Page 16 of Undeniably Corrupt

She points at me. “Stay the fuck away from me, Vander. Stay the fuck out of my life. I never want to see you again.”

With that she bursts out of the room, the door banging against the wall, and I fall back against the window, my handsover my face. Fuck.Fuck!That’s twice now that I’ve hurt her. My goddamn chest is so tight I can hardly breathe.

A moment later, Champagne is there looking just as furious with me as Liora did.

“Tell me you didn’t make me a patsy in one of your schemes.”

I blow out a breath and start to pace. “I fucked up.”

“Yes. You did.”

“I was trying to help her. I swear I was. There was nothing nefarious about my reasons.”

But my actions sure as hell were. I can sugarcoat what I did with my reasons all I want, but they’re still poison.

“I have to fix this.”

“You have to let that girl be. You’ve done enough. Sometimes we have to live with the aftermath of the bad decisions we make. Sometimes there is no way to fix the damage we cause other people. You can’t fix every problem for every person, and certainly not the way you just did.”

I stop and look at her. “I hurt her when we were kids. Teenagers. It sat with me for a long time. And she’s got it tough right now. I wanted to help with that.”

“Except you went about it the wrong way, and this isn’t about you. You can’t just hack your way in and out of people’s lives without repercussions. I would have thought you’d already learned that lesson, but clearly you needed a refresher.”

She’s right. I can’t. And I did learn that lesson. But I got arrogant again. Stupid and arrogant. Overwhelmed, maybe too. Things I hadn’t felt in a long time were poking at me, and I reacted without thinking them through as I should have.

But this isn’t about me. It’s about Liora.

I have to fix this. I have to make this right for her.

I’m just not sure how.

6

The entire day I’ve been fuming. It hasn’t slowed. It hasn’t abated. My fury has its own color, flavor, and zip code. I was shocked when I saw Vander’s name, but it quickly grew into nerves. Into a bit of excitement too. I hadn’t seen Vander in about ten years since he broke my adolescent heart.

I never blamed him for it. We were both a mess after losing Cass, and despite Vander telling me that he loved me and I was the girl he’d want forever, I knew he was leaving for college in Boston, and I knew how things like that went. I wasn’t shocked when he broke up with me that night. Just heartbroken.

We never told Cassian about us, but Vander wanted to. I was the pushback in a lot of ways with that. I didn’t want Cass to know. I especially didn’t want my parents—my father in particular—to know. The thought scared me to no end. Even before I knew what my father was capable of, I knew he wasn’t good and that hiding pieces of myself from him was vital.

Then Cass died.

I always looked at Vander and me a bit like Romeo and Juliet. Forbidden, star-crossed lovers who ended in tragedy.

I was so crazy about him. He was such a bad boy. Mysterious, as I said. He was every red flag teenage girls love wearing, and I pinned that flag to my sweater like a badge of honor. My parents couldn’t stand him, though they hated all of Cassian’s friends. And Cassian knew they were assholes, which is why they weren’t allowed near me.

I was a good girl and didn’t like disobeying anyone, but I couldn’t stay away from Vander.

So yeah, the remnants of the teenager in me were a little giddy. Until I heard what he said. Until I got a better look at his green eyes and smooth, dimpled chin and started to piece it all together.

I’ve been fucked over by the men in my life more times than I care to think about, and now I can add Vander to that list. It has me swirling in a bit of a rage and dancing to Chinchilla’s “Little Girl” like a boss queen. Not the angel tonight, I’m dressed in a red pleather bustier and thong with matching red lips.

Because I was his angel. That’s what he used to call me, and I always liked the endearment. When I started working here, that’s what Tino called me, too. He said I have the face of an angel and will do well on stage. So Angel is the name I went with.

But not tonight. And when I’m done dancing, I walk the floor like a predator instead of the prey.

“That was hot,” Sugar says to me with a wink.

“Thanks.” I wink back.