He falls back against the couch, looking deflated. “I guess she hates me now.”
“Open your eyes, dude. She doesn’t hate you. If she hated you, do you think she’d be half as hurt as she is right now?” I kick out, catching his ankle with my foot. “She cares about you, dumbass. She was head-over-heels for you before she even knew what hit her.” This is the part that worries me, though. He’s strong–I meant it when I said that–but he’s also so fucking fragile. “Remy, not everyone is as forgiving of your antics as I am. Maybe you can fix what’s broken there between you and Lavinia. But maybe…”
Tonelessly, Remy says, “Maybe I can't.”
He fucked around with Haley. Nick told me everything. Lavinia’s never asked or expected us to be exclusive with her, but Remy knows as well as I do that he’s not the only fragile one here. That shit probably cut her deep. That’s probably why he did it, too, and it’s probably just going to make it that much harder, knowing he did it out of malice, contempt.
I wince. “I need to know you have what it takes to accept that.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, looking nothing like the snotty, rebellious rich kid everyone’s known him as. It makes my heart sink to see him like this, diminished and defeated. But then he meets my gaze, lifting his chin. “I won’t accept that.”
Hope swells in my chest and I feel a slow smirk curving my lips. “No?”
He crosses his arms and I finally see what I’ve been searching for all day. The fight. He’s still got some in there, buried beneath the shivers and sickly pallor. “Either I can add auditory hallucinations to my rapidly expanding list of problems, or I heard her and Nick fucking earlier.”
“Yeah. They do that now.” I see what he means. Nick fucked her up pretty bad. He betrayed her. And yet? “They’re… together now.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Remy leans forward, holding my gaze. “We’re going to have to askNickforrelationship advice.”
I drag a palm down my face, hiding my laugh. “God, help us.”
There’s onlyone thing that would bring my dad back into Forsyth politics, and that’s a threat to one of his sons. That’s why I asked him to set up this meeting. I was backed in a corner, swinging, but missing every shot. Pride falls when it comes to the Bruin-Perilini family. For him. For me. For all of us.
I get to the club, Underworld, just before midnight, rolling my eyes at the name. Of course Maddox, the crypt keeper, wants to meet at a bar named after the pits of hell. He’s a goddamn demon. Even more than we ever thought.
“You guys know what to do,” I say to the two pledges in the backseat. “Ballsack, you’re with me.”
“Got it,” he says, and we both climb out of the SUV. I see the black gun tucked into the back of his pants as he adjusts his jacket. “Anything I should know before we go in there?”
Nothing I can tell him. The whole point of this meeting is to make it clear the Dukes can keep their mouths shut—as long as the hit is taken off my brother.
“Sit at the bar. Order a drink. Just stay frosty. I can deal with Maddox.” I should be able to, I’ve known him since I was a kid. But the idea that Maddox is King of the Barons… it’s made me question my intuition. “I just don’t want to get ambushed.”
“Right.” He claps me on the shoulder. “I’ve got your back.”
The bouncer waves us in, barely glancing at our IDs. I see why when we get inside. Some of the clientele is young—catering to the nearby women’s college and the boarding school, Preston Prep. The interior lives up to its name, dark and gloomy. We’re a long way from the country club.
Ballsack peels off, slipping into the crowd, and I scan the room, checking out the bar and tables around the cavernous space. There’s a staircase that leads upstairs, roped off. I instinctively walk toward it, knowing Remy’s father would never deign to lower himself to mingle among the masses. A tall guy stands at the bottom, eyes pinned on me. His hair is blond and tousled, and he oozes an annoyed, rebellious rich kid vibe, just like Remy once did. Something about him is familiar, and I think at first it must be that.
And then he speaks.
“Simon Perilini, right?” He thrusts his hand out. “I’m Heston Wilcox. This is my establishment. I told Mr. Maddox I’d escort you up, personally.”
I raise an eyebrow but shake his hand. Something niggles at my brain. Wilcox. “Any relation to Sebastian?”
“Only by blood.” He gives me a sharp, sarcastic grin, unlatching the rope. “I saw you fight at the Shell a few years back, actually. Fucking grisly.”
The ‘Shell’ is a half-built amphitheater the city of Northside began constructing before running out of money. There’s a platform and a half-covering the shell–which is mostly used for underground fights and skateboarding. Before I landed a spot in DKS, I threw myself into a few fights down there to hone my skills. Sebastian Wilcox was a legend in his own regard, even back then, barely in high school. Scrappy. Strong. Fast as hell. “I heard Sebastian quit fighting.”
I don’t say it, but there had been talk about recruiting him to Forsyth and DKS. Last I heard, he’d moved up north.
“A few too many concussions.” He shrugs. “It didn’t hurt that the girl he’s banging told him it was the fights or her pussy. He chose the pussy.”
I grunt in response. Three months ago, if someone had told me I’d change my life over a woman, I would have told them they were fucking crazy. That, of course, was before Lavinia crashed into our lives.
We reach the top of the stairs, and I finally see him. Timothy William Maddox. He’s lounged back on a red velvet couch, and it takes me a second to process the scene. There’s a girl perched sideways on his knee. Her arm is wound casually around his neck, and her eyes, tinged with shame, are turned away, as if she’s avoiding his gaze. His hand caresses the small of her back, which is bared by the sluttily-low scoop of her dress.
She has a pentagram tattooed there.