Ruined: A Dark Bully Reverse Harem Romance (Beautiful Tyrants Book 1)

by Vanessa Winters

  I rolled my eyes as we walked together. “Trust me, it’s not as easy and simple as you might think.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it isn’t simple at all,” David laughed. “What’s going to happen after college, though? Are you guys still all going to live together, or are you going to end up picking a guy?

  I turned his question over in my head for a little bit. “I don’t know yet. How about you, what are your plans after graduation?”

  “Oh, it’s kind of complicated.” His tone sounded more serious now.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Hey, do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow night?” David said.

  I could tell that he was trying to change the conversation again.

  “Dinner?” I really didn’t want to run into my father again. I had finally committed to leaving everything. I wanted to move on with my life. So, why would I want to put down yet more ties to an area I had every intention of abandoning the second I could?

  David continued, though. “Yeah, please? You can bring the other guys too if you want. I think it would be cool to hang out a bit before we graduate, and all go our separate ways.”

  “I don’t know,” I hesitated. “I really don’t want to run into my father. And plus, we still have the graduation celebration that we can hang out together.”

  “I won’t be able to go to that,” David said quickly.

  “But didn’t you just say that you were here on campus for—”

  “Come on, just one dinner? I feel like we’ve barely gotten to spend any time together since we were kids. And even that, I only remember bits and pieces of. Besides, Jack probably won’t even be around.”

  I really didn’t want to ask about my father, but I also didn’t want to agree to come to dinner if there was any chance that I’d run into him.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes. “He’s been distracted with some big project lately. He’s hardly been around at all.”

  I hated to imagine what sort of big project my father could be working on. I’m sure it wasn’t anything good.

  “Well…” I stalled.

  David looked at me with big blue puppy-eyes. His eyes were a lot like Michael’s. He must have gotten the eyes and hair from his mother’s side. I’m not sure what he got from our father’s side; he didn’t look anything like him at all.

  “Okay,” I relented. “Since you won’t be at the graduation celebration, then I guess it’s important. I’ll let the guys know, and I’m sure they’ll be fine with it too, considering it might be the last chance we have to all see each other.”

  “Great!” David said. “Meet you at the tree tomorrow night,” he said.

  “Okay,” I smiled.

  He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. It felt super uncomfortable since we’d never even done so much as a hug or handshake before. I was glad to see that he seemed happy and wanted to connect, but I still felt like there was something a little off about him.

  I tried not to second-guess my acceptance to dinner as I walked back to the apartment. A couple hours at dinner wouldn’t hurt, and besides, the guys would be there. Things were different now, and I wasn’t as scared of being hijacked or otherwise troubled on the Lineage campus as I once would have been.

  “You told him what?” Michael said right after I had walked into the apartment and told them about the dinner invitation.

  “It’s just one dinner,” I said.

  “You do realize what’s happened at some of these dinners in the past, right?” he asked me.

  Of course, I did. I nearly met my death at half of them.

  “He’s part of our family,” I said. “And it might be the last chance we ever get to see him.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice,” Michael murmured.

  Adam laughed under his breath.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Please?”

  “Fine,” Michael said as he picked me up and whirled me around in his arms. “But at the first sign of trouble, we’re out of there. We’re too close to blowing out of here to get involved in any other drama. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I said as I leaned down in his arms to kiss him.

  That night we all hung out on the couch together and watched a movie. It was one of my favorite things to do when all three guys were cozied up around me, and everything seemed right in the world. Just before I fell asleep on the couch, with my head in Adam’s lap as he stroked my hair.

  My waist sat in Michael’s lap as he held his arm around me, and my hand dangled off the couch, holding onto Julian’s shoulder as he sat on the floor in front of us, leaning up against the sofa.

  I thought about how perfect it would be if it could just stay all four of us together.

  And I knew then and there I had my answer to the question Michael asked me before.

  33

  I should have known that dinner was too easy. I should have listened to my gut when I got all the strange feelings and signals that something wasn’t right with him.

  The night before the dinner was wonderful. I was lying in bed with Adam and had fallen asleep in the most perfect way with my hand on his chest and my head nestled right in the nook of his shoulder. He had told me that he loved me again before he fell asleep, and that time I almost said it back to him.

  And then I had one more dream.

  That dream was different than the ones I had been having in the weeks before. The past several days had been full of trivial dreams of happy things that seemed to suddenly infiltrate my subconscious. They were things like picking out our new apartment when we got to wherever it is that we were going, and then watching all the guys sitting around the table pouring whiskey into glasses. They were dreams about what I wanted to happen. But in that dream, I was with my mother again. And instead of the happy smile that she always tried to wear even if she didn’t really feel it, she had the most terrifying expression on her face.

