Speak No Evil: A Secret Society Student Teacher College Romance (The Society Book 3)

by Ivy Fox

  And with that ill-omened warning hanging in the air, the video ends, and my torment begins.

  Chapter 8

  Colt

  The minute I step foot inside the Hamilton mansion, I know something is amiss. Linc and East are frozen still at the center of the large entrance hall, listening in on the heated argument taking place inside Finn’s room upstairs.

  “Trouble in paradise, I see.”

  “Shh. Linc and I have a bet going that Stone is going to throw something any minute now.”

  “We should give them their privacy instead of eavesdropping like this,” Linc suggests, concerned, but doesn’t move an inch from his post.

  “And miss the show? Not a chance.”

  While Easton looks like he’s enjoying the lover’s spat, Linc doesn’t seem to find the two lovebirds arguing with each other very funny. And why would he? Walker spilled his guts out to the Southie on what happened in this very house last spring, the first chance he got. If Stone gives him the boot, then not only will she break his oversized heart, but she’ll leave with all our secrets, too. And no one wants someone else holding our crimes against us. We already have The Society on our tail. We sure as fuck don’t need a scorned ex-girlfriend to add to the mix.

  At this point, the cynic in me would be pissed that Walker doesn’t have a hold on his woman by the way I hear her chew him out upstairs, but unlike my cousin, I’m not the least bit concerned. I’ve seen enough in the past few months to know that those two are meant for each other. If Stone didn’t run for the hills when Finn fessed up that he was an accomplice to murder, then whatever little squabble they are fighting over now won’t scare her off either. The tattooed Southie is a ride-or-die kind of girl, so Linc has nothing to worry about.

  “Don’t fret, cuz. This shit is their version of kinky foreplay. Instead of them shouting at each other, soon all we’ll hear is loud moaning and grunting.”

  “I’m not so sure. They’ve been at it for a while now.”

  “Only means the hate fuck afterward will be ten times better.” I wink, but my amused chuckle is interrupted when Stone rushes out of Finn’s room upstairs, slamming the door in his face like a possessed woman.

  “Argh!” She belts out in aggravation at the same time Finn scrambles out of his room.

  “Don’t walk away from me, brat. We need to sort this out.”

  “I’m done talking. You’re not going to change my mind.”

  “I said no, Stone! No fucking way am I letting you do this!” Finn yells, stampeding down the stairs right behind her.

  “It’s already done. And you telling me what I can and cannot do is pissing me off!”

  We watch Finn pull his hair out of his skull, trying hard not to lose his cool but failing miserably at it, while an enraged Stone keeps tapping her heel on the floor, waiting for what he’ll say next. The two are so wrapped up in whatever drama they’ve got going on they don’t even acknowledge that they have an attentive audience in their midst.

  “Stone, you are not doing this.”

  “I am.”

  “No, you’re not. The man is as slimy as they come. How can you even consider working for him?”

  “That man is in the running to be one of next year’s presidential candidates. This is the job of a lifetime, Finn, and not you or anybody else is going to change my mind about taking it.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Easton interrupts, no longer amused with their heated banter but curious about the subject at hand.

  “East, can you please tell my girlfriend that working for Senator Maxwell is a fucking bad idea?”

  “You’re going to work for Tommyboy’s dad?!” Easton exclaims, aghast.

  “I am. Finn’s mom got me the job on his electoral campaign, and I’m taking it,” she explains with her hands on her hips while eyeballing her boyfriend.

  “Hold up. Just wait a second. Maxwell is going to run for president?”

  “God, East. You’re usually quicker than this. It’s what I said, isn’t it? The whole thing is still very hush-hush, but Senator Maxwell is slowly putting a team together.”

  “And my mother decided it would be a good idea to pull some strings and get Stone involved in his presidential campaign,” Finn chimes in, disheartened.

  “I thought your mom liked your girl, Walker?” I ask him in confusion.

  “She does! Hence the job!” Stone throws her arms in the air in exasperation. “Most of the senator’s aides are volunteers, yet Charlene got me a paying job as an assistant to his number two. She knows I’ll need to sustain myself through law school next year and that this job is a godsend for me. Why can’t anyone see that?”

  “I told you, I can take care of you,” Finn retorts.

  “And who said I need to be taken care of? I was taking care of myself before you came along, quarterback. I don’t need a knight in shining armor. I never have.”

  “No, what you need is a good fucking spanking,” he mumbles under his breath.

  “I’m with Walker on that one,” I add my two cents, not ecstatic with the idea either.

  Her resentful stare bores into me.

  “Please don’t do this, brat,” Finn pleads, pulling her into his arms in an effort to convince her.

  Her eyes soften at his new tender approach to deal with this shitshow, but everyone can tell she’s made up her stubborn mind.

  “It’s only a job, and it pays good money, Finn.”

  “I can get you a job. Linc, get my girl a job before she has to work for that sleaze bag.”

  Linc begins to open his mouth but seals it shut when Stone shakes her head at him.

