Pride (The Elite Seven Book 2)

by J. D. Hollyfield

  “Oh my god, do you think this is all true?”

  I open another document and read. Police reports followed by large donations to the police department. Another document, and another document, all showing a pretty sick discovery and a cover up. “Is this why? Why—?”

  “It all makes sense now. Listen…” I start clicking on the file tab and sending each photo to his printer. “I need you to lay low. I’m gonna end this once and for all.”

  “Mason, no! You promised me.”

  “I promised I’d fix this. And that’s what I’m gonna do.” I press print on the last photo, then stand, Evie in a state of panic beside me. “I need you to hold on to something.” I reach in my back pocket and hand her the gold trimmed card.

  She unwillingly accepts it. “What is this?” She flips it from front to back. “No, Mason, no.”

  “If something happens to me, give it to Micah, he’ll know what to do with it.”

  “No! You promised!” She starts to cry. “We’ll find another way. We can go to the police with the information! They’ll help us!” I begin to walk passed her, but she jumps in my path, her arms shoving at my chest. “You fucking promised me. This isn’t you sticking to your promise. It’s you leaving me—again.” Her tears cascade down her face in rapid waves. My chest tightens at the pain I’m causing her. But this has to be done. I have to put a stop to her once and for all.

  “Evelyn, calm down.”

  “No! I’m coming with you. You’re not doing this alone.”

  “Yes, I am. I have to.”

  “No! You don’t. Stop trying to be brave for everyone. You saw what happened the last time you went off alone. They almost killed you!”

  And they should have. I’m done letting Lillian pull my strings in this game. This is where I flip the tables, take those strings, and choke her near death. I grab Evelyn and pull her into my embrace, hugging her tightly to my chest. I kiss the top of her head. “I need to do this, okay? Nothing will happen to me, I promise. I won’t stop until you’re safe.”

  “I’m safe with you. Please.”

  “And with Lillian still around, I’ll always be a target, which means I’ll always be putting you in danger. Please. Don’t make me have to worry about you right now. Stay low. Go to your boyfriend’s. I’ll seek you out once I’m done.”

  Her head raises off my chest, and I catch sight of her tear-stained cheeks. Her eyes are swollen, and it fucking kills me to see her this way. “You gotta trust me.”

  “I do trust you, it’s them I don’t trust. Mason, this Elite, if they can cover something as horrible as that up, what will they do if you cross them again?”

  I’m about to find out.

  I give Evelyn another squeeze and peel her away from me. “Do as I say. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep your phone by you.” She doesn’t say another word. I walk out of Envy’s room, and after discussing my plan, I’m gone.

  Megan

  The smoke alarm sounds for the second time in a row, and I rip the oven door open only to receive a gust of smoke to the face. “Shit!” I use my oven mitt to grab for the cookie sheet housing another batch of burnt cookies. “Seriously, this is just not my day!” I shout, fighting the quivering of my lower lip. How hard is it to cut, place, and bake? Not hard at all if you weren’t such a mess. I take deep breaths, fighting back tears. I can do this. No, you can’t. You’re on round two of failure.

  I take in my messy kitchen. I’m now going on round three of failure. But I refuse to give up. I’m too desperate to divert my thoughts so they don’t go back to him.

  I lay out a new tray, slide it back into the oven and sit on the couch to catch the end of a Judge Judy episode. She’s about to let some scumbag get spousal support from a girl he married while drunk off his ass for only two weeks, but my mind goes rogue, and I start replaying Lillian’s frantic plea when she showed up at my door bruised and hysterical.

  “Aunt—”

  Aunt Lillian falls through my open doorway, forcing me to reach out and catch her. “I had to come straight here. You’re in danger, darling.” I gape at her, bruises forming around her neck and a welt growing over her cheek. “You need to know, Mason Blackwell, he’s dangerous,” she says, breathing heavily.

  “Aunt Lillian, what are you talking about? Who did this to you?” I panic. She looks to have been assaulted.

  “Megan, you must listen to me.” She begins to shake me. “I know what’s going on between you and Mason.”

  “What?”

