for, my only hope for creating peace between the two societies, just… poof . Gone. Because Christian deems it so.
Rage pumps through me so hot it’s almost blinding. After everything he just confessed, he has the audacity to say literally anything to me?
“That book could level the playing field between the Burning Crown and Shadow and Ash,” I hiss, the words grating against my vocal cords.
“Do you know what that book is? What’s inside could bury the Sacred Sons—every single one of us.”
“That was the idea,” I say, my voice breaking. But the rage doesn’t. Every cell in my body vibrates with the explosion of anger that’s being lit inside me.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a gleam of metal on the desk. With my free hand, I grab the letter opener and lunge forward, pressing the dull tip against his throat, right under his chin.
Christian freezes, looking down at me, his pulse throbbing. He could easily grab me and disarm me. He doesn’t. He just... stands there, arms spread like he’s offering himself to me.
A sacrifice.
“Do it.” He leans forward a little, pushing the blunt metal deeper into his skin. “You know you want my blood.”
“I should,” I whisper, the tears flowing freely now. “You’re so fucking cold, so heartless. I’d be doing the world a favor.”
His pale eyes never leave my face. “You’re right.”
Exactly. He can’t even defend himself.
But the victory of being right feels empty.
Clenching my jaw, I inch the blade deeper, just enough to break skin. A little bead of blood appears, but he doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t even blink.
One quick push is all it’d take. It’d be so easy.
But I can’t do it.
Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at me—like he’s hoping I’ll do it. Like he’s been carrying around so much darkness that death would be a relief.
“I’m not a murderer,” I say through clenched teeth. “That’s the difference between us—you cross lines I never would.” I pause. “Actually, scratch that—” I pull the blade back, then jab it into his neck forcefully.
But he must’ve known it was coming, because at the last second, he shifts and the blade slices through the side of his neck instead.
“ Shit ,” he hisses, hand flying to the cut. Bright red blood seeps between his fingers, and he looks up at me, shock registering on his face. “You fucking stabbed me.”
“Next time, I’ll go for your balls.” I open my hand and let the opener fall to the floor. Then I step around him, the envelope still tucked under my arm.
His strained voice follows me as I walk to the door. “Eve. Don’t do this.”
“You used me.” I feel hallow inside, like he dug into me with both hands, and gutted me like a fucking pumpkin. “You manipulated me—” my voice cracks “—you made me feel things for you.”
“Those feelings were real,” he says behind me. One, two, three footsteps slowly close the distance between us, like he’s cautiously approaching a wounded animal. But he’s the one who’s wounded. “They weren’t part of the plan.”
I wipe the dampness off my cheek. “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“What we have is fucking real, Eve,” he repeats, catching my wrist with his free hand to stop me from stop me from walking away.
I pull my wrist out of his hand, but only because he lets me. I narrow my eyes at him. “How could it be real when everything from day one was a lie?”
“Not everything, Eve.”