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I sunk low against the pillows, hiding my face behind my knees.
Me: I’m in the snake den and your mission to make me melt faster than my dripping pussy is not helping. Somehow, I ended up in the middle of a sleepover with Katie, Saylor, and her crew.
His reply came back immediately.
Rafael: Get out of there.
Me: Trust me, I want to, but I’m not done looking at the footage. Or fucking with Saylor. She didn’t get what’s coming to her Friday night. But she will.
I peered at her over my knees.
Me: That’s a promise.
I burst out laughing. “Victor is so funny. You know, people look at him and see a playboy jock, but there’s so much more to him. It makes all the difference when you’re with someone who accepts you for who you are. That’s why he’s so comfortable with me.”
Saylor rolled her eyes and I cringed.
“Oops, sorry,” I said. “I forgot only Katie and I are in relationships. You’ll find someone, Saylor.” I patted the sheets beside her knee. Actually touching her wasn’t going to happen. “Just remember to be vulnerable. You have to let someone in to find something real.”
She reddened. “Shut up! No one asked for your dating advice.”
“Yikes, so touchy. She was totally right about you,” I muttered under my breath. “Emotionally unavailable for sure.”
“What did you say? Who said that?”
I looked at Piper. Shaking my head, I grinned and rolled my eyes at Saylor like can you believe her?
Piper goggled at me like I was insane. Nothing compared to the look on Saylor’s face. Flicking between us, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“What are we all sitting around for?” I clapped. “Bust out the wineglasses. That moscato looks good.”
“Want some?” Everleigh asked, smiling sweet. “Then, you should’ve brought your own.”
“Be cool,” Katie warned. She got up and rescued six glasses from the minibar. She poured drinks for each of us herself.
My phone buzzed as I reached for mine. I smiled when I read Wilder’s text. Bingo.
“How are things with you and Dean?” I spoke up. “Still just a hookup?”
“Hookups are all I have time for,” Katie said. “But he’s a particularly tasty one.”
I looked at the others. “Oh, sorry, guys. You don’t know. Dean is—”
“We know who he is,” Everleigh sliced in. “Don’t pretend like you know Katie better than us. We’ve been friends forever. She only hangs around you out of pity.”
Her insults rolled off my back. “I thought you didn’t know him because he’s a Dreg. That’s all. You’re the one always going on about Dregs being beneath your notice. ‘You shouldn’t have to go to school with us,’ and ‘We’re not fit to polish your Pradas.’ Blah, blah, blah.”
Everleigh’s brows snapped together. “I didn’t— How did you know—?”
“Right, Piper?” I tossed, giving her a wry look.
The pixie-haired girl looked around like I was talking to someone else. “What?”
“Piper,” Saylor gritted. “When did you two have that conversation?”
“What conversation!”
I turned on Katie. “Anyway, Dean seems like a cool guy. There aren’t many of those around here. You can put the man-child in Missoni, but you can’t stop him belching the alphabet.”
Saylor’s eyes bugged as Katie cracked up. “That’s good.”
“Where did you hear that?” Saylor demanded. She grabbed my arm. “Who told you that!”
“Hey, watch it.” I shook her off. “No one told me. I overheard it while I was in line for breakfast. I thought it was funny,” I said, then I looked at Piper.
Saylor balled her fists. “Enough. Sinclair, shut the hell up. Piper,” she barked. “Put on the movie.”
I made a show of buttoning my lips. Reclining against the pillows, I picked up my phone and went back to some interesting reading.
Wilder said he monitored the communications of all the Royals. Thor knows why I didn’t do something with that information sooner.
He wasn’t hacked into their phones, reading their texts. He couldn’t do that unless he got hold of them and implanted spyware on their cells. Since Royals upgraded phones every time a new one came out, Wilder would spend half his life stealing and putting spyware on the phone of every single Royal. That wasn't his way.
What he did was hack into accounts. Email accounts, bank accounts, Netflix accounts, and messaging accounts. All the ones where an email address and a password got you in. People tended to use the same password for everything, so once he had it, Wilder had access to it all.
“Security is only as good as the person,” he had told me. “Alarm system only protects you if you remember to turn it on. The vault is only protected if you remember to lock it. And you’re only safe from me if you stop using your cat’s name as a password and change the thing every day. Otherwise, you want me to get in.”
Gabriella unwisely logged into HapApp right next to him during a school game. HapApp was a messaging platform, and Gabby had several chats and group chats going with all the Royals—including ones with her friends. All of it was the usual stuff young rich heiresses talked about.