  “He’s dangerous. He attacked me. Threatened me. If I didn’t allow him to do…things to me, he would do horrible things to you.”

  My eyes go wide with shock, but even more confusion. “Aunt Lillian, you’re not making any sense.” How does she know about Mason? And why would he? He would never hurt me—

  “Megan, he’s not who you think he is…”

  The blaring of the smoke alarm in the kitchen drags me out of the flashback, throwing me three feet off my seat. I run into the kitchen, fighting the dark cloud of smoke to realize I burnt my cookies. Again. Tears pool and fall, disintegrating on the hot tray. I scrape the charred cookies into the garbage. “Pull it together,” I cry to myself. “If there is one thing you can control right now, it’s making simple sugar cookies.”

  With a deep breath, I lay another batch on the sheet and shove them into the oven. I open my window to help get rid of the cloud of smoke. This time, I set a timer and go off to take a shower. It’s supposed to help calm me and wash away the last two days of grime and pain over the lies and betrayal, but it only heightens the memories of him.

  “Hold on to the wall,” he orders, and I do what he says. My pussy is sore, but still pulsating for more. I throw my hands to the wet tile of the motel shower and hold on. He bends down, tossing a bare leg over his shoulder. My skin is pale compared to his colorful flesh. His tongue licks at me, pumping in and out of me, while he sucks my folds into his mouth. My head falls back against the shower wall, and my hands threaten to slip.

  “Hold tight, or I might end up biting you.”

  My belly tightens, and one hand twitches, sliding an inch down the wall. He catches me, his strong fingers digging into my thigh. “Jesus Christ,” I moan.

  “Fuck, you taste like heaven.” He pulls his tongue away to nip at my inner thigh. “Not sure I’m gonna ever be satisfied with you.”

  I know this is just a fantasy, but his words fill me just as much as his tongue and the pleasure he’s giving me. “Hulk have big appetite?” I joke, and swallow my own whimper when he’s up, flipping me, pushing my hard nipples to the cold tile, pressing his thick cock into my ass.

  “Never knew it until you.”

  I’m struggling to catch my breath, my tears mixing with the water as I soak my body under the steaming hot spray. I’m using any effort I have to wash the suds out of my hair when the smoke alarm sounds again, causing me to slip and take out my shower curtain to avoid killing myself and falling in my tub. I stick my head out to check my phone where I set the timer, and low and behold, my battery’s dead. With shampoo suds still thick in my hair and seeping into my eyes, I run in my birthday suit back to the crime scene of another batch gone bad.

  “What the fuck, you stupid cookies!” I scream, whipping the oven mitt across the kitchen and knocking my plant off the counter. The pot shatters and soil explodes all over the floor. It was the perfect metaphor for how my world has felt since the moment Mason Blackwell came into my life.

  Blackmail. Felon. Con artist.

  One after another, I fight the sickness in my stomach, sitting in my parents’ home as Aunt Lillian gives them her statement. Mason wasn’t eighteen. He wasn’t even a student at the university. He was obsessed with my aunt and using me to get to her. He threatened to expose my dark secret to the school and my family if she didn’t give in to his sick obsession. He doesn’t even want me. He wants her.

  “He kept going on and on about how he’s been stalking me since they were t
aken from our home. I tried to help him. We’ve wanted nothing but good things for those kids.”

  I cover my mouth in fear of expelling the small amount of food I have in my stomach. This can’t be happening. I couldn’t have been that stupid—that blind.

  “Megan,” my dad calls my name, not hiding the anger in his dominant tone. I look up, no doubt lacking any sort of color to my face. “Do you hear this? You’re done with him. You’re lucky I have the resources to hide this shameful scandal. How could you? Our name? Our legacy? Have you no sense of respect for yourself and your career? No less your family’s?”

  Trying to catch my breath, I wipe at my soaked cheeks. Everything about us was a ruse. He lied to me. He fooled me. Or maybe I was just too wrapped up in the fantasy of us to see the signs. But everything felt so real. Genuine. My heart opened wide for him with every single promise he imbedded deep inside. But it was just to trick me. Get close to me as a ploy.