  “I already accepted it. I won’t go back on my word.”

  Finn looks absolutely defeated, but when Stone wraps her hands around him, placing her head on his chest, his resolve begins to waver. The rest of us, however, aren’t as easily swayed.

  “It’s just a job, quarterback. Nothing more. Why are you so against it?”

  “Ah, well, maybe because Senator Maxwell might be behind The Society,” Easton points out, arms crossed on his chest.

  “You don’t know that,” she counters, pulling away from Finn to look Easton in the eye. “You said so yourself that Scarlett saw Linc’s mom get into Tommyboy’s car. You have no proof it was the senator behind the wheel that day. It could just as easily have been his son. More probable, even.”

  “True. But do you really want to get involved with that family? Knowing full well one of those motherfuckers is blackmailing us?” Easton retorts bitterly, but his tone doesn’t seem to have any effect on the Southie.

  “If I remember correctly, Kennedy is about to marry into that family. And not one of you has lifted a finger in trying to stop her. A job versus being forever linked to them doesn’t seem so bad to me.”

  I tried to stop her.

  On Halloween night, I tried, yet again, to talk Ken out of making the worst mistake of her life. But I’m not the one who can change her mind. Only one man in this room can, and unfortunately for everyone involved, he’ll never be able to. I don’t need to look at my cousin beside me to know what self-deprecating thoughts are ruling his mind at this very moment.

  Having had enough of the stilted silence around us, I decide now is as good a time as any to do what I came here for.

  “If Walker’s girl wants to work for the next Clarence Thomas, that’s her prerogative. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  And before Finn or Stone can ream me with whatever harsh reply is on the tip of their tongues, I take out the sinister black letter from my back pocket and wave it around. Astounding how the mere sight of the eerie envelope is capable of silencing any room and filling it with dread.

  “Good. I have your attention.” I smirk.

  “Shit. You’ve been summoned already, huh?” Easton mutters, trying to be his usual witty self, but there’s no mistaking the apprehension coating his gray eyes. “So who do they want you to go after?”

  “I don�
�t know. I haven’t read it yet.” I shrug, handing the evil thing over to Linc.

  He holds it carefully in his hands and walks over to the living room. We all follow and surround him as he places the letter flat on top of the grand piano. When I see a familiar name embossed in perfect gold lettering, I kick myself for not having read the damn thing back at my place before I came over.

  I don’t doubt that.

  “Just don’t do anything stupid.”

  She’s about to argue with me when, thankfully, the guys return, ending our conversation. Finn rushes over to Stone and kisses her like he’s just come home from war. He was gone for ten minutes, at best, yet he’s sucking her face like they have been separated a lifetime. I swear, these two can’t get enough of each other. It’s sickening, even if a little sweet. One good thing came of Finn sucking all the air out of her—Stone is no longer carrying that deep-ingrained grimace on her face. Well, not until Colt ruins her fun.

  Colt pulls Finn off her, gaining an annoyed growl from our behemoth friend, and says, “Keep it in your pants, Walker. We came here for a reason, so let’s just get it over with.”

  Four pairs of eyes stare at me, the weight of the envelope suddenly feeling ten pounds heavier in my grasp. The urge to chain-smoke the entire pack of cigarettes in my pocket has never been so strong. With a cool expression on my face, I take out the black stationery to finally see what sentence The Society has doled out for me.

  Fuck my life. These fuckers sure do know how to pick them, don’t they?

  They want Emma.

  No, wait. They don’t.

  She’s only a decoy.

  But is she really?

  Fuck.

  How can I be sure?

  I keep my expression as blank as possible while everyone takes turns reading The Society’s demands word for word.

  “I guess I lucked out,” I gloat, leaning against the piano, knowing everyone in this room will expect such a comment from me. “One call to the dean, and the pretty professor goes back to where she came from. I’ll talk to him Monday. There, done. Next.”

  What a fucking shame, though.

  I had so many plans for the young professor, and these assholes just blew all of them completely out of the water. But while my mind is on the loss of the dirty things I had in store for Emma, everyone else in the room looks troubled by something else.

  “What?”

  “We can’t get her fired. Not yet anyway,” Lincoln explains pensively.

  “Why the fuck not? This is the easiest gig they have given us so far. We should be celebrating, but you all look like we’re at a funeral or something.”

  “Will you please explain it to your cousin? The damn vain idiot can’t see past his own fucking reflection in a mirror, much less see what the real problem here is,” Easton interjects, disappointed, while Linc lets out an exaggerated exhale.

  I throw East a seething look cause he’s being a prick, but that doesn’t change the fact that I really don’t understand why everyone has their panties in a twist.

  “Am I missing something?”

  “Yes!” they all rebuke simultaneously.

  “What?!”

  “They want professor Harper gone because she must have found out something about them in that book of hers back at the Charlotte Library. Maybe she even stumbled on who they are,” Lincoln explains patiently. “We can’t fire her. She’s too important. What we urgently need to do is find out what she knows and be quick about it. Because this time, The Society gave us a time frame, and by my count, we have until Christmas before the first snowfalls. If we’re lucky, maybe early January at the latest, which means you’re on a deadline.”

