Page 46 of Forever Relentless

“What Noah is trying to say,” Dante stepped forward slightly, taking over effortlessly. “Is that we, as human beings, wish this had never happened to anyone. And yes, selfishly, I think everyone would say they wish it had never happened at all. To anyone. But it did, and it sucks that it did. But then we’d be liars if we didn’t admit that maybe we wished we didn’t know about it.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This kind of thing, it changes lives. It changed your lives. Is Wrighton U really where either of you want to be?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Do you think either of us, or Dustin, can play in that team, can sit in that locker room or in the film and look at our peers, our coaches, and not question every fucking thing that was ever said or is said to us?”

I’d been doing that for weeks and didn’t realize he’d been doing the same until now.

Dante looked at me and back at the two women. “We want to help you. We know what we’re risking.” His gaze landed on Briar’s. “Maybe the question isn’t what we’re doing, or looking into, but what we are risking by doing it.”

The look in Briar’s eye didn’t change when she turned to me, but when she turned back to Dante, she gave a slight nod.

“We know that,” she conceded. “We’re just . . . protective.”

“Defensive, more like,” I muttered under my breath. Dante heard me, and his elbow in my ribs hit harder than I liked.

My oof was loud enough that she caught it. Her glare narrowed on me. Diana reached for her wine, blocking her friend’s view of me, and I took the slight reprieve to glance at Dante, whose look told me he was as on edge as I was.

Diana sat back and exhaled loudly. “Tiffany was my cousin,” she explained. “Younger cousin, obviously.”

I didn’t think it was obvious at all, but I wisely said nothing.

“She was . . . a lot.” Diana exchanged a look with Briar, who nodded.

“Yeah, it wasn’t unusual for someone to describe her as . . . difficult.” Briar’s cheeks flushed when Diana gave her a pointed look. “Yeah, okay, I would be the one to say she was difficult. Because she was.”

Diana smiled slightly but sipped her wine.

“She was obsessed with Mason. I mean that sincerely, she was obsessed. She followed him everywhere. She had his school shirt, his actual school shirt; she took it off the washing line. Mason thought it was funny. My mom thought it was . . . tacky.”

“Did anything ever happen between them?” Dante asked, and I admired his diplomacy.

“Happen between them?” Briar asked in confusion.

“Did they hook up?” I asked bluntly.

Briar shook her head vigorously. “No. Never. He was never mean to her, but he was never interested in her like that. He knew she liked him — she was not shy about it — but he took most of what she said with a pinch of salt.” She rolled her eyes. “Tiff kind of lived in her own headspace, she didn’t take his rejection as, well, rejection.”

“He didn’t just say no?” I asked dubiously.

“No. Because Mason is nice,” Briar growled.

Unlike his sister. I kept my mouth shut. Barely.

Diana spoke. “When everything happened, Mason had been fighting with his teammates. There was a prick who had said too much about Tiffany and how she was obviously . . . easy. Mason overheard his plans to ‘score’ at a party, but didn’t like the way the guy spoke. So Mason, being Mason . . . he hit him. Broke his nose.” Diana rolled her eyes.

“As he should have,” Dante said with a grunt, and I nodded in agreement. “Who was the guy? Was he questioned?”

Briar rubbed her palms over her thighs. “He is Sutherland’s son.”

Dante’s lips twitched. “Ah.”

Sutherland’s son? There it was. Not proof, not yet, but a shape in the dark finally had edges.

“So after . . .” Diana was staring out the window. “After the attack happened, she went to Mason.”

“Because she knew he would keep her safe and she trusted him,” I said with understanding.

“Exactly.” Diana stared into her wineglass. “But all it did was make things worse.”

The room went quiet.

I looked at Briar then, really looked at her. She didn’t seem angry or defensive. She seemed terrified, and beneath that, furious. I understood those emotions better than I wanted to.