  “Damn you.” I grab for another set of oven mitts, removing the ruined batch of cookies. “So much for pulling a Martha Stewart move, making my house smell magical like warm sugar cookies.” I sadly laugh at myself and dump the cookies in the trash.

  The truth about Mason isn’t the only shame I feel. The disappointment in my mother’s eyes. My dad’s anger. He wouldn’t even look at me. I’ve spent my entire life trying to make my parents proud, and in an instant, I ruined everything. All because I had a desire and finally found a guy who made me feel normal.

  “Yeah, well that guy doesn’t truly exist.” I throw the mitts and pull open my freezer to grab a frozen pizza instead. I’m washing my hands when my doorbell rings. My head whips toward the front of my house, curious who would be stopping by. My eyes search out the grandfather clock in the hallway. My family would still be in church. I dry my hands, grab a robe from the laundry room and cautiously make my way to the front door. Peeking through the curtain, I see a girl. It doesn’t take a genius to see the resemblance. Her hair is lighter, and she may be shorter, but there’s no hiding those steel eyes.

  Unlocking the three bolts, I pull the door open.

  “Hi, Megan. I’m—”

  “Mason’s sister.”

  “Oh…uh, yeah. Well, I was wondering if we can—”

  “I have nothing to say to you or your brother. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I start pushing the door shut when her hand slams on the door, stopping it. “Excuse me!”

  “I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say. This isn’t just about Mason. It’s about you too.”

  We stare at one another for a moment, her eyes haunting me, the same steel eyes as his, until I release the door. “Make this quick.” I give her my back and walk into my living room. The sound of the door shutting, and her boots hitting the tile echo until she’s sitting next to me.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to be rude back there,” she starts.

  “This better be good. I have things to do.”

  She peers over my shoulder, her nostrils twitching. “Like what? Trying to burn your house down?”

  “I was trying to bake cookies,” I snap.

  Her nostrils flare again, her eyebrows creasing as she takes another whiff of my living room. It does really stink in here. “Okay, well…”

  “Yeah. Sure, get to it.” She reaches to her side and shuffles into her purse until she retrieves a worn photograph. She hands it to me, and after some hesitation, I grab it. My eyes scan the photo. My aunt and uncle and cousin sitting proudly next to a younger Mason and his sister. It wasn’t new information that the Griffin’s fostered kids. I always thought it so admirable of them. But as kids, we were never exposed to them and my cousin, Chastity never spoke about them much.

  “This isn’t new to me. Aunt Lillian told me the story.” I toss the photo back at her. The tears my aunt shed, rehashing the memory of Evelyn Blackwell and how she found my uncle in her room. The stealing.

  “You don’t know the real story.”

  “Oh, and what’s that? You didn’t lure my uncle to have sex with you? You didn’t steal from them when all they wanted to do was help you? Mason’s violent attacks on my aunt—”

  “Those are lies,” she spits at me.

  “And you expect me to believe you? What, do you want me to feel sorry for you? I know how you got here, just like your brother. Blackmail.” I jump up from my couch. “Actually, I want you to leave.”

  She follows suit and stands. “And I’m not leaving until you hear the truth. Afterward, if you still think your family is innocent, that’s your burden to bear. I’m pretty sure my brother’s in love with you and he’s hurting bad, and it kills me to see him this way. I’d rather come over here and wipe your ass across the floor for the way you dismissed him, but I know you need to hear what I have to say. After that, it’s on you. Now, sit the fuck back down.”

  Her fierceness sends my eyebrows up in shock. The fight in her to protect her brother. The acknowledgement that he loves me. My mouth goes dry. My tongue attempting and failing to wet my lips. I struggle to speak. I surrender to her demands and nod slowly, taking my seat. She does the same.

  “The photo was taken about three years ago when we were first placed into the Griffins’ home. To a passing eye, it looks like we’re all happy. But there are lies behind those fake smiles.” She hands me back the photo, and this time, I truly take it in. Mason is so much leaner. His arms are bare of any tattoos. His expression is still troubled, but not nearly as much as it is now. The permanent scars he wears behind those beautiful grey eyes.

