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The name, my name, hits as intended, like a punch to the gut. Royer reaches out for his girlfriend and kisses her on the top of her perfect blonde head. “You didn’t really think you’d get away with this, did you?” he asks. “That you could come into my house, a filthy loser, and make a run at taking me down?”

He laughs and Rat laughs with him. Miller and Knox… it hurts to look at them—especially Miller. I thought we had a deal. That we had something… bigger. The cold glint in his eyes tells me that once again, I’ve been manipulated by the best.

“They know I’m here,” I blurt. “The council is the one that put me up to this. That wanted me to bring you down. They know where I am.”

“You mean Grayson Pierce?” Miller asks. His voice is so calm. Scary. Knowing. “Have you learned nothing this week, kitten? Once a Zeta Sig, always a Zeta Sig. Grayson is a brother. You really think he’d turn traitor?”

That I didn’t expect and my stomach drops, like I’ve just been pushed off a cliff. I didn’t just get manipulated by these people once. It’s happened over and over. And like a fool, I keep walking back into it. My desperation and need to fit in, to reach this rung on the social ladder, has turned me into something unidentifiable. Something pathetic and gullible.

“I won’t say anything. If Grayson isn’t working with me,” ouch, that hurts to say more than I expected, “then what’s the point? No one will believe me. You’re right. I’m a loser. Petty and stupid. I’ll leave Wittmore. You’ll never see or hear from me again. I’ll become a ghost.”

Royer pulls himself away from Andrea and walks toward me. “That’s a little too late, Reagan. Unfortunately, since you didn’t slink home like you were supposed to after being blacklisted, there’s only one way this is going to end.” A soft breeze blows, and I get a waft of his scent. His expensive, vile, cologne. I swallow back the rising bile in my throat as he approaches. “You’re not coming back down this mountain.”

“W-w-what does that mean?”

“It means that when I’m through with you, you’re going to kill yourself. You’re going to write a note, slit your wrists and put yourself and everyone you know out of the misery of having known you.”

My eyes dart to Miller’s, pleading. Hopeful. His stare back is like looking into a void. Whatever we’d shared, no matter how many times he saved me, that man is gone. He’s replaced with the Miller that hurts and takes for his own pleasure. With a sinking, desperate feeling, I turn to Knox, but he only watches Royer, too indifferent to spare me a glance.

Cold reality washes over me, turning my limbs numb. I have no one. Nothing. Not Grayson. Not the backing of the council. Not even the thin cords that bound me to Miller, and later, Knox. I did all of this, went through the pain and assault and humiliation just to end up back in this terrible place again.

“Fine,” I say, “you’re right. I’m pathetic. Give me the blade.”

Royer smirks and jerks his head at the others. “I need a minute with Reagan alone,” he says. “Head out and I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Andrea’s eyes narrow at her boyfriend’s request, but Rat nudges her along. Miller gives me one last look, his face shrouded in the shadows. I turn my head away. When they’re gone, Royer stands before me and pulls a knife out of his pocket.

He reaches for me, running his fingers down my cheek. “It didn’t have to be this way, you know that, right? You should have stayed in your place.” His touch moves to my neck. “I would’ve let it go if you hadn’t sucked off my best friend while I was in the next room.”

“That’s what made you do this?”

“Until that moment, I was undecided,” he admits. “I liked you more than I wanted to admit. I liked fucking your tight little pussy and playing on your father’s fancy yacht.” The thumbs my bottom lip. “But you let him in, you let him do something you’d never offered me, and that was unacceptable.” His hand lowers to my shoulder. “Before we’re finished, you’re going to give me exactly what you gave him.”

He shoves me to the ground, hard, my knees crashing into the rock. Through the numbness, the strangest thing is that I’m not even surprised. Of course, Royer would turn all of this into being about himself, into being about his cock. He’s the most predictable, petty, entitled asshole I’ve ever had the misfortune to be involved with—and that includes Miller Hansen.

The worst realization is that I’ve done this to myself.

27

Miller

“What’s he doing back there?” Andrea asks, trying to peer behind Knox’s large frame as Rat leads us down the gravel road to the van. There’s a service road up to the top of the mountain. After we dropped Reagan off at the bottom we drove up and waited for her to arrive.

“Getting his final payback,” Rat says, chuckling darkly. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

If Andrea thinks Royer is loyal to her, faithful, she’s more of a dumb sorority girl than I realized, and if I wasn’t focused on the same thing, I’d mock the hell out of her for it. But I am focused on it—on whatever it is that Royer wants to remain private between him and Reagan.

That and the overall feeling I have about seeing her like that, setting her up and leaving her… knowing what she’s going to do.

Fuck. When did this get so complicated?

I check my phone, looking at the time, the blue light casting a glow over the dark trail.

“It’s crazy, you know,” Knox says, voice low behind me.

“What’s crazy?”

“That she made it all the way up there, drunk in the dark, bleeding.” I step over a log crossing the trail and he does the same. “Like, she survived the gauntlet.”