  “A short one at that,” Finn chimes in.

  I muse over what Linc is trying to warn me about and pair it with the instructions given on the flash drive. Emma was supposed to be just a front for my true task, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth to what Linc is saying. The Society knows that it would be child’s play for me to terminate her contract with the school. Our family is the one who holds the purse strings for the Richfield School Board, so one word from us about our dissatisfaction with any teacher and they’d be kicked to the curb. It really is that easy. So why this precise decoy?

  Trust no one.

  That was their parting advice, and I should have taken it to heart earlier.

  Especially when it concerns them.

  Linc’s right.

  Emma must have been getting too close for comfort for them to bear, and what better tool to get rid of her than use one of the two Richfield heirs they are currently blackmailing. When they said not to pay their written task any mind, like a fool, I took their word. That was my first mistake, and it took my friends reading their demands to make me realize it.

  It’s obvious to me now that they purposely tried to divert my attention off Emma and made sure all I centered on was trying to decipher the riddle they posed to me—uncover whatever lie they want unburied.

  Like I have a clue what that’s about.

  That video had me so consumed with trying to understand what they were alluding to and how I would have to conceal its existence from the rest of the guys—more importantly, from Lincoln—that I didn’t even read the letter until I got here, for crying out loud.

  They played me like a fiddle, but now it’s my turn to return the favor.

  They think we have no clue Emma has been digging into them, and that’s the leverage we can use to our benefit. While I pretend to be their little puppet, I’ll get whatever discovery Emma obtained and use it against them. With any luck, she knows who these fuckers are by name. And if that’s the case, we can finally put an end to all this once and for all. Of course, before I can do that, I’ll still need to get my hands on that fucking video. So many loose threads to deal with, but I guess I should start with the main one.

  I look around to face all the forlorn expressions on my friends’ faces and throw them my best wolfish grin.

  “Leave the professor to me. I know exactly how to play this.”

  I smack my lips, feeling confident in how to go about this, but it doesn’t seem like anyone else in the room shares in my conviction.

  “We’re so fucking screwed,” East mumbles under his breath, anxiously searching his pockets for his nicotine fix.

  “What?”

  “Don’t play dumb, Colt. If you think Professor Harper is going to swoon and give you all her secrets just because you shine those fake veneers at her, then you have another thing coming,” Stone chastises.

  So that’s what they’re thinking I’m going to do—lure Emma into my bed, hoping for some pillow talk about The Society.

  Instead of explaining how I’m really going to go about solving our boogeyman problems, I let them believe what they will and add fire to the flame with a cocky comeback.

  “This is all real, sweetheart. If your boyfriend doesn’t mind, go ahead and check for yourself.”

  I wink.

  “Oh, please. You’re anything but real.”

  My jaw ticks at her smart mouth.

  “Control your woman, Walker. She’s getting on my nerves now. If you’re not man enough to give her that spanking you were promising a few minutes ago, then trust me—I am.”

  The Southie rushes toward me, all claws and teeth, but Finn quickly grabs her by the waist and pulls her away. Stone’s legs continue to wiggle in the air in an attempt to kick me as Finn begins to retreat to their room.

  “Let’s go, brat, before we have another murder to clean up afterward.”

  I can hear her mumbling all the way upstairs what a conceited prick I am, but thankfully her irksome voice is silenced the minute Finn has her locked away inside his bedroom.

  “She’s right, you know,” Easton adds, puffing on his cancer stick. “You might think your dick works miracles, but it won’t do the trick with a woman like Emma Harper.”

  “Enough. Colt isn’t going to try to sleep with her. He just needs to get hi
s hands on whatever she found in that book.” Lincoln walks over to me, his expression hard as steel. “Tell me you got this?”

  “I told you I did. Have I ever not kept my word to you? Ever?”

  He gives me a tight nod and then turns to face the dark prince of our little group.

  “If my cousin says he can handle it, then I believe him. Everyone else should too.”

  “Whatever you say, Linc. It’s not like our lives are on the line,” Easton remarks sarcastically, blowing rings of smoke into the air. “What are we going to do about Stone, though?”

  “What about her?”

  “Are we really going to let her work for the senator? It’s a fucking bad idea sending her into shark-infested waters, if you ask me. Especially if we think Tommyboy and his sleazy father are members of The Society and the ones who are after us.”

  “She’s a big girl and can hold her own,” I defend, bored, pretending to flick an imaginary piece of lint off my shoulder. “She’s also stubborn as fuck, so if Walker can’t talk some sense into her, then neither can any one of us.”

  I look over at Lincoln to back me up in my assessment, but he’s oddly silent throughout the whole exchange.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he states evenly. “I’m going for a walk.”

  He leaves us without another word or explanation. I stand silent, watching him walk over to Oakley Woods through the living room window.