  “Nothing was as it seemed. Lillian was not the sweet, nurturing caretaker who made it her life’s mission to help the helpless. She was the devil in disguise who had so much hate in her, she was suffocating herself with it.”

  The way she describes Lillian is unfamiliar to me. Far from the loving aunt I’ve grown up with. The one who would braid my hair at family parties or help me with my homework when she came by to visit with my dad. I want to demand she stop spilling such hate on someone who has been nothing but loving to me. But I also have this pinging feeling inside me that says I need to hear her out.

  “We were with the Griffin’s for a year. Our previous family, we thought we would stay with them until we chose to enter the world on our own. But she got pregnant, and well…when you finally get your own children, the temporary ones you have kinda just become that. Any who, Mr. Griffin, in that time, had been coming into my room late at night, drunk beyond comprehension.” I clench my fingers at the fear of what may spill from her lips. “He never touched me. But the other girls they fostered weren’t so lucky.”

  My lungs seize, feeling as if I just got kicked in the stomach. “No…”

  “Yes. He’d come into my room late at night, booze making his tongue loose, and confess things. Stuff he’d done.”

  This can’t be true. Uncle George would…could never. “I don’t believe you. Why would he do such horrible things, but never to you?”

  “Because I didn’t look like his daughter.”

  The choked intake of breath causes me to sway in my seat. “Oh God, Chastity? Did he—?”

  “No. He admitted he never touched her. He would cry sometimes because his desires were so intense, he was afraid one day he wouldn’t be strong enough to restrain them. But from the time we were with them, he hadn’t.”

  Oh, my poor cousin. The thought… I shake my head.

  “The night we were removed from the Griffin house, Lillian caught George in my room. He’d come home from a business function. He was drunk and angry about something that happened. I would have never known what he meant then, but now it makes sense.” I lift my hand to rest on hers. A tear escapes her sorrowed lids, and I give her the moment she needs before she continues. “The whole time, he was confessing secrets about The Elite. If I would’ve known to tell someone then…maybe…maybe I could have done something…”

  “Honey, what are you talking about?” She’s lost me. My uncle was part of many clubs. He was a h
igh ranked member in our society. “He could’ve been talking about anything. His Golf Club maybe? The church had a—

  “The Elite. Secret society run through the university. He’s a part of it. Your aunt is a part of it. There’s more. So many more.”

  I can’t stop shaking my head. I think she’s confused. This…a secret society? That’s just nonsense. “Evelyn, listen. I know you’ve been through a lot, but—”

  She stops me, reaching back into her bag, and hands me a gold piece of paper. It’s thick like some sort of cardstock, the corner singed. “What is this?”

  “This is proof.” And the next twenty minutes burn into my mind, trying to diagnose everything she tells me. The years her and her brother were torn apart. The horrid things she went through. Mason. My poor Mason. Lillian’s true hold over them both. The Elite. I threaten to expel my breakfast, the color washed clear from my face. If all she says to me is true, then Mason and I haven’t been a ruse. And Lillian…Lillian is exactly what she says she is: the devil in disguise.

  Mason

  My plan was in full swing.

  Catching Lillian off guard was the only way to get her alone, and I needed her unarmed. If I was right on my theory, The Elite was bigger than just her. She may be the mastermind pulling my strings, but there’s a higher power out there pulling hers. Envy, no questions asked, hacked into Lillian’s phone sending a virus, creating an untraceable text. The message summoned her to the abandoned nunnery to discuss Invidia. The Latin name for envy. If she was a member, I was banking on everything, that was her sin. If I bet wrong, this will all blow up in my face and more lives will be ruined.

  I pull up to the nunnery and my heart quickens when I see her car parked on the side of the abandoned structure. I jump out of Micah’s car and fight through the whistling wind to the front entrance. My hand dips to the back of my jeans, grazing over the outline of the gun shoved in my waistline. There’s no guarantee how tonight will go, but I’m prepared for anything. If Lillian knows this is a setup, she won’t be alone. And this may be the end of the road for me.