Page 60 of The Villain's Beast

“It’s something we very much need to worry about,” Daren said, and to my other side Luca nodded in agreement. “Ourplan was to survive the year and find a way to be together again, but whatever’s happening here has made that excessively more complicated.”

“I won’t let anything jeopardize that plan,” Luca said quietly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He leveled Gideon and Fletcher with the most serious look I’d ever seen him wear, and for the first time, I was scared of Luca. As scared of him as I was of Fletcher and Gideon.

And as scared I was of my dad, and whatever he’d done to get me here.

Chapter 42

Luca

By noon, the five of us had gone our separate ways.

We had a loose plan at best, a bad idea at worst. I was looking forward to crawling back into my bed and sleeping until classes started on Monday, but the anxiety rolling off of Gideon was something new that probably needed my attention.

“You good, B?” I asked as we climbed the stairs to the house.

The night before, the place had been packed with initiates and members, but much like Thorn Hill, their numbers had been quick to disperse. The houses were meant to be a home for its leaders at all times, a gathering place some of the time, and an external residence only in case of emergencies. This meant with the ceremonies completed, Gideon and I had the place back to ourselves again…for the time being.

“Far from it,” he said.

The door was unlocked since that was how we’d left it, because people knew better than to come into the house without permission. Closing it behind me, I suddenly found the whole thing exhausting, the weight of our names and our fathers bearing down on me like a truckload of anvils. I pressed my backagainst the door and slid down until my ass hit the ground, then I kicked my legs out in front of me and closed my eyes.

“Are you?” he asked the question back to me, sneakers hitting the floor, one thump after another.

“What’s the point of all this? I don’t even want to be rich. I don’t want to control and manipulate people.”

“No.” Gideon sat down beside me and stretched his long legs. My toes barely came to the middle of his calf. “But you want to impress your father.”

“I don’t even know why anymore.”

“It’s unavoidable, I think.”

“Remind me again,” I pleaded, knocking my head against the heavy wood door.

“They’ll die eventually.”

I snorted a laugh that died in the back of my throat.

“It’s the order of things,” he said, far more somber. “And it’s easier to dismantle things from the inside out.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face.

“Does it bother you?” Gideon asked me next, out of nowhere and out of context.

“Does what bother me?” I rolled my head to the side so I could see his profile in my periphery. “All of this?”

“Well…” He scoffed. “I meant about Daren.”

I gently bit the inside of my lower lip, the pain of losing him again was still fresh, and even though I knew I’d see him sooner rather than later, the distance was already a wound I hadn’t asked for.

“Are you asking me if I care he fucked Bellamy? Or if I care he fucked Fletcher?” I frowned. “Actually, he didn’t fuck Fletcher. They both fucked me.”

“Yes,” Gideon said sharply, left eye twitching in the corner. “All of that.”

“We don’t live a normal life, B. I don’t expect a normal love.”

“But you do…love him?” He turned toward me, eyes dark and expression unreadable.

“You knew that when you took me over there in lieu of another offering,” I whispered.