Page 53 of Boys Who Taint (Spine Ridge University #5)

Aspen

Shivers run all over my spine.

There are folders labeled with “NSFW,” and when I open them up, it’s all videos of me having sex with him in my own room, taken from multiple angles. He’s even put one in my bathroom and looked at the camera while fucking me.

Good God.

Levi was right.

But the thing that strikes me the most is that the videos go way back, even before we first met. There are dates when I was already at Spine Ridge University, unaware of his existence, yet he’d already found me.

“How?” I mutter out loud.

“I was always in love with you … from the very first moment I saw you here on campus.” He swallows away the lump in his throat while I keep scrolling through his obsessive collection of me.

But I pause the second I come to the date of the bonfire night.

I open the folder and find the video, clicking it to see what’s on there, and my blood runs cold.

There I am. Strapped to the lectern. Fucked in every way possible by my Ghost.

All on tape and in his possession.

He was there in the auditorium? He knew all along?

“How did you get this?” I mutter, tensing up.

“I … I followed you there.”

He followed me?

But that means he was there when I was being chased, hunted, used.

He watched Ghost take me and pretended he didn’t know.

“I was tied up,” I say. “You knew. Why didn’t you free me?”

“Because you would’ve known I was there,” he says. “How could I explain myself?”

I shut the laptop and shove it away, breathing out a sigh. “I’ve seen everything I needed to see.”

“Wait,” he mutters as I step out of the car.

He swiftly tucks all his tech away and follows me out, but I’m done.

I’m so fucking done with liars.

“I put all those cameras in your room to protect you, Aspen.”

That’s rich since he was filming me way before that.

“Since when ?” I ask, glancing at him over my shoulder.

“Since you told me about your stalker,” I say, swallowing.

He’s just making up more lies.

“No,” I reply, spinning around to face him. “You have the tape of me in the auditorium. This isn’t about protecting me. This is about you and your fantasies of seeing me with another man, isn’t it?”

He licks his parted lips, but no words come out, and it makes me wonder if he’s hiding more…

“Unless …”

My eyes widen in shock.

No. He couldn’t be.

He couldn’t be my ghost, could he?

Grey

She shoves her finger into my chest. “Don’t. Lie. To. Me. Did you tape me for your own pleasure?”

I nod.

SLAP!

The palm of her hand comes down on my cheek, the sting immediately glowing, and it barely registers with me as my hand instinctively touches the mark she left.

“I trusted you,” she hisses through her tears. “Why?”

The pain of her rejection hits me so deep that the pieces of me I kept hidden for far too long begin to unravel, darkness seeping in.

“And why did you send that picture to Levi?”

“Because I wanted him to see you were mine,” I say, lowering my gaze. “Because he was always there, waiting for us, waiting for the moment when it would all fall to pieces so he could swoop in like a goddamn vulture.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Don’t you understand?” I say through gritted teeth. “He never wanted you to be with me because he’s jealous.”

Her face contorts. “What? That doesn’t make any sense. He hates me.”

I shake my head. “He’s madly protective of you, and I admit, it got to me. I wanted to prove to him that you were mine and only mine.” My fist balls. “But I understand now a heart like yours could never belong to me alone.”

“No.” She shudders and takes a step back, but her eyes still veer up to the steps behind me, toward the two shadows continuously hovering over our lives.

Apollo and Levi.

“I am not an object. No one owns me,” she hisses. “You videotaped me. You blackmailed me. And you used me.” She points at each one of us like we’re monsters. “Any of you three could all be my fucking stalker.”

We stare at her without saying a word.

“My brother was right. I should’ve known better than to ever get involved with some goddamn Phantoms.”

I can’t even look at her because I don’t want her to see the evil growing in my heart, that need to finally lash out. Because she doesn’t understand just how far I’m willing to go for her.

“I’m so goddamn done with all of you,” she hisses. “Leave me the fuck alone!” She storms off, but then turns around again to point at us all. “And if any of you fuckers follow me, I will put a bullet in you myself!”

She marches off toward her sorority, and when she gets there, she slams the front door shut so loud it reverberates across the entire street.

“Well, that escalated quickly,” Apollo mutters.

