Bury Me (Willow Heights Prep Academy: The Elite Book 3)

by Selena

  “Yeah,” Dolly says. “And their enemies.”

  “The girl was Lacey?” I ask. I remember her telling me about how great it was to be a Darling Doll on my first day of school. Now I understand her loyalty to them, despite her less than desirable experience as a Darling Doll. Still, they took her side over their buddies with no proof, and that has to mean a hell of a lot to any girl in her situation. Because the sad truth is, most guys would just call her a slut and be done with it.

  “Yeah,” Dolly says. “She’s a bitch, but she has her reasons.”

  “I guess you’re not going this year, then,” Dixie says.

  “Oh, I’m going,” Dolly says. “I always go, and it’s my senior year, so this is my last one. Skipping it would be like skipping homecoming or prom. I may be leaving Faulkner, but I’m a southern gal at heart. I love tradition. Drape me in mums to the floor and crown me queen all day long.”

  “Are you going?” Dixie asks, turning to me.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Devlin asked me to go, but now that I can’t leave my room without my family knowing, I’m not sure I’ll be able to sneak out.”

  “I’ll take you,” Dolly says.

  “I don’t have an invite,” Dixie says, rubbing a velvet teddy bear on the thigh of her pajama pants.

  “I’m your invite,” says Dolly, who is wearing a pink satin nightdress with a fuzzy white belt. “Both of you.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “But my brothers would do what Royal is doing now. They’d follow me wherever I went, and when they realized it was a Darling party…”

  “I’ll go,” Dixie says, shoving a pecan sandy into her mouth and glancing nervously between us, like she thinks one of us is going to say she can’t go.

  “Cool,” Dolly says to Dixie before turning to me. “Let me know if you change your mind. You have my messenger handle, if they haven’t taken your laptop.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “But I’ll probably just stay in and have a glass of champagne with my brothers.”

  “If you’re sure,” Dolly says, sounding doubtful.

  “This is more my kind of party than a big, drunken orgy,” I say, gesturing around Dixie’s bedroom. “And speaking of, what’s up with you and the twins, Dolly? Are they still treating you right?”

  She shrugs. “I haven’t talked to them since break started. Baron was talking to another girl, anyway. He didn’t say who, but it’s not like we were ever official. And Duke… I mean, he’s fun, and I needed that. But he’s a freshman, and I’m a senior. I’m graduating, and even if I didn’t leave town, I’d be off at college next year.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” I say. I’m glad she’s not coming to me asking why he didn’t call, which I had to deal with enough at my old school.

  “What about you and Devlin?” Dixie asks. “He’s graduating, too, and you’ll be in school two more years.”

  I can’t help but smile when I remember his promise to me. “He’s going to school here,” I say.

  “Awww,” she says, covering her heart and looking at me with puppy dog eyes. “That’s sweet.”

  There are two colleges in Faulkner—a small university and a tiny liberal arts college. I’m sure Devlin could get a football scholarship to the state university, but he said he wanted to be near me. I might feel bad about him staying if his family weren’t already insistent that he stay in Faulkner, anyway. I feel worse about the fact that he spent half his final season on the bench because of my brothers. He played in the last game, but I know it hurt his chances of getting a scholarship to a bigger school. Faulkner might look the other way about a scandal, but the whole world won’t.

  “He’s a rich man in his own rite now,” Dolly says. “He could go anywhere, even if he didn’t play football.”

  “Wasn’t he already rich?” I ask, picking up the remote to scroll through the streaming options on Dixie’s TV.

  “Well, sure,” Dolly says. “But he had a really big Christmas gift. You haven’t talked to him?”

  “No,” I say, turning to her. “What happened?”

  “He’s eighteen, so Grampa Darling made him a full trustee of his trust fund. He basically just inherited four million dollars.”

  “Holy shit,” Dixie squeals. “How do you know that?”

  Dolly shifts, glancing guiltily at me. “I was there. Our families do a Christmas Eve dinner together.”

