Baron might point out the social advantage of us teaming up and pretending we’re together, but he doesn’t like me. He won’t kick Gideon’s ass for asking me out. Hell, he’d probably like it if I dated a football player. He’d think it got me under control. But I could do a lot from that position.
Maybe this girl—New Harper, Harper-Maybe-Darling, Miss A—could like a nice boy.
The thought is so ludicrous I almost laugh. After what I’ve been through, I can’t date some sweet, idealistic, unsuspecting boy. I have way too much trauma and drama to unpack on any man, let alone a good, normal one. He would either run for the hills the minute I told him, or he’d stay, and I’d destroy him. And that’s the last thing I want to do to a good man.
The only man I could risk would be someone as fucked up as me.
Like Royal, whispers a little voice in the back of my head.
I shake the thought away. I’m done with Royal. He’s done with me. But yeah, maybe someday, I’ll be ready to try again. Not with Royal, but someone like him.
Someone as fucked up as me, like one of the other Dolce boys, or even a Darling boy, once the DNA test comes back and proves we’re not a match. Not that I want to be with one of the Dolce fuckboys who raped me, or even Preston. But there are other men out there as fucked up—convicts and gangsters and the men at the Saturday fights.
Maybe that’s why my mother always chooses rough men, why it never works out with the nice ones even when she tries. Not because that’s all she can get, but because that’s the kind of man who can handle her damage.
At home, I open my closet and look at all the preppy designer clothes Preston bought me. I sift through them until I reach the back of my closet, where my own clothes hang—thrift store finds, hand-me-downs from people my mother has worked with, and an occasional splurge from after a good fight. At the very back, where I hoped my mom wouldn’t find it, hangs a black leather jacket I’ve never worn.
I take it out and pull it on. It’s too big for me, but just a little, so it still looks cool. Preston must have left it at his childhood home when he moved out because it was too small for him. I remember finding it in his closet, pulling it on, wondering why there were no mirrors in the room so I could see how it looked on me.
Now I know why. I know why he had paintings above his dresser instead of a mirror.
I sit on the edge of the bed and text him.
“Can we talk?”
A message comes back a minute later. “Sure. Pick u up at 5?”
“Can’t tonight. I’m going to the game.”
I wait a few minutes, but he doesn’t answer. He must be pissed about my choices, thinking I’m going to cheer for the men who destroyed him. After all he’s done for me, he has every right to be angry.
But I have every right to live my life the way I want, not the way he thinks I should.
I eat dinner, feeling more guilty with every bite I take. This is food Royal bought us. Yet another person who tried to buy my loyalty. It’s never over with these two families. Even if the DNA test comes back and proves I’m not a Darling, I’m not sure I’ll ever get out of the spot they’ve made for me, right between their warring families. I’m so fucking sick of it.
I’m not proud or stupid enough to throw away dinner just because Royal bought it, though. Girls like me don’t waste food. We never know where the next meal is coming from.
That’s not literally true—we have enough food for a few more weeks. But after that… It’s anyone’s guess. So, I won’t waste something that will stretch this time of plenty for one more meal. Mom quit her job, and Royal quit me. If I piss off Preston, he’s not going to pay for groceries, either. Looks like my time off from the Slaughterpen is about to come to an end. Which means I better get all the status I can out of the last few football games I’ll get to attend.
I brush my teeth, throw on some makeup, and head to Ridgedale.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em and all that shit.
Showing up at an away game means more than a home game, and this will prove my loyalty to football and therefore the entire school. It proves that I want to play the game, not just ruin things. People fear the unknown, so I have to be familiar, show them that I’m not going to make things worse. I’m not going to repeat what the Dolces did when they arrived.
Plus, I don’t play football, so I can’t be a star and convince everyone that replacing their kings is in their best interest.
I’m in line for snacks when someone taps on my shoulder. I turn around and see one of the last people on earth I want to see—Mr. Dolce. My heart shoots into overdrive, and I suddenly can’t remember how to swallow. Does he know what his sons did to me?
“Harper?” he says, blinking at me a few times, like he didn’t expect it to be me even though he’s the one who got my attention. Maybe he knows what they did, but not that I lived through it.
“Hi, Mr. Dolce,” I say stiffly.
He swallows, frowning down at me. “You changed your hairstyle.”
Fuck. He’s not surprised to see me alive. He thought I could be his daughter.
I imagine what that must be like for him, for all of them. How many times he’s tapped on the shoulder of a short, curvy woman with long straight hair. How many times the impossible, intoxicating hope has risen in his chest for the split second before she turns around and shows him a face he doesn’t know. How the pain can never really heal, can never really end, because they never found a body. Even though they had a funeral for an empty casket, there’s still that one bead of cruel hope that remains suspended like a raindrop that never falls.