“This is all your fucking fault,” I growl as I waltz up the steps and pull out my knife, pointing it right at Levi’s chest at the same time as he holds one under my throat.

“You try something, and you’re dead.”

“Stop, stop,” Apollo says, but when he tries to intervene, both of us point our knives at him instead.

“You fucked with them both, didn’t you?” Levi says.

“The only reason she’s gone now is because you wouldn’t let us fucking leave,” I tell Apollo.

Apollo lifts his hands. “Hey, don’t get mad at me now. I’m the one spreading the love.”

My nose twitches. “You call blackmail love?”

“And you call secretly videotaping her love?”

“Neither of you would know the fucking meaning of love if it looked you right in the face,” Levi growls.

“Whatever. I’m out of here,” I say, waltzing down the steps.

“Where are you going?” Apollo balks.

But I just stick up my middle finger. “Away from you two fuckers who just ruined my relationship.”

“You did that yourself, motherfucker! You don’t deserve her!” Levi shouts back, but I ignore him.

I have to glue this thing with Aspen back together, no matter the cost. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her because I am nothing if I’m not with her. Nothing.

Nothing …

My hatred slowly crawls into my skin and sinks beneath my bones, consuming me from the inside out.

I have to fucking take care of this violence first, and I know just the place.

And when I’m done … I’m going to destroy that son of a bitch.

Aspen

“Can you drop me off somewhere?” I ask, clenching the phone.

“Yeah, why?” Xavier asks.

“Just … to get my car. I left it at a parking lot somewhere. I’ll give you directions once we’re in the car.”

“O...kay. Be right there.”

He hangs up, and I pace around my room nonstop until I finally see him out the window. I run downstairs and out the door, headed straight for his car, and I jump inside and close the door. “Let’s go.”

“In a hurry?” he asks.

“Yep.”

I don’t like it when he fishes.

He starts up the engine, but he keeps looking at me like he’s trying to decipher me.

“So … any reason you didn’t just ask your boyfriend?”

I keep my mouth shut.

“You don’t wanna tell me,” he mutters as we drive off. “That’s fine.”

I enter the address on his onboard GPS. “That’s where I left my car.”

He frowns. “That’s in the middle of Bonesmen Brotherhood territory.” He glares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Why were you there?”

My nostrils flare, and I look away. “Please don’t ask.”

He grabs my arm and turns me around. “Hey. Did Grey put you up to this? Did he do something?”

As much as I hate my own goddamn boyfriend right now, I can’t fucking throw him under the bus because I’m incriminated too. I killed a man in cold blood. My hands are just as dirty as his.

“Please just … help me out. Please.”

He sighs out loud and keeps driving. “Fine. If you don’t wanna tell me, then don’t. But you’d better explain to me when you’re ready. And if that fucker hurt you … I am going to break his jaw.”

I appreciate that he wants to stick up for me. “Thank you. I’m fine.”

When the parking lot comes into view, he comes to a full stop near my car and says, “Do I need to have a talk with him?”

I take in a deep breath. “I can handle it.”

I get out and shut the door, then waltz toward my car.

Oh yes, I will fucking handle it.

“I’ll see you back on campus. Talk to me when you’re ready,” Xavier calls from his window.

I stick up my thumbs and get in my car, steaming in my own rage.

I wait until he’s gone before I start the engine, but I can’t will myself to drive back.

I’m done.

I’m so done with these motherfucking boys.

They’ve ruined me.

They’ve ruined everything .

Screaming, I open the door and slam it shut so violently the glass vibrates, but this rage fades compared to the hatred flooding into my heart.

How could they?

How could they destroy me like this and get away with it?

I nearly rip out my own damn hair because I’m so frustrated. The same hair I once dyed because he mocked it for being brown. Levi Torres … just another monster intent on turning my life into a living hell.

I glance at the girl in the side mirror, but I don’t recognize her. I hate what’s become of her. How easily she was twisted into a person she doesn’t even know.

Fuck them.

I walk to the back of my car and open the trunk to look at the fireworks my dad once gave to me after a party. I kept it in here because I didn’t know what else to do with it, but now I do. Grinding my teeth, I pick up one of the fireworks, staring at it while a blazing inferno ignites my heart.

Fine.

Those Phantoms want to destroy my sanity?

They fucking got their wish.