Page 9 of Forever Relentless

“He’ll be at a bar,” she mumbled.

Wasn’t that the truth? “Let’s go.”

My car was parked further along the street, and we headed there quietly. It’s where I’d been going when the others caught up with me earlier.

Diana slid into the passenger seat as I started the car. “She’ll never believe something happened to Tiffany,” she said bitterly.

We’d had this conversation many times over the last three years.

“I think she does, she’s just more protective of Mason because . . .”

“Because he was accused of something he never did,” Diana said with resentment. “If only he’d made a fuss,” she muttered. “He knew she was telling the truth better than anyone. He knew she’d break if she was bullshitting.”

“She wasn’t.” I leaned over and grabbed my friend’s hand. “Your cousin was a lot of things, not all of them good.” I held her stare. “But she would never lie about this, Diana. Isn’t this why we’re both at Wrighton? You in the actual fucking pit of hell, and me skirting the edges? We’ll find out which one of those bastards hurt her, and we’ll get him dealt with. Isn’t that the plan?”

She looked down at my hand and nodded. “Are we crazy?”

“Undoubtedly.”

She smiled. “I mean, about this, are we crazy to think we can do this?”

I thought about it. I shook my head. “No. And if we ever doubted it before, those doubts were gone today.”

“Because they turned up?”

I nodded. “They think they have a story. We know they have a story.” We shared a look. “We steer them away from Mason but right to where we want them to look. Agreed?”

Diana seemed conflicted, but when I lowered my head to look into her eyes, she nodded.

“Tiffany deserves justice,” I told her. “No matter how we get it, she will get it. We owe her that.”

“And Mason?”

I looked out the car window as I pulled away from the curb. “My brother can handle his own shit. We’ll handle this.”

“And if it blows up in our faces?”

“Then we take every fucker in that football program with us. No mercy.”

“They’re just starting out in their careers,” Diana protested softly. “Dante, the QB, is actually a nice guy. If he’s right and Sutherland’s gunning for him, they can take him down with them.”

I’d forgotten she was his PT. But it didn’t matter.

“Yeah, well, my brother is a nice guy. Mostly. And for all her faults, so was Tiffany. If any of them go down with the program, well, they knew the risks.”

Diana sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. “I hate it when you go psycho-crazy.”

I grinned even though she couldn’t see me. “No, you don’t.”

Her slight smile was my answer.

They fucked my brother over for no reason when they let the rumors circulate he had something to do with Tiffany. They messed Tiffany up so badly that she killed herself.

I didn’t give a fuck who was decent in that building. They were all going to pay for the injustice. Even if they didn’t deserve it. I’d made my peace with that.

No mercy meant no mercy.

Wrighton U didn’t show mercy to those who needed it when they needed it.