Page 8 of Betray Me (Devastation Game #2)

Father finds me in the library afterward, where I’m pretending to read while processing everything I’ve learned.

“Well?” he asks, settling into the chair across from me.

I close the book—Machiavelli’s The Prince, how fitting—and meet his gaze.

“Judge Patterson is being blackmailed, but not by you. Someone has photos of him with boys from the private school scandal three years ago. Senator Caldwell’s wife is pregnant, but not with his child—the timeline doesn’t match his travel schedule.

And Morrison is embezzling from the network to cover his media company’s losses. ”

Father’s poker face slips for just a moment, surprise flickering across his features. “How did you—”

“Patterson keeps touching his phone like it’s burning him, and he mentioned ‘St. Andrew’s Academy’ twice—that’s where the scandal broke.

Mrs. Caldwell hasn’t touched alcohol all evening and keeps pressing her hand to her stomach.

As for Morrison...” I shrug. “His Rolex is a fake. A very good fake, but the weight is wrong. A man doesn’t replace a fifty-thousand-dollar watch with a replica unless he’s desperate. ”

Pride and something darker war in Father’s expression. “Impressive. Truly impressive.”

“Does this mean I’ve earned my career change?”

“It means you’ve earned a trial period.” He stands, moving to pour himself a brandy from the crystal decanter.

“There will be training, of course. Proper techniques for information gathering, memory retention, behavioral analysis. You’ll need to learn to be invisible, to make people forget you’re in the room while you catalog their secrets. ”

Relief floods through me so powerfully that I nearly collapse. “Thank you, Father. I won’t disappoint you.”

“No,” he agrees, his voice carrying an odd note. “I don’t believe you will.”

He raises his glass in a mock toast. “To Belle Gallagher—my newest intelligence asset.”

I should feel victorious. I’ve negotiated my way out of the worst aspects of my situation, found a path that might lead to something resembling survival. But as Father hands me a small crystal glass filled with champagne—champagne I’m too young to be drinking—something cold settles in my stomach.

“A toast to celebrate your new role,” he says, raising his glass. “Drink up, darling. This calls for a proper celebration.”

The champagne tastes wrong—too sweet, with an underlying bitterness that makes my tongue tingle. But Father is watching expectantly, so I drain the glass, forcing a smile as the liquid burns down my throat.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, and there’s something almost pitying in his tone. “Now, there’s one final lesson you need to learn about your new position.”

The room starts to blur around the edges, sounds becoming muffled and distant. My limbs feel heavy, disconnected from my body.

“Father?” The word slurs as it leaves my lips. “What’s happening?”

“Insurance, Belle. You’ve proven you can gather information, but can you keep secrets? Can you forget when forgetting serves the family’s interests?”

Panic claws at my chest as I realize what’s happening. The champagne was drugged—the same cocktail of chemicals they use on the other girls, the ones who need their memories adjusted.

“Please,” I whisper, trying to stand but finding that my legs won’t support me. “I won’t tell anyone. I’ll be good. I’ll be perfect.”

“You will be,” Father agrees, catching me as I collapse. “But first, you need to forget tonight’s conversation with Wagner. Forget what you heard about Luna Queen. Forget everything except your new role as our family’s eyes and ears.”

“No.” I try to fight, but my body refuses to obey. The drug is pulling me down into darkness, and I can feel my memories starting to fragment, important details slipping away like water through my fingers.

The last thing I see before unconsciousness takes me is Father’s face, twisted with something that might be regret.

***

I wake up in my own bed, sunlight streaming through the curtains. My head pounds like someone took a sledgehammer to my skull, and my mouth tastes like copper and ash. When I try to sit up, the world spins violently.

“Easy, darling.” Mother’s voice comes from somewhere to my left. “You had quite the celebration last night.”

Celebration? I try to remember, but there’s a gap in my memory—a hole where something important used to be. I remember talking to Father about becoming a spy, and I remember gathering information at the party. But everything after that is fog.

“My hands,” I whisper, looking down at my fingers. There’s dried blood under my nails—dark crescents that weren’t there before. “Why is there blood under my nails?”

Mother appears in my field of vision, her face composed and serene. She carries a bowl of warm water and a soft cloth.

“Some memories are better forgotten, Belle,” she says gently, taking my hands and beginning to clean them with practiced efficiency. “Your new role requires a certain… flexibility of memory. You’ll learn to appreciate that gift in time.”

The blood swirls pink in the water as she washes my hands, and I watch it with growing horror. Whose blood is this? What did I do—or what was done to me—during those lost hours?

“I don’t understand,” I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I’m not sure what I don’t understand. There’s a shape in my mind where a memory should be, like a puzzle piece that’s been deliberately removed.

“You don’t need to understand,” Mother replies, drying my hands with tender care. “You just need to trust that everything we do is for your protection. Your new position comes with certain… requirements. Sometimes, you’ll be asked to forget things that might otherwise trouble you.”

Forgetting. Memory gaps. The same techniques they use on their victims, now being used on me.

But I asked for this, didn’t I? I chose this path to escape something worse.

Even as my mind recoils from the implications, a part of me feels grateful.

Whatever happened last night, whatever I did or witnessed, I don’t have to carry it.

The weight of that knowledge has been lifted from my shoulders.

“Will it happen again?” I ask quietly.

“Only when necessary,” Mother promises, smoothing my hair with maternal affection. “And each time, you’ll wake up stronger. Safer. More valuable to the family.”

I nod, accepting her words because what choice do I have? This is survival in the Gallagher world—trading pieces of myself for protection, selling my memories to buy another day.

As Mother helps me dress for the day, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

The girl looking back appears the same—blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin unmarked by visible trauma.

But something fundamental has changed. There’s a new wariness in my expression, a calculating coldness that wasn’t there before.

I am no longer just Belle Gallagher, a victim of my family’s ambitions.

I am Belle Gallagher, an intelligent asset. Spy. Keeper of secrets—including the ones kept from myself.

And for the first time in years, I feel something that might be hope.

Even if that hope is built on a foundation of deliberately forgotten horrors.