Page 451 of Black Reign

Dinner lasts nearly three hours.

There is too much wine.

Too much food.

Too many stories I would prefer Sabine not hear.

So naturally every story concerns me.

Vale tells her about the first time we all got drunk at Royal Oaks.

Kane tells her about the night I tracked down a stolen car before the police did.

Leo tells her about a security camera incident I had successfully buried for more than a decade.

Jade quietly supplies details whenever the others exaggerate.

Which is often.

The other women are worse.

By dessert, Sabine knows things about my adolescence I had intentionally allowed to die.

She looks delighted.

“You hacked the school's grading server?”

“I did not change grades.”

“You got inside.”

“Yes.”

“You were sixteen.”

“Seventeen.”

Her smile becomes unbearably proud.

Drew points between us.

“This is disgusting.”

“What?”

“The way you two get turned on by felonies.”

“We don't.”

Sabine and I answer simultaneously.

Everyone laughs.

Drew gestures broadly.

“That. Exactly that.”

I take a drink.