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Mason’s emerald eyes glinted like glass, but I straightened my spine, pushing back against the force of his anger. I kept my voice steady as I continued.
“That’s my notebook. I wrote every single word in it. And for a long time, I thought you all deserved nothing more than to have it plastered all over school. There’s a part of me that still sometimes thinks so.” I raised my hand, gesturing in the direction of the quad. “But I did not do that.”
His jaw ticked, and he opened his mouth to speak, but I overrode him before he could.
“This is your chance, Mason. To trust me. To prove that anything is different—that anything has changed.” My heart thudded hard in my chest, but I lifted my chin almost defiantly as I spoke. “I’m not lying. I admit the notebook is mine. I took the videos and pictures, and I know you know why I did that. Hell, I learned from the fucking best. But I’m telling you, that’s where it ended for me. I didn’t make those copies; I didn’t put them up. I decided not to. And you can either choose to believe me, or you can hate me—and we'll start this game all over again.”
A line appeared between his brows as I spoke, and when I stopped talking, a heavy silence fell in the hallway again. The murmur of voices outside was quiet enough that I couldn’t hear it from in here—tucked away in this wing of Craydon Hall, we could almost pretend the scene outside had never happened.
But it had.
And just like what the Princes had done to me, the consequences would be devastating and far-reaching.
“I believe you, Tal.”
It wasn’t Mason who spoke. It was Elijah, and although he still looked a little sick—those naked photos, the rehab story, fucking Jesus—his expression had softened a little from anger to understanding, his hazel gaze locked on mine.
“Yeah. I believe you too, Legs.” Finn nodded, then shook his head immediately after, glancing at the notebook in Mason’s hand. “That book though. Fuck.”
Cole’s eyes were shuttered, and I hated the agony I knew his blank expression hid. Maybe to an outside observer, it would seem like a good thing that his abuser had been named, called out publicly—that shining a light on it would stop the abuse. But I knew it was never that simple, especially when money, power, and privilege were involved.
He drew in a sharp breath, and the violence that lived in him pulsed under his skin. But then he nodded.
“You didn’t do it. I know you didn’t.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes at the conviction in his voice, and I turned to Mason, waiting for him to speak.
He’d been the one to start this all.
He’d been the one determined to bring me down, to make me pay for my mother’s sins.
And he had hated the Hildebrands for so long.
I had decided to stop the cycle, to interrupt the pattern. But now that the information had gotten out anyway, maybe it was too late. Maybe it had always been too late for Mason to let go of his rage and resentment, to see me as anything but a reincarnation of my mother—someone who needed to be punished for her cruelty. Maybe the five of us would ride the runaway freight train of revenge until it flew off the tracks and killed us all.
The notebook was still clutched in his hand in the space between us, and he was staring at me so intently it was like he wanted to crawl inside my soul. Like that was the only way he could know for certain.
But that wasn’t how trust worked.
Trust was something you gave even when you didn’t know for certain.
I reached up and grasped the small black book, wrapping my fingers around it over his. He jolted at the contact, his gaze flying to the connection between us. I squeezed tightly, just like I had in his kitchen the night he’d told me about his mom, and when he looked back at me, I shook my head.
“Mason. I didn’t want this.”
Something broke in his expression, like a marble statue shattering. A cascade of emotions ran across his face, and he let out a shuddering breath, his muscles unclenching slightly.
“I… believe you.”
The vise gripping my heart eased, and for the first time in months, it felt like there was enough space in my chest for the organ to function fully. I hadn’t expected Mason to say that, had been mentally preparing myself to reset the pieces and start another round of this fucked up game.
But he had taken my word.
With no proof.
Because he trusted me.
My tight grip on the book and his hand loosened, but I didn’t move, letting the connection flow between us through the contact of our skin. I couldn’t look away from his beautiful, tortured, open eyes.