  She didn’t look afraid, or angry, or in pain; she looked blank. Blank like the kind of look that David had the night he had been there at the apartment with us. I’d never seen my mother like that before. She was always thinking about something and always had something creative going on behind her eyes.

  But in my dream, she looked like a drone. A mindless and emotionless robot. She got up and walked away to another room, and I followed her. Sometimes in my dreams, the setting could change without me even realizing it. One minute I'm out in a garden. and the next thing I know I'm inside a room somewhere.

  That’s what happened in my dreams.

  Suddenly, though, I was standing with my mother in the storage room at the halfway house again. She was looking down at something on the floor. And when I looked there as well, I saw that it was her body on the night she died. I was scared but I also wanted to know if she was trying to show me something.

  I looked back up at her, but when I did, it wasn’t her anymore.

  It was David.

  I immediately woke up at the sight of his face and sat straight up in bed with a fit of tremors as if I had a fever, which I didn’t. Adam sat up with me when he felt me jolt up and wrapped his arms around me.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Was it another dream? Are you okay?”

  I nodded my head and told him I was fine and that I just needed a glass of water, which he went to go get for me.

  I should have told him about that dream.

  I should have told him that I didn’t think we should go to the dinner.

  When we got to Lineage that night, David was already waiting by the tree for us, just like he said he would be. The guys all said hello, and I smiled at David even though it felt like it was forced. Adam stayed close to my side. I think he could tell after last night that something wasn’t sitting right with me. He kept glancing over at me to make sure I was okay, and he seemed hyper vigilant about watching what was around us all night.

  “Where are we going?” I asked when I saw that it looked like we were heading back toward t
he Main Hall. I had figured that we would be having dinner in David’s apartment or dorm (I wasn’t sure which he had), since it was just going to be the five of us.

  “Just say the word, Lisette,” Adam whispered in my ear as we followed David into campus. “And we’re out of here.”

  I nodded my head. I knew that all three guys would be happy to leave if anything started to seem out of place.

  We walked into the Main Hall and sat down to eat at the same table we ate at the night that my father announced David’s existence. I thought it was a strange choice or a strange coincidence. Either way, I should have listened to my instincts again.

  “So, David,” Julian asked, once we were all seated, and the food was placed. “What are your plans for after college?”

  “I was thinking about going into business,” he answered.

  “Cool,” Julian nodded as he took a piece of steak off his plate.

  “What kind of business?”

  I should have known, I thought, as the foreboding feeling came over me again.

  “The family business,” my father said as he walked into the room to join us.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Michael said.

  All three of the guys stood up.

  “Sit down, sit down,” my father laughed. “No one is here to do anything stupid tonight.”

  The guys didn’t sit down. They stayed in positions poised to grab me and run out of the room, or to fight if need be.

  Jack held out his arms. “I knew that if I had invited you to dinner that you wouldn’t have come.”

  “You think?” Michael snarled. “Why did you invite us here again?”

  Jack’s eyes met mine. “It might be the last time I get to see my daughter if I’m correct in assuming that all of you might leave after graduation, and I wanted to make amends.”

  “Amends?” I huffed from my seat. “There is nothing that you could ever do to make amends with me.”

  “Well, at least give me the opportunity to try. Please.”

  He looked at the guys and put both palms up in a gesture of surrender. After a couple of minutes, they sat back down at the table. Michael squeezed my hand and told me the same thing that Adam had said; that we could leave at any moment I wanted to.

  But then, my father started talking.

  “We have all done things that we wished we would not have,” he said. “I admit some of us have done more than others. I am getting older now, and I have been able to learn and understand a few things that I didn’t understand before. And it’s all thanks to David.”

  He reached over and gave his son a pat on the shoulder. I looked at David, and he stared back at me with a smile.

  “He and I were able to get to know each other, after nearly a lifetime of not knowing each other at all. I feel like I don’t know you at all, either, Lisette. And for that, I am sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I said bitterly. “I’m very glad not to know you any better than I do.”

  My father nodded his head solemnly. “I understand why you feel that way. It’s my fault.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And I know that I will probably never see you again after tonight,” he continued. “And I have no one to blame for that but myself as well. I can’t go back and change what I’ve done, but I hope you’ll accept a small token of what I’m about to do as a gesture of the father I would have liked to have become for you and didn’t.”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” I said. “Keep your money.”

  “Oh, it’s not money,” he said.

  He handed me a thick folder that was bursting at the seams.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “What you hold in your hand there is everything about all of the things I have ever done. Every ledger, illegal transaction, or execution order that has ever been given.”

  “Why are you giving me this?” I asked in disbelief.

