Page 166 of River of Deceit

“Nobody has girly scented candles here!” Zayden bellows.

“I don’t know,” Keegan says. “Blaze had some chick in his room. They were loud enough to hear across the fucking house. Maybe she had some girly candles.”

All eyes turn to me, and I can see the absolute fury in Zayden’s eyes.

“Who was with you, Blaze?” he demands.

I shrug nonchalantly. “God, I don’t even remember her name anymore. She snuck out before the fire though.”

“You don’t remember her name?” Zayden repeats, and I wince as I realize how unrealistic a lie that is.

“Wasn’t it Pandora?” one of the other guys says. “I heard Blaze asking the fire team about her.”

Fuck, fuck. I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m not in the mood for any of this crap.

“Yeah, fine, Pandora was with me. Either way, she snuck out before the fire. I’m too tired to get into this shit now. You want to ream me out for having banging sex with a hot as hell chick, do it tomorrow.”

“Pandora’s that psycho bitch who stabbed Declan, right?” another of my oh-so-helpful frat brothers chimes in. “What if she’s the one who set the fire?”

“She didn’t!” I snap at them. “It was the masked guys, if anyone.”

Except now that they’ve said it, deep down, I know.

Pandora absolutely would set fire to our frat house. She’salways said she hates us. She has some ulterior agenda, something to do with that Rachel girl. Asch and I had tried to find out more, but nobody knew anything about her. Some of the older guys thought she looked familiar, but none of them even knew her name.

“She doesn’t have a reason to go after us,” I say anyway. “She got her revenge on Declan, and that’s all she cared about.”

But I notice River is stock still beside me.

Asch meets my eyes, then looks at River.

Zayden must realize something is up, because he approaches River and looms over him. “You know something, Rivera? Was she trying to get back at you for breaking up with her?”

“What?” River asks, but there’s a defensive edge to his voice. “What are you even talking about?”

Zayden rolls his eyes. “Come on! We all know you’re dating her too. It’s fine if you don’t care about having Bouchard’s sloppy seconds, but if you made that crazy cunt decide to come after us…”

I see red, and I don’t think it’s from the smoke inhalation.

“Zayden, shut up about Pandora,” I growl. “You don’t want to piss me off right now.”

Zayden backs up a few steps, but he shakes his head. “Or what? You’re gonna cry to your slut girlfriend so she can take care of business for you?” He laughs and does a theatrical sweep. “What happens to guys who flout the Kappa Alpha rules, brothers?”

Everybody hoots, “Expulsion!”

Asch looks at me, then at Zayden. “Look, I’m sure this is some kind of misunderstanding,” he says, ever the voice of reason even though he doesn’t sound as calm as he normally does.

“I’ve been sitting here, watching you act like a fucking idiot because of Pandora,” Zayden says, and several of the frat brothers shout in agreement. “Doing her bidding, giving Rivera special treatment because she asked, letting her get away with what she did to Declan, and?—”

River inhales sharply.

“Her brother attacks us! But you knew that, right?” Zayden sneers at me.

I stare at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean, her brother attacked us?”

Zayden starts laughing. “Sure, play the idiot. But I got my own sources. Her brother Kratos was one of the masked guys.” He holds up his phone, and there’s a photo of a guy on a motorcycle, holding one of the white masks.

It’s a social media post, I realize.