  “I saw that on the news,” Dixie moans. “It looks so glamorous.”

  “Let me guess,” I say. “He’s supposed to use the money for your wedding?”

  “No,” Dolly says. “To buy a home for us. I’m sorry, Crystal. You know I don’t want that, and neither does he. He’s crazy about you.”

  “I know.” I trust Devlin completely, and I know that he loves me, but it’s hard not to be a little jealous of the way his family treats her. She’s a part of his world in a way I will never be. Even if we got married, I’d always be the Italian chick from New York who stole his heart, not a real lady, not a tried and true southerner who belongs in the Darling family.

  “So, what movie?” Dixie asks, clearing her throat to break the silence.

  “I vote Hallmark,” Dolly says, and we all agree. It’s nice to sink into something so cute and perfect, something utterly predictable but where I know everything will work out in the end without a single trouble remaining. If only life were that simple.

  If only I could see a way for any of this to work out so that we’re all happy. Hell, at this point I’d settle for half of us being happy. Right now, I’m not sure any of us will end up with what we want. How can I even begin to make a choice between the boy I love and my entire family? Or maybe the choice is simple. Maybe it’s a choice between my family or myself.

  Maybe the decision is not so hard after all.

  twenty-four

  Crystal

  King was right. Love makes you weak. But he’s never felt it, so there’s something he doesn’t know. Love also makes you strong. It makes you invincible. No matter what my family does to break my spirit, they cannot break my heart. It belongs to Devlin. It is filled with a love that burns hotter than molten lava, fiercer than the darkest hate. Nothing can stand in the way of a love like ours. It incinerates everything in its path.

  “You’re going out?” I ask, looking from one brother to the next. The four of them stand in King’s room, staring back at me with expressions varying from resentment to guilt. “I came to ask if you wanted to watch the ball drop in Times Square later, but obviously you have other plans.”

  “We’ve got a few things to take care of,” King says. “Dad will be here with you.”

  I sigh, hugging myself and glancing at the window, where once again, sheets of rain are pouring down. “So, on New Year’s Eve, I get to stay home with my dad like a loser while you all go out? After you told me I can’t go out with my friends?”

  “It’s not like that,” King says. “We’re not going to party.”

  “Let her come,” Royal says. “She might like it.”

  “You might be a criminal yet,” Duke says, throwing an arm around my neck. They do look like criminals—or a gang. All four of them are wearing black from head to toe.

  “What are you guys up to?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at them.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” King says. “Go watch TV with Dad.”

  “You know, you’re all a bunch of hypocrites,” I snap. “You say I’m one of you now, that I’m an adult, you respect me, and I’m your equal, but you don’t treat me like it. Even after I proved myself to you, none of you took me seriously. You just shove me aside, leave me to hang out with our parents, and go off to have fun like you did in New York.”

  “Crystal,” King says, his voice stern. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, I do,” I say. “I’m not stupid or naïve anymore, King. I know what you guys do. I know Dad’s in the mafia.”

  “He’s just an earner,” King says. “And this isn’t ab
out that.”

  “Well, he’s connected, and you’re going to work for Uncle Al. You told me that, but you won’t let me actually do anything. I’m older than the twins and the same age as Royal. The only reason you won’t let me go is because I’m a girl.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “We don’t want you getting hurt.”

  “You don’t think it hurts to watch you go off like a family and treat me like I’m not part of it?”

  “Let her tag along,” Royal says. “Once will be enough for her to see she doesn’t have the stomach for it.”

  King looks back and forth between us. “It’s not place for a girl,” he says at last.

  “I’m not a little girl,” I say. “I’m a woman. Whatever you’re doing, I’d rather do that than sit at home with Dad pretending everything is fine. I know it’s not, and I’m old enough to handle the truth. Tell me what happened to you, Royal. Let me go tonight—wherever you’re going. Stop cutting me out of our own family.”

  Royal’s eyes are dark and deep as infinity as they lock on mine, and for a second, I think he’s going to tell me.

