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What the hell is wrong with me?
If something happens to her, it’s on me.Allme…
As I dragged Harper’s struggling form through the crowd, the students wisely parting like the Red Sea as I moved, my mind screamed at me, berated me. A pit grew in my stomach, and it felt like a lump of old food, sitting and rotting there, threatening to make me purge anything inside.
“Damian! Let mego,goddamn it!” Harper yelled, but I didn’t.
I tightened the hold I had on her arm and dragged her into the bathroom just down the hall, the very one I cornered Temperance in the first time.
“Dam—”
I rounded on her once we were inside, slamming her back against the wall. “Shut up.Shut… thefuckup, Harper.” She stared at me with wide eyes. I doubted she’d ever seen me so pissed. Hell, I don’t thinkI’dseen myself so pissed. “What the fuck was that? Tell me he got it wrong. Tell me I got theworstprivate investigator ever, and that he faked all that. It was doctored footage. Tell me it isn’t fucking true.”
She swallowed hard, but she remained silent. There was only a look of fear—of me, I assumed—and sadness, though I wasn’t quite sure why she’d be sad. The whole bet was her fucking idea. If it worked and Temperance left Crestview, Harper would have won. And now I knew why.
Because they were sisters.
Rick found his long-lost daughter, and Harper wasn’t an only child anymore.
She’d betrayed family,goodfamily,TEMPERANCE, and for what? Jealousy? Sibling rivalry? Fear?
“The truth.Now!” I barked.
I could fight, scream, and yell all I wanted, but the truth was, it was my fault. I’d taken the job knowing something was off. Nothing about it seemed right to me, but I was too eager to fuck with Harper, so I took the bet. My gut wasn’t the only one who warned me away. Asher had tried so many times I’d lost count. Even the private investigator warned me several times.
“Hey, I know you’re hoping to find some good information, but I think there are limits. I found something, but you should know, it’s a lot. This is… a lot. I’m not entirely sure this is even safe.”
That probably would have caused a normal person to stop, to pause and think about what their end goal was and actually consider consequences.
But not me!
No way. I heard, “I found something,” and my excitement soared. I wanted everything he had, and I wanted it now. He’d told me it would take a while to compile it all and put it together, but he’d get it done.
Before he’d handed me the packed, I saw the worry in his eyes, but I dismissed it.“Mr. Wolfe, I feel I would be negligent if I didn’t offer a word of warning again. I don’t know exactly what you’re planning to do with this, but I have an idea based on what you’ve told me. Using this to get the girl to leave the school would be like using a grenade to kill a rodent. This is overkill. I couldn’t find anything after she came to Crestview aside from some not-so-friendly things posted online about her, so I don’t know what she’s been through in detail. But I can say with absolute confidence, this girl has suffered enough. And the consequences you’re hoping for may not be the only consequences she suffers if you release this information.”
I’d rolled my eyes and snatched the envelope from him. I’d wanted to open it right then, but then I got the bright idea to unveil everything to everyone while I was seeing it the first time. Like one of those dumbass unboxing videos or some shit. Myhonestreaction.
Well, they fucking got it.
If he was trying to give me cryptic warnings about it, then it wasn’t just good, it wasgood, good. That’s all I’d cared about, and I wasn’t interested in anything else. I wassofocused, soobsessedwith pushing her away and getting her the fuck out of the school that I couldn’t even begin to fully process what he’d said, and I didn’t even know that until the moment I fully realized what that video was.
“Now!” I shouted, forcing my intrusive thoughts to the back of my mind.
Harper jumped at my sharp tone, and she nodded. “That attack…” Her voice cracked, and she stopped to clear her throat before she continued. “That attack killed all those people, including Temperance’s adoptive parents. She had no idea she was adopted, so she thought they were her real parents.”
“Theywereher real parents, you spiteful little shit. Theywereher real parents. Her father was agoodfucking man. A better man than you, or me, orany-fucking-body else in this bullshit school deserves. Except her. He was hers. Don’tevertake that away from her. Do you understand me?”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times before pursing her lips and nodding. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” I sighed. Speaking of Temperance’s father inadvertently made me look at myself, and I stepped back. I doubt he would have been proud of me if he saw me pinning a girl to the wall and threatening her—even if it was in defense of his daughter. I had no idea why I cared so much about what someone I’d never met would have thought of me—especially a dead man—but I did. “Go on. Finish.”
With another quick nod, she continued. “Dad has had people looking for her for years. Her whole life. She was assumed dead after a year, but dad never believed it. One of dad’s investigators happened upon some news footage that showed her picture. She was the right age, and she had the right features. You know as well as I do that Dad had had too many close calls, so he was hesitant to get his hopes up. When they found adoption papers in the church, and her name was on them with a birth date that was way too close to his biological daughter’s to be a coincidence, they ordered a DNA test. That’s that. When it was positive, he sent Javier after her, and she stayed the rest of the summer with us. Once she was healed, Dad had her sign up at Crestview. He gave her a credit card with her name on it and told her to pay her tuition in full, but she would have to use her dead parents’ names to protect her identity.”
An investigatorhappened uponsome news footage? All the footage, in all the country, and they justhappenedto come across Temperance’s face? Yeah, that didn’t seem…right, somehow. The more she spoke, the more that pit in my stomach seemed to thrash around like a living thing trying to torture me.
“Why would they need to protect her identity?” I asked curiously. “I’d think they would have wanted to shout her return from the rooftops. Well, Rick would have. Not Temperance. She isn’t the type.”
Harper shook her head. “There was a woman involved in the attack. She wasn’t in the building, but she was seen in surveillance footage in their getaway van. That woman went to see Temperance in the hospital, posing as a nurse, and gave her the name Angela.Mymother’s name. They weren’t sure she was the target until they figured that out. After that, it became clear someone knew who she was. That’s why Dad didn’t wait for her to completely heal or even give her much of a choice. He got her released early and flew her on Sebastian’s private jet with a full medical team out here. He set her up downstairs with all the medical equipment she’d need for PT and proper healing. She wanted to go to public school, but he wouldn’t allow it, though he was nice about it. He just made her see the danger she was in, and she agreed Crestview would be safer.”
