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“Sure, I understand.” I resist the urge to shake the box, but dammit, I want to.
“Good.” The phone on his desk rings. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to take this call. If you go down to the entryway, my driver will be there to take you to your car.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, then whirl around and haul ass for the door, beyond ready to get the hell out of here. And if I’m lucky, I’ll never have to come back.
As if sensing exactly where my thoughts are at, Mr. Porterson calls out, “This isn’t completely over yet. I’ll be in touch, Hadley Harlyton. Very soon.”
Dammit!
I slip out of the room without uttering a damn word, wanting more than anything to throw the box at the wall and sprint out of the house without looking back. But since Mr. Porterson threatened to go after my sisters, I don’t have a choice but to remain cool and cooperative.
What I’d really like to know is how he found out my sisters are my weak spot. In fact, he seemed to know a lot about me. So, who has he been talking to? My dad? Maybe. Or maybe one of the Porterson brothers has been feeding daddy dearest information about the girls next door.
“Wait just a second.” Mr. Porterson’s voice abruptly echoes from down the hallway. “There’s a couple of things I still need to talk to you about.”
So damn close.
Grinding to a stop, I reluctantly turn. He’s standing in the doorway and the first thing I notice is his holster is empty.
I swallow the fear welling in my throat. “Like?”
He curls his finger at me, motioning me to come back to his office. “Not out here. We need some privacy.”
I damn near vomit on the floor, wishing I had my phone to call for help.
Wishing my father wasn’t such an asshole.
32
BLAISE
When I arrive at school,I search for Hadley’s car in the parking lot, but I don’t spot it anywhere. I tell myself not to text her yet. That she’s probably still out driving and blowing off some steam. That I can wait a little bit before I start texting her like a paranoid freak.
I wish I weren’t like this, so worried all the damn time. It kind of comes with the territory of the environment I was raised in. My siblings and I had no stability and never felt safe. Because of that, I turned into a worrier.
Just calm down. Give her a minute to get here,I tell myself as I make my way to my locker to collect my books.
Hadley and I have first class together and by the time the final bell rings, she still hasn’t shown up. Jaxon is in the class too and is seated at the desk across the aisle from mine. He’s just less than a year young than me, but the kid is smart and got moved up a grade when he was younger. He also spends all the time he doesn’t talk with his nose in a book, which is a lot of effing time. I wish I could’ve send him to the elite school over in Sunnyvale, but that woud’ve meant asking our dad for money. And while I’d swallow down my pride and do so, Jaxon refused to ask my dad for anything, so he ended up going to school in Honeyton with us. None of my brothers or my sister are fans of our dad. Even Alex hates him, which is why it makes no sense that he’s always spending time with the lowlifes who work for our father.
“Have you seen Hadley?” I whisper to him.
He glances up from the book he’s reading and shakes his head.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I mutter, digging my phone out of my pocket to text Hadley, but then I pause when she rushes into the classroom.
“Sorry I’m late,” she mutters to the teacher as she hurries down an aisle.
I try to make eye contact with her, but she keeps her head lowered. An odd move for her, the girl who’s told me to go fuck myself many times while looking me straight in the eye.
Instead of sitting in front of me in the available desk, she plops down in a desk a few rows over and up from where I am. Hushed whispers flow around the room as she digs a book out of her bag then lets her hair curtain around her face. Most of the whispering gossip is about what was on the flyers Alex plastered all over the school. I love my brother and everything, but he can be a real asshole sometimes.
After attempting and failing to get Hadley’s attention, I retrieve my phone from my pocket and send her a message.
Me: Hey, you okay?
She jolts then sticks her hand into her pocket to fish out her phone. Moments later, my phone buzzes with an incoming text.
Stubborn Girl: Yep