  “I’ve decided I no longer want to do it. You can do whatever you’d like with it. You can turn it in to the police or burn it and know that none of it will ever continue here at Lineage again.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “These are the keys to the safe in my office. All of the access to all the money and assets that I have, that your family has had throughout the generations and that I have stolen from people; it’s all in there.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It didn’t make up for ANYTHING. There was nothing that could make up for the murder of my mother, and nothing that could make me feel anything for my father, not even forgiveness.

  The guys all looked at me in shock.

  “You can leave now if you’d like,” he said. “Take it all with you. But if you’d be willing to stay, I’d like the chance to tell you a few things about your mother.”

  “What could you possibly tell me about my mother that I don’t already know?” I asked. “I don’t want to hear any of your lies. You didn’t love her. You shouldn’t even speak her name on your lips.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I shouldn’t. But there is one thing that you’re wrong about. I did love her at one time. And then I stopped loving everyone. I still remember some of the things that I loved about her at the beginning, though. Those are the things that would keep me up at night when I realized how much I tormented her and how much she didn’t deserve it.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything that you have to say about my mother,” I said.

  I could feel myself starting to shake. I just wanted to take the papers now and leave. I wanted to go to the safe and take all the things out of it to return the money and the assets to whoever they rightfully belonged to, and then I wanted to leave. I should have said that right then, too.

  I should have said that I wanted to leave.

  Jack’s voice ripped me from my confused trance. “Then maybe you’ll let me tell you about how much David has helped me. I don’t think you two have had enough time to spend together.”

  Ugh, okay. That is the reason I came here tonight at all.

  Everyone looked uneasy. Everyone that is, except for David.

  “Turns out your brother is an excellent scholar,” he said.

  I wanted to correct him and say that David was my half-brother, but since I just wanted to get through the night and get back home, I didn’t much see the point in it.

  “Oh?” I asked. “How so?”

  “Well, for one thing, he’s read about the entire history of both colleges. Then he went back to the libraries and retraced his ancestry back for generations.” My father put a forkful of food in his mouth as he continued to talk. His eating habits grossed me out ever since I could remember. “Quite interesting stuff, I think.”

  “Find anything interesting in all your research?” Michael asked as he looked across the table at David. I noticed something odd about the tone in Michael’s voice, something accusatory maybe.

  “Not really,” David said.

  He was sitting up near my father, who was at the head of the table. Michael and Adam were on either side of me, and Julian was sitting on the same side of the table as David.

  “I did find a cool little tidbit about the Goldshire auditorium building, though,” he said as if it were an afterthought. “Did you know that there used to be an old underground library beneath the current auditorium?”

  Julian and Michael stared at each other. I guess it was public information if someone went digging around for it, or if someone just happened to stumble upon it while reading up on the architectural history of the colleges.

  I guess it wasn’t that unusual that David would know about it.

  “No,” Michael answered. “Fascinating. I doubt it’s still there, though. I would have seen it.”

  “Perhaps not,” David said. “The entrance is relatively difficult to find unless you know the layout. Maybe sometime prior to graduation I can swing by, and we can check it out together. If it does still exist, it would make a pretty cool place to host the graduation
celebration.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stood up.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t make it to the graduation celebration,” I said.

  For a brief moment, David looked rattled, as if he had been caught in a lie. But just as quickly, he was able to toss up a believable explanation. “Oh, right, yeah. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to attend. I have a few post-college job interviews scheduled, and one of them conflicted with the grad celebration. But I was able to get it moved so that I could attend. I think I just forgot to tell you. It’s great, though because now we’ll be able to have another night to hang out before everything is over.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Great.”

  I could feel Adam’s eyes boring into the side of my face. He knew something was definitely off.

  “David,” Adam said. “I’m assuming you’re not going into the family business after all since your dad has essentially just handed Lineage over to Lisette. So, what kind of business is it that you’re planning on going into exactly?”

  David subtly squirmed in his seat before pulling a smile on his face and letting out a laugh that seemed a bit forced. “That was just a joke dad made,” he said as he looked at our father. “We actually talked about that before dinner, thought it would lighten the mood a bit.”

  How in the world would they think any of us would find that funny?

  “But yeah, good question. So, I’m not really sure yet, but I think it’ll have something to do with being in finance. I’ve got a pretty mathematical brain. What are you going to do, Lisette?” David asked me.

  “I’m not sure,” I said quickly. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “And all of you guys are going with my daughter?” my father asked. “Lisette, you’ll surely never have to worry about anything with three men surrounding you all the time.”

  He laughed as if we had been friendly our entire lives. As if he had literally any right to speak to me about my life. I felt like I as in an alternate reality, and I just couldn’t take any more of it.

  “Well, this has been great,” I said as I clenched the overstuffed folder in my hands and stood up from the table.