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I edge closer, watching his long fingers carefully to make sure he doesn’t pull any tricks. There’s a scar on his knuckles, maybe from the work he does on his bike and cars, or maybe from fighting. Knowing I’m watching him, he shoots me a look through his lashes as he checks the connection of the clamps on the battery.
I huff. What if he decides to do something worse than drain the battery or steal spark plugs or whatever the fuck he pulled?
Fox’s parents died in a fatal car accident when I was eight and I don’t like the heartless gleam in his eyes as he works.
For the first time ever he scares me.
Does he hate me enough to really hurt me?
My heart gives a weary, aching thump. Tears sting my eyes and I touch the stones in my bracelet. I already know the answer to that.
Fox is all rough with sharp edges and an air of danger now. There’s no trace of the mischievous smiling boy I used to know, the one I loved getting into trouble with.
Ever since he came back, I thought he was still in there. He has to be, or so I’ve believed for a year.
Maybe everyone in this town is right. Fox Wilder is a black shadow. Mysterious, terrifying, and bad news to anyone who crosses him.
And somehow, I’m the person he hates the most.
Two
Fox
The sight of the missing spark plugs from the engine tips the corners of my mouth up in gratification.
Poor, perfect little Maisy Landry isn’t going anywhere without the parts sitting in the pocket of my leather jacket. The guy she’s started hanging out with doesn’t have a clue what I’ve done.
This is nothing. I could do so much worse to her than fuck with her idiot boyfriend’s car and fan the flames on the rumors about her by spray painting EASY on her locker. I should do worse.
It’s what she deserves. Liars always get what’s coming to them. And Maisy? The biggest liar of them all, prancing around the school like a goody-goody, fooling everyone with her act to hide what she’s really capable of.
I trusted this girl once. Once upon a time she was my best friend—I thought I could tell her anything and believed a promise mattered to her. I carry the guilt of the biggest mistake of my life every day, the poisonous weight infecting my veins.
“I think we can take it from here,” Maisy says tightly. “I’ll just call my dad to help us out.” She pushes out a breath and adds on as an afterthought, “Thanks.”
The fucking fakeness slides beneath my skin like needles. Her dad is the goddamn chief of police in Ridgeview, a position he didn’t earn on merit. Their lives have been so privileged after mine was torn apart. I almost release a bark of laughter at the thought of her dad helping with the car after what he’s done.
Richard and Jacqueline Landry are the reason I broke every piece of myself, stamping out any ounce of goodness to become the cold, vengeful monster I am now.
“Always running to your daddy, little daisy,” I sneer low enough that only she can hear me while her boyfriend is distracted with texting. “Think he can protect you from me? Try again.”
Maisy stiffens. Good, I hit her where it stings. I’ll always be able to get to her. There’s no escape from my wrath.
She should be glad I didn’t tamper with the brakes, like the fate my parents met ten years ago. As usual, thinking of them sends a sharp stab of emotion lancing through me, my throat burning with the old ache. My hands flex on the frame of the SUV and I drag in a breath through my nose. I hate Maisy and her whole family, but that would be too easy of an out for any of them.
If they’re gone, they can’t live with the misery like I have.
The thirst for revenge has driven my actions for the last decade as I bounced around from foster home to foster home before I found a new family of brothers just as broken as I am. Without their help, I wouldn’t be here. They took in an angry, grieving punk and shaped me into the darkness I shroud myself in so I fit in with them. When the world fucks with me, now I’m adept at hitting back harder with no mercy.
Every day I think of my promise to my parents’ ghosts. I want the Landrys to know what they’ve done to me when I rip apart their lives and make them face the truth of their actions.
Maisy hovers at the side of the BMW, attention locked on me. Those hazel eyes haunt my thoughts more than I care to admit. She doesn’t trust me anymore either, not after the things I’ve done to her. Well, she did beg for my fucking attention every minute since I got back to town, and now she has it.
Careful what you wish for.
“What’s wrong, crybaby?” I use the old nickname her brother and I taunted her with every chance I get. I love the way it makes her lip curl, but she refuses to let anyone at this school see the real Maisy she hides beneath the shiny good girl veneer. “Is this cutting into your time to ride your boyfriend’s dick before you fix your hair all prim and proper and go read to kids at the library? That’s the rumor going around about you.”
The one I had a hand in starting.
