by Elle East
“What is it you have to tell her?” Archer asked Dean. “Is it that you’re a fucking liar?”
His voice echoed around the huge space, bouncing off the marble floors and disappearing up into the towering ceiling. Students walking through had stopped to watch the confrontation, and so we had a small audience.
“You better watch yourself, King,” Dean growled and took a menacing step towards Archer.
“Or you’ll what? What are you going to do to me, Carter Emsworth?” Archer asked.
Dean stopped dead in his tracks.
I looked back and forth between the two large guys. Dean looked shocked, and Archer looked smug.
“Huh?” I asked in confusion.
Dean’s nostrils flared, and the shocked look in his eyes was replaced by pure fury.
“We were wondering why our networks couldn’t find any information on you,” Archer continued. “You were like a ghost. Your online presence was completely scrubbed, so we had to dig deeper. No bank details, no Social Security, no school records, nothing. And you’re good, it's taken this long for us to get to the bottom of who you really are. But no matter how good you are, we’re better.”
“What’s he talking about?” I turned to Dean.
He was glaring furiously at the Kings.
Brett looked like he was barely holding himself back. The large muscles in his shoulders were tense and ready to strike. Grayson looked surprised. When the other two found out, he was probably busy with me, and they didn’t have time to fill him in before they came here to confront Dean.
“Don’t you think she deserves to know who you are, Carter?” Archer continued triumphantly. “Maddy, meet Carter Emsworth. His family is one of the richest in Britain and a long-standing rival of my family. We knew something was suspicious about you from the first time we laid eyes on you. Your ridiculous ‘Dean Smith’ act is over.”
“Is it true?” I asked Dean.
The pleading look in his eyes when he turned to me told me everything I needed to know. But when he opened his mouth, it removed all doubt.
“Yes, I’m so sorry,” he said in the silkiest, deepest, richest British accent I had ever heard.
It sounded so jarring to hear that strange voice come out of such a familiar face that I staggered backwards.
“What is it you want, Carter?” Archer continued. “Besides trying to trick your way up Maddy’s skirt?”
“It’s not like that!” Dean—Carter—growled.
He turned back to me, but I was already moving away from him. My hands stretched out in front of me defensively, as if I was trying to keep the entire situation from getting to me. But there was no going back now.
“I wanted to tell you,” Carter said desperately. “I was going to. I just couldn’t find the right time. My family sent me here to take them down, not you.”
“You’ve been lying to me this whole time.” I stared into his familiar amber eyes, but they suddenly weren’t so familiar anymore. I didn’t know this person at all. “You’ve been using me. I was falling for you, and you were just using me. Was any of it real?”
“Yes,” he insisted earnestly, almost desperately. “Maddy, please, let me explain—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
Suddenly, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Everything that had happened was just too much.
I quickly started walking out of the room.
“Maddy.” Grayson tried to talk to me.
He tried to grab my arm as I went by, but I ripped it out of his grasp and kept walking out of the entrance hall.
I didn’t want to deal with any of them right now. Nothing made sense anymore. My world was spinning out of control. Everything I thought I knew was turned on its head, and I had no idea who I could trust.
Walking back to my room, lost in a daze, I suddenly heard my name over the school’s PA system.
“Maddy Baker, please report to the headmaster’s office immediately. I repeat, Maddy Baker, please report to the headmaster’s office immediately.”
What could it possibly be now? Hadn’t I had enough for one day?
I changed direction and started walking to the office. My body was so numb with shock I could barely feel my feet against the marble floor.
I was so lost in my own thoughts I didn’t realize how I got to the office until I was standing in front of the door. I walked in, and the headmaster’s assistant greeted me. She told me I had a phone call.
I looked at her in confusion. Who would it be? No one had ever called me here before.
I walked over and picked up the phone from her desk.
“Hello?”
“Maddy?” I instantly recognized my mom’s voice.
At the unexpected sound, I broke. All the emotions I’d felt that day washed over and threatened to drown me.
“Mom?” I asked in a small voice, already on the verge of tears.
“Hi, sweetie. How are you?”
“I’m good,” I croaked out. “How are you?”
It was so surreal to hear her warm, comforting voice coming out of the phone from hundreds of miles away, while I was standing in the middle of Crestmoore’s cold head office.
“I’m ok, but you need to come home.”
“Is everything ok?” Dread flowed through me.
Her cancer must have taken a turn for the worse, or they had already found her guilty somehow and she was going to prison.
She hesitated for a moment, and it felt like it stretched on for eternity.
“Your grandparents have died,” she finally said.
“Who?” It took me a second to figure out who she was talking about. “Oh, you mean Dad’s parents?”
“Yes.”
“What does that have to do with us?”
Ok, maybe that was a little harsh about two people who had just died, but they made it very clear they wanted nothing to do with us in life so why should I care about them in death?
“Because they’ve left you everything.”
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Also by Elle East
Savage Lessons
I messed up, and it might end up costing me my body…or even my life.
I owe the Vicious Crew three “favors” and they can ask for anything they want.
The second I walk into the waste dump that is Marter High, I know I’ve made a mistake—and they are determined to teach me a lesson.
The four of them terrify the other students—and in a place like Marter, that’s saying something. Ruthless. Violent. Merciless. Rumor has it they even have ties to the mafia.
Abandoned by my parents. Kicked out of my fancy prep school. Penniless. All I have left in the world is my sister and I’ll do everything in my power to protect her.
A stupid decision. A stupid self-sacrifice, and suddenly the Vicious Crew own me.
I need to be strong for her, but I don’t know if I can survive them.
They hate me.
They are determined to destroy me.
But I refuse to make it easy for them.