  “We’re going to take the town tonight,” King says. “It’s not safe for you.”

  “And it’s safe for you?” I demand.

  “I vote to let her join,” Baron says. “You never know when you’ll need a girl to get shit done. No one expects it. I think she’d be a good asset.”

  “Yeah,” Duke says. “It never hurts to know how to cause a little havoc. Let this be her first lesson in mayhem.”

  King looks between his three brothers and me. All four of us against him. Still, if he said no, we wouldn’t have a choice. What King dictates is law.

  “You’re part of this family, so if you really want to come along, I suppose you can see how we do things. But you stay in the car where it’s safe no matter what. Understand?”

  “Okay,” I say, nodding. Though I remember Devlin telling me the same thing when we went to get Royal from the Midnight Swans’ office. Hell if I’m going to sit back and let things happen. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I have to sit on the sidelines of life and watch.

  King tosses me a black sweater to put over my white shirt. “Put that on and let’s go.”

  Downstairs, Dad is pouring himself a drink at the wet bar. Unlike Mom, his drinking is controlled, calculated, and never interferes with his work. That one drink might last him ‘til midnight.

  “You’re staying in?” I ask, glancing at the large screen TV mounted on the wall, the reporter showing New Year’s festivities in some other country where it’s already past midnight.

  Dad wraps a strong around me. “Of course we’re staying in, Sweetheart,” he says. “A quiet night in will be a nice change from the parties in New York. That was always your mother’s thing.”

  I suddenly feel bad for wanting to go with my brothers and leaving him here alone.

  “Actually, Dad, Crystal’s coming with us,” King says. “Don’t worry, she’ll stay in the car the whole time.”

  Dad looks from me to my brothers, surprise evident in his expression. No one thinks I can do whatever they’re doing. “You really want to go out?” he asks.

  Now he’s concerned about what I want. I nod, looking up at him, that stupid, childish part of me still aching for him to approve of my decision, to tell me it’s right.

  “We might need a getaway driver,” Duke says with a grin.

  The irony is lost on Dad. He hesitates, then gives a nod and drops his arm from around me. “I thought you were more of a homebody like me, but I guess I can’t keep my little girl from growing up forever.”

  King checks his phone. “It’s time to go, Crys. You coming?”

  I look up at Dad. “Do you want me to stay here with you?”

  “No, go on and have a good time,” he says. “I’ve got some proposals to look over, anyway.”

  “Okay,” I say, turning away from Dad, a hollow feeling inside my chest. It feels incomplete, as if there’s something else I’m supposed to say to him. But I know that if I stayed home with him, he’d spend most of the evening working, anyway. Only at midnight, he’d stop for five minutes to watch the ball drop.

  “We’ll be back after midnight,” King says to him.

  “Don’t come home until you’ve got the job done,” Dad says, clasping his shoulder.

  A little shiver of trepidation goes through me when King agrees, but I don’t have time to ask. I’m swept up in the clomping feet of my brothers, in the twins’ excitement that buzzes through the air around us like an electric current.

  We climb into the Range Rover and take off into the stormy night without a word. I try to figure out the reasoning behind the car and our positions. If we were going for stealth, we would have taken Baron’s Tesla. King’s Evija is too small for us to fit comfortably, not to mention I can make out boxes of different sizes all laid out behind the seat. Duke’s Hummer is the biggest, but maybe we needed quicker pickup. And then there’s the fact that King is in the passenger seat. King never sits in the passenger seat. If all of us are in a car together, he drives. He’s the driver, the leader, the king.

  A few minutes later, we pull into a circular gravel drive, one I remember from the day I saw Mabel here in her little Prius and thought she was the help. The day we came looking for Royal. I lean forward, peering at the darkened house through the pouring rain. My heart begins to hammer. “What are we doing?”

