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Dorian
It was the guys’ idea to stay away. Well, Wolf’s idea.
He was the one calling the shots these days.
My buddy had graciously heard me out the night I needed him, and after, he’d had me listen to him.
Wolf had been working this shit for weeks.
He’d gotten in with my grandfather’s wards. He had relationships with them, good ones, and now that he had them, he could cash them in. He was keeping watch over Sloane and her brother.
Because he’d trusted them the whole time.
It’d been me who’d had his head in his ass. My grandfather had taken me down a rabbit hole of lies and deceit, and I’d allowed him because it’d been easy. It had been easy to want to believe the lies and go off the grid with my family. I did that, and I could avoid other mental shit going on in my head. It’d been that shit that had me calling Sloane to that cabin in the first place.
I wanted her.
I wanted her so fucking bad I couldn’t even think straight, and I didn’t do that shit. I didn’t feel shit, not like that.
As it turned out, my feelings for Sloane had ended up being the very thing to jade me. I’d been in deep with her, and maybe I’d put that out there the day my grandfather had gotten me arrested. He’d read something on me that day, manipulated me.
I wasn’t going to be manipulated anymore.
Wolf and I had had to wait until Wells and Thatcher returned to talk more, discuss details and make plans, and it had taken all I had not to act up and play my cards. Not for a second did I believe Grandpa Prinze wasn’t up to something when it came to Sloane and her brother, but acting too swiftly could cause problems. He couldn’t know I was onto him. He couldn’t know my friends and I were onto him.
Which we were.
Grandfather had told me himself he didn’t act unless he needed to. He’d told me that point-blank in Sloane’s kitchen. He’d set up this whole operation, labored to hell to make all this shit happen. He had Sloane and her brother living in this town, going to our school, and living off his money. All these things took effort.
Especially since they weren’t family.
That was another thing that set off red flags. My grandfather valued family, blood, and he’d told me that himself. Taking care of virtual strangers would be unusual to his character, and even though my friends and I had discovered he’d later left town (after another brief visit), he wouldn’t be gone for long.
We found the fucker’s house.
He’d purchased one, but this time, it was under his own name. Thatcher had found this, more pieces, more moves…
My grandfather was making plans to return to Maywood Heights, and he wasn’t hiding this time. A second house wouldn’t be for Sloane and her brother.
This was another reason Wolf told me to stay away from Sloane and only partially because he found out she was pissed at me. I needed to look impartial to his ward, like she was just another fuck buddy that meant nothing to me. If he thought he’d played me, he wouldn’t be looking at me while we looked into him.
But ignoring Sloane wasn’t easy, and hundred percent not that day when her brother came back. The initial days even before that, I’d made sure to smoke quick with my friends before leaving in the morning. I’d gone on to class and hadn’t even sat with them at lunch. That too had been Wolf’s idea. He knew personally what I was capable of when it came to Sloane.
I’d punched him in the goddamn face over it.
I lost all sense when it came to her. Fucked in the head. Knowing my grandfather was close to her… could be around her at any moment only made me crazier. My friends had had to talk me down more than once to keep from going over to her house and putting my foot through her door. It didn’t sit well my grandfather could just come and go out of her life, out of her house, as he pleased. I didn’t care if he was out of town or not. He still could.
The only thing keeping me from going truly crazy was that Wolf had been able to get a camera actually in her house recently. Like he’d stated, that project of his was another one of his proactive measures. He and Sloane were working on his senior project, but he’d been using it to gain more intel and get closer to her. He really did have my back the whole time.
I trusted my friend. I trusted all my friends, but ignoring Sloane was easier said than done.
It felt like she was everywhere at school, which made her easy to stalk. I knew her schedule like the back of my hand. I had since that day Thatcher had gotten a hold of it when Sloane had first arrived. It’d been burned in my memory since I’d basically been stalking her then. She’d crossed me, and it’d been necessary.
I knew where Noa Sloane was supposed to be every hour on the hour, and because I did, I should have known better than to hit up the vending machines right outside the room she held her independent study in. This happened to be an art room, and her independent study had also been Wolf’s idea. With his mom being the new headmaster now, he wanted to keep Brielle away from anything Sloane kids-related. Getting Sloane to opt for an independent study got her out of the headmaster’s office, and if that gave Wolf a little security in regard to his mother, well, I got that. I’d probably do the same thing. This was my grandfather we were dealing with here.
I saw Sloane’s ponytail that day by the vending machines. It glided in a sea of dark strands across her back, the girl waltzing right past me.
She hadn’t seen me.
