Page 94 of Midnight Curfew

“Clay…” Liv gasps.

Milo shakes, blood dripping off his chin, and Clay squats down. Tears thicken her throat.

“Now, when you go to get stitches,” she tells him, “you’re going to tell them that you cut yourself shaving.”

I study her. She acts like them now.

Macon watches her, too, almost admiringly.

I don’t even think he ever noticed when I was in the house.

“When your parents ask, you tell them you cut yourself shaving,” Clay goes on. “And when the next woman in your life asks about your scar, you’re going to remember that if I get even a hint that you have done this to anyone else, they won’t find you with another scar. They won’t find you at all.” And then she raises her voice and presses the point of the blade to the other side of his face as Army holds him. “Don’t you ever touch her again! Not a finger!”

“Okay! Okay!” Milo pleads. “Okay…”

Army lets Milo fall to the ground, and he grabs his bloody cheek as Clay moves over to me.

I sit there, only feeling Dallas looming behind me, though.

For this one moment, maybe the last ever, I have his full attention.

“That was hot,” I tell Clay.

Clay steps in front of me, still holding the knife.

“You really want to do this?” I ask her. “Make all the threats you want. Promise to sink me in the swamps for the gators. You and I both know that what you can do, so can I.”

Liv drops her eyes to her phone, slowly moving her thumb over the screen.

“You didn’t learn, did you?” I ask her. “That’s why you always pick on the weak, Clay. You can’t beat me if the playing field is even.”

That’s why it’s not fun to play with our own.

But just then, Liv taps her phone.

“Did you know,” my voice drifts through her cell, “that a structure can be deemed a historical landmark and cannot be destroyed after it reaches one hundred years old?”

Everyone turns to look at Liv, taking in the recording coming through. I narrow my eyes.

“And while fucking for me will get you Mercutio, fucking me will get you a meeting with Raymond FitzHugh to push through your petition to protect the lighthouse? And, in effect, your land?”

A cold sweat breaks out over my body. She recorded our conversation several days ago. We’d been alone, and she really wanted my part in the school play. If she went the extra mile tonight, I’d give her a business contact, as well.

It was the only way I knew how to hurt Dallas’s pride.

“Fucking me good guarantees it, in fact,” I told her.

She pauses the recording, stepping up to Clay’s side. “The playing field is”—she shakes her head at me—“not even, Callum.”

She was one step ahead the entire time.

Her brothers close in around me, and I close my eyes.

“Not here,” she whispers to them.

Another time. Another day. Somewhere not with cameras everywhere.

I tip my chin back up. “Get out of here,” I tell them.