“Based on what Harper just said and my own observations, I have a pretty good idea,” Preston says, staring back at Royal with a cool gaze, though anyone else would be quaking in their seat at the look Royal’s giving him—especially after they already lost an eye and had half their face burned off by him and his brothers.
“Who?” Royal growls. “You better start talking, or I’ll bulldoze your whole fucking family into the ground and be done with it. It doesn’t matter who it is.”
“Harper’s right,” Preston says. “You’re looking at the wrong question. Everyone has money. Everyone hates you. And our family didn’t think Harper was a Darling, so why would we even bother tracking her down?”
“Fuck,” I whisper, turning to Royal. “He’s right. It wasyourfamily.”
We stare at each other for a long minute. I think of all the times I tried to get Mr. D to join me, to take down the Dolces. How he always had some coy response, some excuse. No wonder he never did anything with the information. He didn’t want to bring down the Dolces at all.
How many times did he call me “darling girl”? The Dolce boys all called me that at one time or another. But now I realize they were calling me Darling girl, with a capital D, because they thought I was one of their enemies all along. I shiver in my wet clothes when I remember that sleazy Mr. Dolce called me that, too.
“Dad,” Royal says, his voice hollow. “He has money for the scholarship, and he’s always in our fucking business, trying to get information.”
“That was my guess,” Preston agrees.
I shiver again, shrinking down in the seat, a sick feeling gripping my stomach. Mr. Dolce’s an older man with money who could give me a scholarship. At one point, I thought it might be Royal’s older brother wanting information because Royal shut him out. But his dad could want information for the same reason. And he’s gross enough to want that information, to want to hear all the details about his son’s performance.
But something doesn’t quite fit.
“Shit,” I say slowly, my pulse thundering in my ears. “Your dad may be a creepy, nosy pervert, but he doesn’t know how to hack into computers. He’s not the one who likes to play sick games with people’s minds.”
“No,” Royal says, shaking his head. “My brothers would never do that to me.”
All I can think of is a conversation I had my very first week at Willow Heights, when the other girls were debating which Dolce was the scariest. I thought there was no way anyone could be worse than Royal, but maybe I was wrong.
I lay a hand on his knee. “I’m sorry. But it all tracks. The way he found me to begin with, and then y’all followed me to the tracks. The Swans were just a decoy. He found a Darling that your father wouldn’t protect, so you could do the same things to me you did to Mabel.”
“That’s not what happened with her,” Royal says, his eyes vacant, as if he’s talking to himself.
I take his hand and squeeze. “Baron saw when things were getting too serious between us. When you didn’t break up with me after we were locked in the basement, who knew to hack into my phone and show you the messages? He never told anyone because he wasn’t trying to bring you down. In his own twisted way, maybe he was even trying to protect you. I was out to destroy your family, and he had all the ammunition ready to go the moment he decided it was time to pull the trigger.”
I thought that Royal aimed the twins at me and fired, but I had it all backwards. He’s the weapon. I’m the victim. Baron was the shooter, the mastermind behind it all, just like Dixie said from the very beginning.
Royal just keeps shaking his head slowly back and forth, looking at me with a haunted, horrified expression. He knows what it means. He knows we both got played.
“No,” he says quietly.
“I know you want to believe the best about your brother,” I say, my throat tight. “I wish it was someone else. But it’s definitely him. Baron is Mr. D.”
*
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Want to know how Royal became the man he is? I recommend reading the story of Royal’s sister and the Darling boy she dared to love. Click here to findWHPA: The Elitecomplete trilogy, now available in ebook, paperback, and audio.http://books2read.com/bullyme.
Continue for a short excerpt.
excerpt fromBully Me
BLURB:
My name is Crystal Dolce, and I’m anything but sweet…
It’ll be easy, my father said.
When we move to a small town in the south, we’llown it,my brothers said.