  “Watch and learn, baby sis,” Baron says, wrapping an arm around me and squeezing. Then he hops out with the others. Since there’s no one here, I figure it’s safe enough to get out and see what’s going on. None of my brothers argue when I step to the back of the car, where Duke has lifted the trunk of the car. Inside, I can see a massive stock of brightly colored boxes with cartoon pictures of explosions on them, along with several black tubes.

  “We didn’t even have to get these illegally,” Duke says, peeling plastic off a large, rectangular box. “You can buy fireworks right off the side of the road in this state. Happy New Years, bitches!”

  He and Baron run toward the house in the rain. Royal selects a different one, and King takes a fourth. I hear shattering glass, and a whoop, and Duke comes running back toward the car, his eyes full of wild, manic glee. A second later, light flares behind one of the big picture windows. Cracks and bangs echo through the night as the fireworks explode inside the house. More shattering glass, more streams of fiery light, more noise. Baron and Duke grab me and stuff me back in the car, the other two dive into the front seat, and the tires spit gravel as we skid around the drive and shoot back down it.

  So, that’s what they’re doing. Up to some vandalism and mischief, the kind they did in New York. At least, I assume it’s the kind of thing they did. But then I remember Devlin saying this was where his parents grew up. I remember Dixie saying the party was at another one of Grampa Darlings houses—but no adults would be there.

  “Was anyone in that house?” I ask when the chorus of whoops, panting breaths, and laughter have subsided.

  “I fucking hope so,” Royal says. “I hope it burns to the ground with him inside it. He deserves worse.”

  Suddenly, it doesn’t feel like such a harmless prank. Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t come. Because the night is just getting started, and the trunk is full of fireworks.

  I may not like the Darling patriarch, may even wish he was gone, but not like that. I wouldn’t cry over the asshole dying of a heart attack, but there’s nothing honorable about burning an old man in his sleep.

  “What now?” I ask, my hands shaking as I pin them between my knees.

  “Now we hit every other Darling house in Faulkner,” Royal says, his voice low and laced with hatred.

  “You’re going to kill someone,” I protest.

  “Nah, see, that’s why we make the loud noises,” Baron explains. “So they can get their asses out while the houses go up in flames. See, the funny thing about the fire department in a small town is that they on
ly have a couple trucks. Which means they can’t save them all.”

  “Those assholes laughed in our faces when we told them we were going to take over the school, the town, even their secret society. Guess they won’t be laughing tomorrow.”

  “The Darlings may have run this town for the last 200 years,” King says. “But there’s a new rule in Faulkner now. Welcome to the Dolce reign.”

  “While they’re all living in rentals and fighting with their insurance companies, our dad will take over,” Baron says. “No more obstruction on his building site. No more assholes trying to keep us from owning this place or setting up shop. Preston’s and Devlin’s dads are already facing trials. Now it’s just a matter of time.”

  “This isn’t right,” I say, my head spinning. Why was I so stupid as to come on this outing? They might hurt someone. They might get hurt. There’s a reason I spent the first sixteen years of my life hiding my head in the sand. I can’t face the thought of losing one of them, but more than that, I don’t want to know what they’re capable of. They were right—I don’t have the stomach for this. I don’t want to watch my beloved brothers laugh and celebrate burning someone’s house, a house full of history and memories from childhood. I don’t want to hear the callous, casual way they dismiss the possibility that someone might die, as if it’s not even worth worrying about. As if they’re monsters who wouldn’t worry about taking a life to get what they want.

  Maybe I didn’t want to know the truth about my family because it’s an ugly truth. Somewhere deep inside, I always knew, though. That’s why I hid from it. I didn’t want to see it because then I’d have to admit that my brothers aren’t just boys doing what boys do. Every one of my brothers is capable of things, has probably done things, I can’t even imagine—and don’t want to.

  Baron, with his calculating, brilliant mind, the kind of mind that might see nuclear division and create the atom bomb. Duke is the Joker, a boy with an unhinged kind of hedonism who takes what he wants with no regard for anyone else. Royal, with his brooding anger, who knows it’s wrong but does it anyway. Does having a conscience make him better or worse than the others?