Page 18 of The Villain's Beast

That sobered him up.

His earlier admiration gone, Daren gave me a sharp nod and a quick apology.

That was the last we’d spoken about Gideon North. The boy whose heart I’d once broken…along with my own.

Gideon North.

The Beast.

Chapter 12

Gideon

Iknew it was only a matter of time until he found me.

There was no place to hide at RHU, but I also hadn’t bothered to try. Even though I’d had a rash of nerves when my father demanded my return to school, hiding from Fletcher Sinclair was the last thing on my mind. I wasn’t scared of him, and I definitely wasn’t avoiding him. My father pulling me out of school so many years prior, was an act intended to savehisface, not mine.

In hindsight, my punishment over the whole affair with Fletcher had been a driving force toward turning me into the man I was today. Not to imply my father knew exactly what had happened between the two of us; no, he thought it was a breach of privacy at best. If he’d known exactly what Fletcher and I had done together, the things we’d talked about…I don’t think either of us would have made it to college in the first place.

He’d withdrawn me from Rose Hill Prep before the term ended. Then he’d locked me away. I didn’t see another person, let alone a tutor…a friend, for months. It was a punishment of the cruelest form, meant to remind me that nothing in my life existed without the grace of my father. By the time he allowed me to reintegrate social relationships into my life, I no longerwanted any. I’d thrown myself into swimming, deciding it was easier to focus on my endurance than anything else. My life, I’d quickly realized, would be a game of endurance in and of itself. If I wanted to live, I had to outlast not just Fletcher Sinclair, I had to outlast my father as well.

Instead of sending me back to school, my father eventually hired tutors. I excelled with all my coursework, but the only thing I wanted to do was swim. Being in the water had become my escape. As I was finishing my grade twelve classes, I was able to hold my breath for two minutes. The day he told me he was sending me to Rose Hill for my last year of college education, I held it for three minutes and nineteen seconds.

And then I screamed.

Part of me had naively hoped that after being removed from prep school, I’d managed to avoid the most treacherous and formative years of the next generation of North and Sinclair rivalry, but I’d never been a lucky man. I could have lived a passable life having never set foot on the University property, but my father, as always, had other plans.

After the incident my freshman year, he’d made it a point to position himself—and our family—on top of the Sinclairs. It was a shift of power, and I’d never understood how he’d managed it, but everyone in his life had become a pawn in his twisted race toward domination and ruination. He’d spent almost seven years putting the pieces in the right place on the board and it was up to me to make his final moves. Ruining the Sinclair dynasty was to be my life’s greatest accomplishment, whether I wanted it or not.

I did want it. More than I wanted my next breath.

I fucking loathed Fletcher Sinclair and everything he stood for, including the lies he’d once let me believe. Taking him and his family down was the only thing my father and I would ever see eye to eye on.

It was with that in mind I found myself as Rose Hill University, incoming president of The Crimson Rose Society. Playing the part of an extremely selective fraternal organization, our true purpose had managed to fly under the radar for years. I had no doubt the school knew what we did and what we were about, but if they cared, they knew better than to say anything. It was our money and our success that kept the school and all its overpaid administrators afloat.

My reputation—thankfully—preceded me to campus, and most everyone had given me a wide berth upon my arrival. Everyone except Luca Mandeville, a relatively inconsequential wisp of a man, born to a prominent and long-serving senator father and a judge mother. He hadn’t been scared off by my stature, which was closer to six and a half feet tall then; my nickname, The Beast, which I’d earned from aggressive personal records in the pool; or my actual name, which would always be Gideon North.

“Hey, B,” Luca said, rapping his knuckles against the door of my bedroom.

I glanced up at him from where I sat on the edge of the bed, my stare previously focused outside toward the tree line. Rose Hill was a huge piece of property, with the society houses flanking each direction like the world’s worst kind of compass. Roses to the west and Thorns to the east. My room as president was in the attic, far more sprawling than I’d expected, with enough space for all my books and a king-sized bed that faced a large bay window overlooking the valley.

“What do you want?” I growled.

Luca grinned at me, as undeterred by my moods as he ever was.

“Wanted to see if you were interested in getting dinner.”

“I’m not,” I told him.

The smile on his face grew. “Want to fuck?”

“I would tear you apart, Luca.”

“I wouldn’t mind.” Luca’s cheeks burned bright as if to prove how much he meant the offer.

“Try me on a good day.”

“Do you have those? Rumors say no.” Luca pushed his gold-frame glasses up the bridge of his nose.